Allow regret to inspire you to positive change

Regret is one of those things that nobody tends to own up to.  Regret is very uncool in just about every circle you can name.  Admitting to feeling regret is about as close as you can get to ostracizing yourself in all but the most highly evolved groups. This is because regret is considered a weakness in our socially connected, goal oriented society, where having a weakness is akin to poor personal hygiene…no matter how much deodorant you spray on your body, you still stink. Have you thought, though, that regret can be the motivation you need to inspire change? Regret can inspire you.

Ironically, just about everybody has experienced regret at some point or another. In some cases, regret hangs about almost constantly.  I’m not talking about small ’r’ regrets like forgetting a birthday or eating your wife’s last piece of dark chocolate during lockdown (cough cough).   No, I’m talking about the big ones.  The regrets you can neither let go of, let alone forget. The ones that haunt you in the present.

Regret tends to be fairly common, despite it’s terrible reputation.  Whenever someone famous is outed for doing something highly embarrassing on social media, when someone refuses to say sorry in a significant relationship, the messy end to a marriage, not seeing your parents before they died, getting sacked, taking the easy road, not taking an opportunity, selfishness, cruelty, stupidity and violence are examples that just scratch the surface of places where regret exists.  In fact, unless you have lived a perfect life, you will have experienced regret.

Types of regret

It takes a certain lack of imagination to have an entirely clean conscience.

Alain de Botton

A common form of regret is the one we feel after failing to embrace an opportunity or for taking a perceived wrong path in life. In my mind though, the worst type of regret is the one that is connected to feelings about what you have done to another person.  Sure, you might feel regret for having forgotten to put in your Lotto numbers, but that fails into insignificance next to the realisation that what you have said or done has crushed someone you care about.  I should add that there are some regrets that are so tough to deal with, that only a Professional Psychiatrist should touch them.

There are those “I don’t believe/ feel regret” types, it is true.  As far as I can tell, they are saying one of three things.  They may be telling you in a roundabout way that they are a completely deluded tosser, who genuinely believes that something big, yellow and hot shines out of their arse.  Alternatively, they may be indicating that they are a selfish git who doesn’t care about anyone else’s feelings.  Hopefully though, they are saying that regret is something they have worked through to the point that now they see moments where it is likely to show up as an opportunity to be flexible, change and grow.

My premise here, then, is that regret is inevitable, even human.  To live well is to experience regret on some level at some point.  What differentiates each of us at this point is how we deal with that regret.  Whether we lay down, ruminate and grieve our choices, or whether we get up, face our mistakes and learn a better way as a result, is mostly up to us.

Before anyone switches off because they smell the subtle, ‘not quite fresh’ scent of positive pop psychology, let me say that this is not where I am headed.  Regret is natural and powerful.  That sense in the pit of your stomach after you have missed an opportunity or done something terribly damaging is awful, even sickening at times.  Ruminating over ‘what ifs?’ endlessly in our minds, often feels like the right thing to do, despite the fact that we can’t change what happened.  The key is in where you choose to go from here.

Changing the conversation

Make the most of your regrets; never smother your sorrow, but tend and cherish it till it comes to have a separate and integral interest. To regret deeply is to live afresh. 

Henry David Thoreau

The phrase ‘change the  conversation’ turns up a lot in today’s world. This is because it is a metaphor that represents almost any person or organisation seeking to change the dominant belief system within the field they operate.  As individuals, we too have a dominant view of ourselves.  We fall back into that belief system whenever anything significant happens to us.  Where one person accepts praise, thinking ‘I really am as clever as all that’, another will hear the praise and feel like a fraud, thinking ‘If you only knew the truth’. When bad things happen, one sees the incident as just unfortunate, while another sees it as confirmation that they are hopeless.

The same idea works with regret. Where one person sees a mistake as an opportunity to learn and grow, another will assume that what has happened is their fault ‘as usual’. One approach learns and moves on, whilst the other gets bogged down in regret.

The good news is that we can learn to ‘change the conversation’ we have with ourselves.  We can learn to live with what has happened to us by how we respond to it.  That said, this is a very hard thing to do.  Changing inner statements like ‘I’m a failure’, ‘I always stuff up’, ‘they won’t love/ pick me’, ‘bad stuff always happens to me’ and ‘I don’t deserve good things’ takes a concerted effort and the guidance of a Psychologist.

I can’t tell you how many times my Psychologist said to me “So why do you think/ say that?”. He would often follow this up by asking me what faulty thinking trap I had fallen into.  Inevitably, I had catastrophised events, ruminated over outcomes, blamed myself and more.  I don’t like to talk myself up, but I was pretty good at faulty thinking. 

My Psychologist would then get me to challenge the dominant view I had of myself and the world. In many cases, I was punishing myself for something I couldn’t change, wasn’t guilty of or wasn’t even true.  Learning to see things differently has helped me move on from a lot of hurt that I had been collecting for years.

Cognitive Behaviour Therapy

How I learned to challenge my faulty thinking and learn from regret was predominantly through Cognitive Behaviour Therapy or CBT. CBT is a very well established, evidence based approach to mental health that teaches us to challenge and change the distorted views we have of ourselves and our environment.  It is also a powerful tool for depression and anxiety.

There are many CBT exercises and techniques to employ at times in our lives when faulty thinking and issues of regret overwhelm us.  We can learn to listen to ourselves, identify the problem and challenge it in some way. We can learn to see regret as just the mind highlighting an opportunity to get rid of excess baggage. All you have to do is commit yourself to learning how.

A Psychologist is ideal for learning this, but there are some very helpful books on the subject to aid you.  The one that I relied on a lot and can highly recommend is Change Your Thinking by Sarah Edelman PhD.

A pond of many fish

Facing and overcoming problems within ourselves, like constant regret, is hard work.  The process is long, but it is highly valuable.  In my own experience, Cognitive Behaviour Therapy was just one approach that helped.  I also found both Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) and Behavioural Activation to be immensely valuable at various points.  This is why I cannot recommend highly enough seeking the assistance of a good Psychologist.  They will help you to identify which approaches suit your circumstances and walk you through them.

I still experience regret, and it often still leads to faulty thinking.  The difference now, though, is that I know how to recognise it and I know how to challenge it.  My mind genuinely feels less crowded, less stressed and more resilient.  Yours can too if you realise that regret can inspire you.

Links

Escape to resilience » The Good The Bad and The Unrelated

Cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT) – Better Health Channel

Change Your Thinking, 3rd Edition by Sarah Edelman | 9780733332241 | Booktopia

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