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How To Live With Less Regret

How To Live With Less Regret

When one door closes, another opens. But we often look so long and regretfully upon the closed door that we do not see the one which has opened for us. Alexander Graham Bell

As we reach the end of another year and another decade, it can be an opportunity to reflect on what we’ve achieved and what we want to change about ourselves. How do you feel as you look back on how you’ve behaved, how you’ve related to people, and how you’ve progressed with your life goals? Are you 100% happy with what you’ve done with your life? Or is there a slight percentage tinged with regret at what you have and haven’t done, said, or achieved?

They say that regret mostly comes from things we haven’t done, rather than from things we have done.

Regret is an emotion that can…

  • Leave you stuck in the past. Regret is closely related to loss. If you’re regretting things, then you’re robbing yourself of your present and your future by allowing your past to define you. Losses can take a while to come to terms with. Regret can beat you up along the way.
  • Keep you ruminating on what could have been. The ‘shoulda woulda coulda’ mindset can tie your mind up in knots as you continually replay what you should have done and didn’t. The ruminating can play tricks with your brain and leave your thoughts spiralling.
  • Waste your energy. You can’t change your past. Yet, if you’re in an active regretful phase, it can absorb your energy but doesn’t achieve anything constructive.
  • Zap you of optimism. If you’re looking back to the past, then it can be hard to connect with your sense of purpose. What you’ve failed to do can cloud what you have yet to achieve – if you let it.
  • Affect your current relationships. No one likes to be around someone else who beats themselves up about stuff they have or haven’t done in the past. Wallowing in it can deplete you and your partner.

If you’d like to live a life with less regret, then we offer the following suggestions:

Begin to process your past

‘Letting go’ and ‘moving on’ may be what you expect of yourself. This doesn’t happen overnight. And nor should it. Losses can take a while to process and deal with. Loss can involve a reframing of expectation from ‘getting over it’ to ‘managing it’. Realising that what you’ve done or lost can’t be ‘fixed’ or ‘resolved’ can be the first step on the process to working through it.

Express your thoughts and feelings

Having all that stuff ruminating and rumbling in your head can keep you stuck in a cycle of regret and ‘should have done’. Speak to a close friend, confidante or therapist to help you express what’s going on for you, to help you eventually emerge from that cycle.

Refocus your energy and purpose

The antidote to stuckness is to have forward momentum. Having a purpose gives us drive, energy, a reason for living. Purpose helps us spring out of bed in the morning and helps create a to-do list with zest. What is your purpose? Reflect on what brings you joy and what depletes you to help find your answer.

Cultivate compassion

Regret can run side-by-side with a tendency to criticise yourself. Tune into how you talk to yourself. Are you creating to-do lists that are setting yourself up to fail? High standards that you can only trip up on? Or are you identifying small steps to achieve your goals, with rewards along the way? How you speak to yourself, and how you forgive yourself for being human, can go such a long way in reducing regret in your life/

Be yourself with people close to you

Say what you need to say. Do what you need to do. Speak your truth where you can. Reach out. Don’t wait for what you need to come to you. Be the conduit for straight-talking, honest relationships. Keep opening doors rather than reflecting regretfully on the ones that have closed.

If you’d like to make the next year(s) of your life more productive and less regretful – and would appreciate working with a professional to help work through why you’re not achieving your life’s purpose – then get in touch with us. We can help match you with the right therapist for you. Call 020 8673 4545 or email [email protected] to book your initial consultation.

Karen Dempsey
With a 20-year career in print and online publishing and an MA in creative writing, Karen Dempsey has worked as a journalist, editor and copywriter and has managed large editorial teams. She is a qualified, accredited and practising psychotherapist with an MA/diploma in transpersonal integrative counselling & psychotherapy.
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Baby Loss Awareness Week exists to help grow awareness and support for people who’ve lost a baby, as well as allowing grieving parents across the globe to commemorate their babies whose lives were heartbreakingly short. Many people who’ve lost a baby say they never truly get over it. