Dealing with deep deep regret

Hi all

1st message on this forum, I am so so glad I found here. Some of the threads have really given me hope.

I would really appreciate people's advice on how to deal with regret/guilt.

2 years ago, I was in my dream job, and I do mean dream job. It was what I'd be working towards since I was 14 and I'm currently 32. It had been all I'd talked about etc etc etc.
2 years into this job, I made a GIANT error of judgement. And I do mean giant. (all because of a girl, not her fault mine. Just me)
I lost the job, I gained a criminal record, and the community that I loved and served found about it all and I became a social pariah. Luckily, I don't live or work in that community anymore, however I cannot let my actions go. It wracks me every day. I wake up at 2am every night in a cold sweat 2 f**king years later, it's killing me slowly but surely.

I have a loving wife and a beautiful little 18 month old boy who adores me, but I just can't get past this.
I have a good job, I'm taking care of my family, financially we're great, but in my mind I am an utter horror.
If my family weren't around, I would of hanged myself ages ago, but I stay because of them.
Every day I hear a little voice in my head that just repeats 'hang yourself, hang yourself, hang yourself', over and over and over.

How how HOW do I get past this?!

IMO, it's taking an attitude of, 'Live and Learn'.

You learned not to do that. You won't do it again. You'll be a better man for it.

How else? I can think of nothing. You did wrong, you've paid for it, and that's the past. You're not the only one in similar circumstances, I'm sure.

You have a good job, a good family. Be thankful for second chances, and make the best of it that you can, and have a good rest of your life- it's okay to move on. The past cannot be undone, all you can do is do the best you can going forward.

Hello!

Firstly, regret is relative to its consequences. By that I mean, if your regret ends up leading to more good than you would have otherwise done in life, how can you regret it?

Ask yourself what you would have done without regret, without that self correcting impulse. Regret can be seen as a friend, albeit a stern one, if you channel that energy into something productive and good.

You can easily reach a point where you can say that your regret has fuelled immeasurable good. Make it so. Then it won't take on the form of regret, rather a rite of passage.

The other part to all of this is that you associate your sense of self worth with your past. This is an illusion created by the mind and reinforced by the culture in which we live. It certainly has no scientific or rational validity. You are not the same person you were in the past, neither biologically or mentally. So why identify with your past as if it is who you are in this moment?

You can't make the memories go away. But you can change how you identify with those memories. Those memories are just another lesson to be learned. They could have just as easily come from another person. They do not define who you are right now.

So your "work" from now on is to try and deconstruct this conditioning that has made you feel like the present you is the same as the past "you".

The past you is as good as a different person. They are dead. You only exist in THIS moment, and in this moment you have so much potential to do something amazing. No past can deny you of this in reality. It is only your mind, obsessing over this bogus concept of a perpetual self from cradle to grave, that can tie you to such a false identity.

Focus on your potential in THIS moment. This is who you really are.

I wish you the best life anyone can hope for.

what did you do?