Moving Beyond Regret

It's tough because , when we look back , there's really nothing we can do to change the past , and yet we find ourselves in these thought loops that are just endless of like what if this and what if that , and you know we make all these different scenarios . We truly go nowhere , but in our mind , right , it's like we're on a stationary bike .

But the regret often induces a feeling of shame and it's just a really surefire way to feel . Super crummy is if we are having a hard time getting beyond , like I said , a decision that we may be made or did not make .

So some things that I hear commonly in my practice are you know , I really regret not freezing my eggs when I thought about it when I was younger . Or I really regret not trying with my my partner sooner . Like a lot of people have been married for a long time .

Um , they've been on birth control and then , maybe in their late thirties , they decided they wanted to , you know , start to have a family , and it's harder than they thought it would be . Um , a lot of people regret staying with the wrong person too long .

And hey , this resonates with me as a divorced person , right , because a lot of times we're with people during our primary productive years and then we emerge from those toxic relationships and we realized that maybe we would have been more fertile sooner , and that can be a really tough realization , especially , you know , in the context of these very difficult

relationships . Other people come to me and tell me that they were pregnant many years ago , but that pregnancy ended in a termination or some other situation that you know can have conflicting feelings , and what I always tell my people is hey , you made the best decisions you could with the available information at that time .

We can always go back and say like , hey , if I'd only done X , y , z . But you know , I think these decisions are never easy and so when we are feeling , you know , like we're not going to become parents or we're not going to grow our families or things like that , we can get lost in these thoughts of blame and incorrect data and all these things .

But I do think that forgiving ourselves is a really important piece of things , because we don't know what would have happened if we had made a different decision . Right , like we think we know , we think we ascribe oh , if I only done X , then Y would have happened , but we really don't know .

So I like to remind ourselves that sometimes we think we can dictate what would have happened with a different decision , but a lot of times that's out of our control .

And another thing that people share with me is oh , when I was at this other job , I had such good fertility insurance and nice foot jobs , or I would have been so much better off if I had done something when I was in an area with more REI services . But here I am now in the middle of nowhere .

And that's another tough one , because it's like , okay , knowing what you know now , would you have made a different decision ? Sure , but you today are not the same self that you were that many years ago , and so it's just really unfair to do that to ourselves . But it's almost like our brains go there naturally .

So , whatever it is that you're holding on to , whatever it is that you're feeling just shame about , guilt , regret . Just remind yourself that you did .

You made the best decisions you could with the available information that you had at the time and truly I know it's really hard for us , especially as female physicians , but you can forgive yourself , you really can and just reminding yourself that you're a human being , you made the best decisions you could . Other people make decisions that they regret as well .

Other people make decisions that they regret as well , but the regret at this point is just costing energy , costing precious resources , causing self-harm . At this point , even I would say and so what do I do with that ?

I say I think we need some self-compassion based in kristen f's data , which is what we talk about a lot at love and science is that there's this common humanity piece that is so important because we would say , anybody in my situation would feel this way or anybody would have made that similar decision based on the available information .

And so just reminding us that we alone did not make one solitary bad decision because we are , you know , faulty or something , but anybody would have made that decision and it's okay .

We can say , hey , you know , knowing what I do now , I would choose differently , but we didn't back then , and so trying to free ourselves of that and let that go , that can be really important and that common humanity piece really does help .

I think the self-kindness piece is also really helpful because we have so much judgment at least I do sometimes for decisions I've made or not made in the past .

And if we can flip that self-judgment to say , okay , what is one kind thing I can do to make myself more whole about the situation , what is one kind thing I can say to myself you know , hey , you were 22 years old when you married that person . Like you didn't even know yourself yet and that's okay . Like you know , you learn so much .

You're a different person now and you only could be the person you are today because of everything you went through then . So understanding this is all part of the process .

And you know , maybe you maybe you run a seminar for medical students in terms of you know , healthy relationships or whatever it is like we can change the present , which then leads to the future , but we cannot change the past . So staying caught in past decisions truly does not help us .

So , you know , what I would say is , if you're finding yourself in a rumination loop which is like a stationary bike of thoughts . I can help you find the secret trapdoor out . I can help you forgive yourself , process those feelings and move on so that you have more brain space for all the things you need to focus on right .

Life is too short to be just beating yourself up day in , day out for things that are completely out of your control at this point . But what is in your control is how you show up today , how you decide to view those past decisions and the choices that you make moving forward that honor your more evolved self . So I would love to help you with this .

If this something got triggered in your mind where you're like , oh my goodness , it's that one thing that I just can't let go of , and I really think Coach Erica could help book a free discovery call with me . I would absolutely love to see how I can help .

If it's not me directly , I would love to point you in the direction of resources that could I really .

I believe in healing , I believe in self-trust , I believe in moving forward and sometimes the only way that we can do that is if we let go of the regret and we heal ourselves with that past pain that we continue to inflict on ourselves and we have a hard time moving forward . So I'm here for you . I love you .

I have made lots of strides in self-regiveness myself , so I walk the walk . I continue to make choices that reflect this healing in my own life . I continue to do the hard work , so I will walk alongside you and teach you everything I know so that you can live your freest , most truest life . Okay , with that , I love you . I'll see you next week . Bye .