“What Was I Thinking?” Dealing With Regret

regret

What Was I Thinking?

You are enjoying a beautiful morning. The sun in streaming in your windows. You are making strides with the never ending to-do list. The world isn’t so bad on this day. Then you hear the crunch of tires on your driveway. You quickly look around, the day you were ready for, visitors – not so much. Then a distinctive “Beep. Beep Beep.” alerts you to the fact that this is no salesman. This is no friend. This is the UPS driver making a delivery! Your heart leaps remembering the joy of parcels, of Christmas’ past, of flowers and candy and… Before you get too excited though you look out your window and realize this isn’t your typical UPS, this is an unannounced visit of Regret Bus and she is hauling a truck load of “If only’s” that she is about to dump between you and any productivity you had hoped to have in this day.

Regret is an Uninvited, Nasty Guest

Regret is a nasty guest. She dumps a whole load of stuff from your past that you have neither the time or the strength to sort through. “Wait!” you cry, “Don’t dump that here.” She looks undeterred, “It’s yours you know. Sign here.” She hands you a clipboard and for some odd reason, you sign. After all, she has a point, it is your stuff. The items she dumps range from mildly accusatory to gut-wrenchingly demeaning – Why didn’t I do that? Why did I make that choice? Why did I say that to her? What was I thinking? What is wrong with me? How could I be so stupid? The pressure of decisions pasts presses us firmly into the mud of hopelessness.

When you are stuck, I can almost guarantee you will be visited by regret. At some time or other in life I think I have regretted everything…from the choice I made in the restaurant last night to my post-secondary choice. I’ve regretted paint choices before the walls are even dry – and don’t believe them when they say, “It’s just paint. If you don’t like it just paint over it”…Ain’t nobody got time for that! I’ve regretted buying things and not buying things. I’ve regretted staying home with kids, I’ve regretted working. I’ve regretted not focusing on my career. I’ve regretted not focusing on my kids. Regret can and does visit everyone – the logical and the illogical, the organized and the disorganized, the sinners and the saints.


“A man is not old until regrets take the place of dreams.” John Barrymore


Dreaming Gone Wrong

Regret is like dreaming gone wrong. Our imaginations become captured by “if only’s.” Our mental energy is wasted on backwards looking instead of forward looking. A characteristic of stuck-ness is the inability to dream dreams for your future and yet our ever active mind has no problem digging around in the attics of our life looking for life choices to torment us with.

So what strategy can one take when the Regret Bus threatens to railroad your day with a load of regret. Is there any way to salvage something good from it? What do you do with the regrets? Here are a few action steps to help you sort through the mess and keep you from wasting a lot of time wallowing:

Clearing your mind of mental clutter can be approached similarly to de-cluttering a room or sorting through a junk door. You square your shoulders, because none of this work is easy, and you go in armed with a garbage bag, a box labelled “To Give Away” and a box labelled “To Keep” for those things you wish to keep and will be organized and stored. It’s big girl time. You can do things. Grab your “boxes” and let’s head in. I’m with you. We can do this together.

De-cluttering the Rooms of Regret

Step 1:

The process of de-cluttering any room involves knowing exactly what is in that room. You have to actually go in and have a look around. Doing this mentally involves grabbing a pen and paper – or opening a blank page on your word processor and recording all the overwhelming stuff that is cluttering up your brain. Write. Write it all. Write it fast. Write every thing that comes to mind. Don’t evaluate them yet. Don’t criticize and judge yourself. Be kind…and write.

Step 2:

Now look at each regret and start to distinguish the useful from the not useful. The lies from the truth. Try to identify the lies or “trash” first. These are regrets come in the form of accusations and put downs, “I have no employable skills,” “I’m too old to start something new.” “I’ve failed as a mother.”

Look at each one and really evaluate whether it is fact or false. Facts are something everyone would agree with and are verifiable by proof. If you can think of even one person in your life who would argue with your statement, it is probably not a fact. For example, “I hate my job” may seem like a fact but if you take a look at it you may realize it’s actually a web of interconnected thoughts. Truth is you may not hate everything about your job – you may appreciate the money it pays you, you may be friends with some of the other employees, it may challenge you in ways. But you may not like the way your boss treats you, you may feel bored in your present position. At this stage, write it all down and look for blatant lies that need tossing out such as, “I’m no good at anything.”

