Alchemize the Shadow of Regret into the Joy of Becoming

One Question Can Help You Let Go of Your Small Self and Urge Your Soul Forward

Apr 24, 2025

We are all most likely on a spectrum hanging out somewhere between the immense sorrow of an unlived life and the joy of the continued and luminous hope that our dream life is still possible. One of the best questions I learned to use repeatedly to keep myself on the hopeful side of the spectrum had to do with asking myself what my heart was dreaming of. As in, what’s next for us in our adventure and what is our next step?

When I set the ideas to music, the question became the song "What Now, My Love?” The idea was that I would turn to myself with love, encouragement, and an invitation to take the next step on my journey. I would stop playing safe and living in my small self. I would let go of the hold any past mistakes still had on me and arrive fully in the present moment and embrace new beginnings.

A quote from Carl Jung highlights the silent tragedy many live through as they not only abandon their deeper callings but turn their private grief into cynicism and bitterness toward others still on the creative path.

“The world is full of people suffering from the effects of their own unlived life. They become bitter, critical, or rigid, not because the world is cruel to them, but because they have betrayed their own inner possibilities. The artist who never makes art becomes cynical about those who do. The lover who never risks loving mocks romance. The thinker who never commits to a philosophy sneers at belief itself. And yet, all of them suffer, because deep down they know: the life they mock is the life they were meant to live.” Carl Jung

Jung’s quote dares us to see something akin to looking at regret in the rearview mirror. Most of us do hold grief over paths not chosen, or adventures abandoned too soon and often it is easier to blame life than to take any responsibility or even consider that there might have been (gasp) a betrayal of self.

There is another very famous song with the title, “What Now, My Love?” that bemoans the loss of love and the emotional despair of heartbreak and uncertainty. That kind of “What now?” sets up a feeling of “What else is going to go wrong? The song began as the French tune "Et Maintenant," written in 1961 by composer Gilbert Bécaud and lyricist Pierre Delanoë. In 1962, the song was adapted into English as "What Now, My Love" by lyricist Carl Sigman.

I’m sharing the partial lyrics of the song of despair so that you have reference point for how I turned that around.

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What now, my love, now that you left me?
How can I live through another day
Watching my dreams turn into ashes
And all my hopes into bits of clay?
Once I could see, once I could feel
Now I'm numb, I've become unreal

I am certainly not proposing that it is easy to keep following your dreams. The road forward seems to always have off-ramps, especially on the days when nothing is going the way you planned. It takes courage to stay the course. It takes brave souls to reclaim lost dreams and alchemize what was abandoned into something they choose to continue to honor.

I simply chose to invite my heart into its next brave step, to meet life at the edge, to listen inward, and to stop hiding from its own light. Where there was darkness, I invited dawn. I asked myself to seek wisdom from a deep well. I also told myself that in the long race, love was winning and that it wasn’t too late for any dream. I reminded myself that there really wasn’t such a thing as “all the years I’ve lost.” I chose to believe that those years could put on their running gear and travel fast and far until they caught up and were standing right where I was at that moment.

In some ways, I was singing my soul forward and urging my human self to let go of playing small and to continue to always trust that the horizon can hold what my heart is dreaming of.

This is my own take on how we rewrite the story from regret to possibility. This is how we can shift from what remains unlived to what is ready to be lived, in your voice. Chose to risk. To express. To Create. To love. To begin again.

I will include the lyrics and music video below

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What Now, My Love?

Take the next step in your evolution  		
Meet each moment with the edge of your life    
Each horizon brings a new born solution 		
When you’re looking out from deep inside 	

It takes courage to find                   	
A home inside where you shine 		
To make the years travel far 			
Until they’re right where you are		
To turn toward what you’re finding 		
Not back into hiding 				
What does your heart dream of? 		
What now my love?				

You are the keeper of each new beginning 	
And all that will come ‘round again 			
The race is on and it appears love is winning 	
Taking strides on a road with no end 		

It takes courage to find                   	
A home inside where you shine 		
To make the years travel far 			
Until they’re right where you are		
To turn toward what you’re finding 		
Not back into hiding 				
What does your heart dream of? 		
What now my love?	

Rather than playing safe inside a smaller self      	
I will source my wisdom from a deeper well       	
To feel my Oneness with all of Humankind          	 
To see with Kindness, to breathe with the Divine	 

It takes courage to find                   	
A home inside where you shine 		
To make the years travel far 			
Until they’re right where you are		
To turn toward what you’re finding 		
Not back into hiding 				
What does your heart dream of? 		
What now my love?

I am going to close with some encouraging words from another writer here on Substack who puts this all a little more bluntly than I did.

Meet Lois Mac, who writes:

“The most dangerous question isn't "what if I fail?"
It's "what if I'm actually fucking brilliant?" Because brilliance demands responsibility. It asks you to live up to your own potential. Mediocrity is safer. And that's why it’s so easy to choose it.” Lois Mac

Resonance: The Music Within

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