“How to hold regret tenderly: I wish I would have done that differently, and at the time, I couldn’t.” — Syanna Wand
I often hear people say they have “no regrets”, there are even songs written about this, and still I wonder if they say it because it feels better, safer, and less emotionally touched by circumstances. Or perhaps they truly have none. I know there’s a lot attached to acknowledging a regret, it brings up some pretty strong feelings and we start to beat ourselves up unnecessarily. In some ways it may bring up a sense of failure.
What is regret?
According to the dictionary: ‘It’s a feeling of sadness, repentance or disappointment over something that has happened or been done.’
So, why do we feel the need to say we don’t have them.
I have regrets. I can look back and be honest with myself about this. I’m not sure how you get to mid-life without having at least one or a few. I won’t list them here for you, but I can assure you that I have more than one or two.
I believe regret can be a healthy view of reflecting on things we could have done differently. Whether or not a lesson is tied to a failure or mistake we are part of, why do we feel awkward claiming it as something we just wish had not happened.
Several years’ ago, I was out for a post yoga meal with a few of my favorite instructors. I’m not sure how or why the topic of regrets came up, and I don’t believe I’ve ever delved deeply into this topic before that afternoon, but I felt very clear about it. I don’t know how we go through our lives and at some point, look back and not see things we wish we hadn’t chosen. Or is it just too hard for us to hold a microscope up to our mistakes.
Perhaps we need to feel we have ‘permission’ to come clean with ourselves and admit we regret some things in our life. I believe this admission may create a significant shift for us, offer us a feeling of freedom from carrying some of these thoughts and feelings around with us.
Whatever you look back on, and whether or not there were lessons taken from past life events, perhaps you may feel relief by allowing yourself to feel some regret and then letting yourself free of the memory.
If society tries to dictate that we feel no regret, does this mean we continue to deny it or do we choose to work with it? Is this denial healthy, honest or authentic?
IPEC, where I received my coach training likes to say there are no mistakes. “There are no mistakes, only different varieties of ways to experience life and remember more of who we are.” … Do you agree? I’m not completely sure I do. My mistakes and failures have been where so much of my healing began.
Early on, with some of my regrets came feelings of shame, and judgements of how silly or stupid I was in my youth. One I can share here is my decision to get married at 18. I don't regret marrying the person I chose, but I was not ready to be in a serious relationship no less a marriage commitment.
Healing would have been a much wiser choice, but I didn't know that yet. Everything about our marriage started out dreamy, until it wasn’t. My decision to marry at 18 was hurtful for all involved and changed the trajectory of my life going forward.
So yes, I regret getting married even if it seemed like a solution to my concerns at the time. I now wish I had seen other ways out, but I didn’t. I did make a decision based on what I knew and understood at the time, yet that doesn’t mean I can’t regret making it.
To realize and feel open about this has helped me resolve my feelings about my mistake and shed feelings of shame, of judgement and also helped me to get to know my deeper self. Speaking this out loud as a truth feels liberating, and I feel lighter and happier when I can release it. Some of these lessons felt like a heavy rock I needed to set down.
I wonder if we can create a Playbook together of how we decide to process and choose whether it’s a mistake, a lesson, a regret or all of the above. What might this look like? Perhaps a regret is made up of actions or situations you feel safe letting go of completely, and a mistake is one you reflect back and value the lesson you gained from making it, and of course ‘all of the above’ is just that: a mistake you regret that also included a life lesson.
Do you have any regrets you’d feel good about sharing with me, please feel free to comment here or send me an email. I’m curious how others feel about discussing and releasing regrets. Who else would love a Playbook of ways we can deal with past memories and emotions? I would like to hear from you!
My email is: Info@susanjcoaching.com.
As always, thank you for being here and for taking time to read these.
Good food for thought. Remembering things we regret is hard, because the memories are not happy ones. Yet it isn't hard to retrieve them -- they always feel like they're right beneath the surface of our consciousness. Many of my regrets elicit the companion thought that the person I was then did the best she could at the time. The ones with big impacts sting, because someone else was hurt by the limits of what my "best" was. In other cases, I can see that I could have done better but got my priorities wrong and let people down unnecessarily. As you say, learning from things we regret is a valuable outcome, but it still doesn't fix the hurt or disappointment others may have felt. Thanks for raising the topic for us to think about.