People are filled with regret for many reasons. I met a man last week who hammered his mountain bike down a hill and hit a pedestrian, who will most likely die from head injuries. I know of people who have driven their car after drinking. I know a man who was glassed in the head in a bar fight. A friend of mine who was unfaithful to his girlfriend once said to me “I don’t know why I did it, I wish I didnt.. I think about it all the time”.
Other people have regrets about other things, like not saying goodbye to someone that last time before they were in a crash.. Or not having a relationship with their children before they grew up.
Regret can be a powerful thing that takes hold of your life. When feelings of regret are very strong, the thoughts and emotions can chip away at your life and bring you down.
Here’s something that may be a little tough to swallow, so hear me out before you pick up the closest heavy lamp and throw it at me! Beginning to deal with regret starts with you. Even though you may have done something terrible, you can begin to get past it and move on with life. I’m certainly not excusing behaviour that is immoral, illegal or otherwise, regrets are sometimes there for a reason – a conviction in your heart that you should not have done that particular thing. However, it’s one thing to remember a situation and learn from it, another to harbour regrets that hold you back in many areas of life. You still have the whole rest of your whole life to live – don’t waste your life away thinking about what could-have, should-have happened!
Dealing with regret
Some times dealing with regret means confronting a situation and bringing things into the open. This is a particularly hard thing to do, but can help you get your life back on track. Apologise to the person involved, admit you were at fault, try to make amends. Learn from your past experience! You can’t change what has happened, but you can make a decision, today, to make amends as much as possible, and live a life that has high standards from this point on.
Other times, regret involves a past experience that is constantly played back in the mind. The truth is, you cannot change the past, no matter how much you wish it to be so. If someone has died, you just don’t have the opportunity to tell them things that you wanted to say. Getting past regrets can seem tough for people in this situation, however you can also begin to deal with regrets in your life. The plan for your life is not for you to stew in past misery and regret!
From wikiHow, check it out:
Overcoming Regrets
1. Determine what your regret really is. Do you regret something you did or Something you didn’t do? Something someone else did or did not do? A circumstance beyond your control? It is important to step back from the feelings of regret and identify exactly what the regret is.
2. Ask for forgiveness and make amends. Apologize for any harm you may have caused others. Forgive yourself. Forgive others. Be compassionate toward everyone involved.
3. Accept the circumstances. Avoid blaming others but rather take responsibility for anything that you could have better handled.
4. Deal with toxic relationships. Sometimes other people cause us to do things that leave us with serious regrets. Do you have a toxic relationship that needs to be addressed or severed?
5. Grieve for your regrets. When we feel regret, we relive guilt, sadness or anger over and over again. Allowing yourself to experience these feelings fully with the intention of moving forward can help you stop revisiting them.
6. Recognize what you have learned or gained. When you find yourself thinking of the regret, turn your thoughts to the things you have learned and the opportunities that are now yours – even if they are not what you would have preferred. There is always a lesson even in pain and sadness. Look for the lesson and focus on it instead of what might have been.
7. Write out a plan or agreement for yourself that identifies how you could avoid having this sort of regret in the future.
Additionally, see thoughts and advice on dealing with regret.
Do you have any regrets in your life? I have many! I think one of the keys to managing regret is to avoid pushing it to the back of your mind or ignoring it. Confront the issue and begin to deal with it. Any thoughts?
Regret can affect us in many ways, but as long as you know how to deal with it and handle it, you’ll always have a happy life free of anger, rage and misery. Find out how you can eliminate regret from your life. http://bit.ly/dnGL3C
Im a hugely regretful person, so I definaly feel this article. Sometimes we do thing’s under poverty consciousness, the influence of toxic people, pure desperation or because we want to experiment and see what work’s. It’s funny because when we do it, we know that either way good will come of it and it’s a lesson. After thing’s go bad, the regret’s come in. I think that’s just the ego’s way of saying “you have to be perfect, you have to get it right all the time, or else your a bad person!”.
regret is a very heavy thing to carry, especially when you know that you have caused a lot of damage and pain that cannot be fixed. i liked the part about the toxic relationships. i have my own article about regret found at http://thenegativepolarity.com/2011/05/17/how-to-deal-with-regret. i never thought of that idea. i have realized that there are actually people in my life right now who always cause me to regret something i do for them every single time.
john fernando´s last blog ..How to Deal With Regret