If you discover some of your regrets are based on lies, don’t be hard on yourself. If it’s a lie, it’s trash. It doesn’t serve you in any way to hang onto it. On your sheet cross them out or write beside them the argument that has come to mind. Of course, this is easier to do on paper than in your brain but it’s a start. Might as well start here. Be kind…and throw stuff out.

Step 3:

The ‘To Give Away’ box. Looking back at your list, are there things that bring up feelings of shame, stupidity or other negative emotions? We’re going to put on our “To Give Away” box. What?!?! This box is for stuff that was useful but they no longer serve a purpose for you anymore. You aren’t literally going to give this to others, but you’ll acknowledge that it has served a purpose and now needs to go. For example, “I regret falling in love with my ex” may be a valid regret but it happened.  Stuff happens in life. The choice was made and can’t be unmade. You have to trust you made the best decision with what you had at the time.

It’s like that pair of shoes in your closet that although they look great you can’t walk more than 10 steps without them killing your feet. Don’t hang on to them. Get rid of them – (for clarity – not the person! Get rid of the regret!)  It’s a hard thing to do with stuff, it’s harder yet with our thoughts.Allow yourself the grace to believe that you weren’t born as a totally mature adult and part of growing and transforming is making mistakes. As painful as some regrets are they serve a purpose in showing us things we need to forgive ourselves for. This is hard but beneficial work. This is not the time to beat yourself up for your choices and decisions. Bad choices are learning ground, stop punishing yourself for them. Be kind…accept and forgive yourself

Step 4:

To keep. I’m suggesting you keep regrets?!?! Why would anyone want to hang on to regrets? Look at these regrets that are left and ask yourself ‘Why?’ not once, not twice but up to five times. Get to the foundation behind these regrets, it will reveal something about your motivations. This takes honesty and focus but you’ll amaze yourself when you get to the root of the regret. If you can, you may need help.  Get help if you can’t sort this through.

Sometimes you’ll realize the root is actually trash and you should put it in the appropriate bags. But often in digging to the root we discover these regrets that are going to be the launch pad for future goals and personal change. Similar to a GPS tracking device once you have discovered you have turned the wrong way, you acknowledge that error and you recompute. Readjust the course for the future. You have discovered, by painful trial and error, that this wasn’t the path for you. This regret serves a huge purpose as often this is the starting ground for the right path. This is not the time to wallow in the pain of your past decisions. Be kind…and recompute your path for the future.

Step 5:

Do you have any regrets left? Regret can be the evidence of lack of faith – faith that our pasts have a purpose. Faith that the future is in God’s hands. Of your regrets that are left, which ones are out of your control and need to be surrendered to God. He is not sitting there as you sort through your mental garbage adding fuel to the fire. He is not saying, “Oh Gosh, yes, why didn’t you do that differently?!?!” Those things beyond our control are just that – beyond our control. That means we have to release them to someone else’s control. You have to come to grips with the fact that you do not run the world.

Generations of people have found solace in the Serenity Prayer:

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I can not change,

the courage to change the things I can

and the wisdom to know the difference.

Crazy powerful prayer and crazy important tool when dealing with regrets.

“Distress that drives us to God does that. It turns us around…We never regret that kind of pain. But those who let distress drive them away from God are full of regrets, end up on a deathbed of regrets.” II Cor 7:10

Be kind…acknowledge that you can’t manage the whole world.  

Step 6:

Resist the urge every time it arises to go back through your trash bags. That’s crazy stuff but also completely normal. Your brain is used to following certain paths and will always head back there unless you give it something different to do. Your brain likes to be active and, like a bored toddler, if you don’t give it activity it will quickly get itself in trouble.

Positive Brain activities:

  • Look around you – look for beauty. Really notice it.
  • Start a list of things you’ve wanted and already have (I want shelter…and I’ve got it! I wanted to be married…and I am!) This can be a mental list but it’s better to write them down and revisit them.
  • Start of list of things you’re grateful for.
  • Because regrets keep us from dreaming, if you can, start to dream. What might your future be like without these regrets holding you back?

Be kind…and give your brain something good to work on.

 

 

 

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