Habitual regret and self-punishment

Numerous times throughout each day I experience something I think of as sudden regret and self-punishment. I notice some action or non-action of mine and immediately feel an unpleasant clenching in my chest and throat and a stoppage of breathing, and a mind-state that I think of as "feeling bad about myself". Very recently it occurred to me that this experience is composed of two parts: first, a part of my self telling another part of myself, "You stupid idiot!" Second, a bearing down or clenching to silence that voice and perhaps punish myself.

As usual, I feel delight upon noticing my experience in finer detail. The experience feels lighter and therefore I have more freedom in my life overall. It could be seen as bad news that I am calling myself an idiot over and over throughout the day. I had heard before of people who call themselves idiots and felt a small bit of pride that I was not one of those people. Now I see that I am, but I feel happy and free to see this.

This morning during a 5 minute sit I encouraged the inner voice to freely and completely say "You stupid idiot!"; I relaxed so as not to subsequently clench and silence. That made the experience pleasant and even comical.

I've been developing a view of this sudden regret and self-punishment as an effort of the ego to maintain its illusion of control. I experience this regret/self-punishment fleetingly every time I sit to meditate: "You should be meditating more. Whatever you were doing before this sitting, you should have been doing something more beneficial, probably meditating." I have become so dis-identified from this habitual regret-upon-sitting that I greet it almost as a familiar friend and allow it to pass in one second or less. However in other areas of my life, times when I am not sitting to meditate, I usually still identify with, and suffer from, this regret/self-punishment habit.

When I look at all the things I regret doing or not doing, I see that it is utterly impossible for me to avoid all the things I regret doing and to do all the things I regret not doing. To begin with, many of them are incompatible with each other. For example, I regret that I haven't switched to a job I love, I regret that I wish to escape my current job without resolving the issues that arise there, I regret that I work at a job at all (I should be meditating 24/7). I can either stay at my current job and resolve the issues there, switch to another job, or be unemployed -- cannot do all three. Whichever I choose, this voice will express regret that I haven't chosen the others.