Release Regret and Forgive Yourself

A misconception about anxiety is that it only relates to the future; something impending, uncertain, something that will happen in the future, or something that may happen in the future. And while those things are all graciously true of anxiety, that is not the ending of understanding. It also affects the past—and can stem from regret. Particularly self-loathing and suffering around a past choice or decision; the inability to forgive yourself for some act or choice or feeling.

“I wish I had not have dated that person”, “I could have told that person no or yes”, “I should have known to take that other job”, or “If only I had spent more time with my loved one”.

There’s a relatively reasonable solution and re-frame for this, if you can get there. It has helped both myself and my clients.

Had you known then, what you know now, or had you understood then what you understand now, or felt then what you feel now, you would not have made the same choice. Take these words in. I want you to say them aloud for true understanding:

Had I known then, what I know now, I may not have made the same choice.

Had I understood then, what I understand now, I may not have made the same choice.

Had I felt then, what I feel now, I may not have made the same choice.

Okay. So really listen to what you’ve said. You’ve just said that under different circumstances with different information, you may have made a different choice. So that in an out of itself is cause for self-compassion. Because you didn’t have the feeling you have now, you didn’t know what you know now, you didn’t understand what you understand now. You simply did not have the same information.

Let’s break this down some more. Regret says “if that were” or “if I had” etc. But you did not have, and you were not. Regret is hopefulness in a past life, further, seeing as though the past is gone this hopefulness immediately is understood as helplessness. So why is this such an AHA moment?

Hopefulness brings about possibility, but there isn’t a possibility for a different outcome for something that has already taken place. This is regret. It is self-loathing on past hopefulness, which we know isn’t possible.

We judge our prior selves, prior choices and prior feelings with our current minds.

Okay, now that we’ve broken it down, let’s rip it up. Knowing and acknowledging that you did not have the same information closes the book on regret. It turns the language of possibility, “If I had known, I should have understood” into the language of absolute --”I merely did not understand”, “I simply did not know”. 

You are allowed to feel whatever it is that you feel about your past and future. Taking on this re-frame or other perspective of looking at a past situation, doesn’t erase your feelings of the situation nor does it take away your disagreement of the fact that the situation took place in the first place. It just loosens the anxiety surrounding your decisions and choices at that time.

It is freeing yourself from the responsibility of knowing, feeling and understanding at a time when you simply didn’t.