Dealing with regret

I recently read an article written by Lori Deschene. She was quite candid about how she dealt with her own personal regrets.I have always conditioned myself to not live in regret and to accept the unfolding of life as the way it was intended to go; this was my way of avoiding the pain of regret altogether, but if we are truly honest with ourselves, I am sure we will all agree that regret is quite difficult to evade. I would like to share Ms Deschene’s article with you. I hope you find it as interesting as I did….

When I look back at some of the most painful moments of my life, I see myself sitting alone, feeling either immense shame or regret. It’s bizarre how we can get so offended and angry when other people hurt us, and yet repeatedly choose to torture ourselves, far worse than they possibly could, through repeated mental rehashing. For the longest time, my biggest regret revolved around missing out on life.

From a distance, people always thought I had everything going for me. Up close, you could see the cracks in that facade: No matter what I got, I was painfully discontent and depressed, and often isolated in fear. I remember my last night in NYC at 25, sitting in a tiny, boxed-up, efficiency studio apartment that I rented in a low-income building.

I’d been in the Apple for two and a half years, and my greatest accomplishments were barely noticeable to anyone but myself. Granted, they were big ones: I’d quit smoking, formed a yoga practice, and began the slow uphill climb to liking who I was.

But the list of what I didn’t do often felt far more compelling: I didn’t form many real friendships, I never had a storybook NYC romance like I dreamed about, and I never even once auditioned for a play after growing up on the stage.

I went to NYC to convince the world I was strong, then I broke into a million little pieces and, in stubborn resistance to “giving up,” spent two years trying to glue myself back together. For a long time I regretted that I went to the city where dreams come true and did absolutely nothing to go after mine.

Then I realized something: I was not that girl anymore, and in another second, I would again be someone new. At any moment I could let go of the weight of who I’d been and allow myself a better chance of becoming who I wanted to be.

What I did or didn’t do could either paralyze me further or motivate me to do something now — something not conceived in reaction to past disappointments but born completely anew from a moment of strength and empowerment. We can all do that.

At any time, you can take your regrets and: 1. Identify and address your weaknesses. When we acknowledge our weaknesses, there’s often an implied sense of judgement, as if we should never make any mistakes. The alternative is to accept that everyone makes mistakes and then focus on what we can do differently going forward. For me, that meant discovering why I was so afraid of putting myself out there.

The rewards of learning to conquer that fear in the present far outweigh the pain of having given into it in the past. 2. Use your mistake as a teaching tool. In my time writing for ‘tweens, I read many letters from girls who’ve learned to beat themselves up by watching their parents’ response to mistakes. If you forgive yourself and bounce right back, you empower your children to respond the same way.

If you’re like me and don’t have any children, think of it as helping everyone around you. I know when I see someone fall down and get back up without stressing over what they could have done differently, I feel inspired. It reminds me that it is possible, and I can do it too. 3. Use the opportunity to become better at adapting. Most big mistakes present instant changes to reality as you know it.

When I first arrived in NYC at twenty-two, I got involved in a pyramid scam, thinking it was a shortcut to success, and blew through my savings. What’s worse, I unknowingly pulled other people into a sinking ship that went under, with their money.

Part 2 of Dealing with Regret will be published in next week’s July 3rd edition of the Midweek Searchlight.