Take a few moments to BE with your own experience of the poem.

Were there any particular moods, attitudes, or feelings that were present as you read it?

Did you observe any images or memories arise?

Could you relate to the poem as a metaphor for the choices we are offered ongoingly in life?

What experience were you left with? (There is no "right" answer to any of these questions).

The Poison of Regret

As I mentioned earlier, upon re-reading the poem I was surprised that my experience of the poem this time differed so markedly from my initial introduction to it many years before. For years, I had carried around the sense that Frost's poem was very much about loss, missed opportunities in life, and regret ("if only I had.done... instead"). I suddenly realized what had influenced my first interpretation of the poem so strongly. Our English teacher had introduced the poem to the class by having us follow along silently in our own texts as she read it aloud. She had read it in a voice tinged with melancholy and loss. Looking back, I realize that by the time she got to the last stanza, her own regrets for having taken certain paths in her life (or whatever missed opportunities she was present to that the words of the poem had reactivated) were overwhelmingly guiding her reading. By the time that she recited the word "sigh" in the first line of the fourth stanza, the sense of loss and regret was palpable in the room. This was the sigh of loss, the sigh of yearning for a life not lived, the sigh of profound inconsolable regret.

My teacher's interpretation of the poem is not uncommon. So many live in a world in which they make a choice between two roads or paths in life, and then, instead of walking that road fully and learning its lessons --- embracing what is and seeing its value in each moment whatever twists and turns it presents --- they invalidate their choice (and themselves) and take the poison pill of regret.

Regret in itself is not a problem when we use its arrival to illuminate something about our behavior or way of being that we can learn from; allowing us to grow in understanding and wisdom regarding what course of action resonates with our true nature. Then, our honest, rigorous inquiry transmutes regret into forgiveness, insight, gratitude and possibility.

It is regret held on to that is the poison. Attached to the seductive self-pity of regret, we use it to invalidate ourselves, others, and the gift of life itself. Regret leads us to resist the real world of WHAT IS, and put our attention on a never-existing fantasy world of "should haves" and "could haves" in which we play out our own version of Marlon Brando's wail of regret in the film, On the Waterfront --- "I coulda been a contender!"

Regrets have us take our eye off the ball on the only real playing field where our actions really matter --- NOW. Regrets focus all of our energy on "what didn't happen or should have happened," a fantasy scenario in the mind that is NOT occurring, and which only leads to more and more reactive, negative thoughts, but to NO creative action!!

Regret is the vehicle of expression for all who wish to give up being a Creator of their life and become a Victim of life instead. It is a self-authored story of powerlessness, hopelessness, anger, sadness and despair, in which our true creative nature becomes the enemy of our self-generated victimhood, and our ability to create new roads through the woods of life is forgotten.

Embracing Our Choices, Our Core Wisdom, & What Is

Reflecting on this, I saw what a wonderful mirror Frost's words were for all of us to see our own lives in!

Re-reading the poem told me not something new about Frost, but mirrored back to me how I had grown in my own understanding over the years. When I read the poem this last time, I found it validating and life affirming of my own choices and journey through life, and my willingness to trust myself to take the road "less traveled by" because it was truer to my own sense of myself.

And what about that final stanza of the poem? When I read it this last time after so many decades, I was left with a deep appreciation and gratitude for the guiding hand of Spirit. When we trust in the inner Wisdom that is waiting to guide each of us, inviting us to embrace WHAT IS and see the values and lessons in each moment, it leads us inevitably to a life of natural unfolding and fulfillment rather than striving and grasping.

The"sigh" in the fourth stanza was not for me the life-negating sigh of loss or regret; but the sigh of relief, the sigh of relaxation and contentment, the sigh of revelation, the sigh of awe and wonder and deep gratitude, and the sigh of ecstasy captured so exquisitely in Bernini's sculpture of St. Theresa ---that low, soft, breathy sigh of bliss, unconditional love, and joy escaping slowly through open lips while surrendering fully into the infinite embrace of The Beloved.

Open to the bliss of that sigh, an interesting transmutation occurs. Little by little, day by day, as we stay open to listening and trusting our core wisdom, we begin to realize that we are choosing the road to take less and less, and allowing our inner awareness and knowing to guide our steps and inform our actions. Then one day, or one hour, or in a split second, we fully surrender to our Infinite nature and directly know the TRUTH. The illusion of choice itself dissolves, and we realize that there is and has only ever been ONE ROAD, and we are the unfolding of its expression in the world....and the Infinite I "shall be telling this with a sigh somewhere ages and ages hence."

                -- Hal Isen

From Core Wisdom On-Line Number 56 - August 10, 2005
� 2005 Hal Isen & Associates, Inc.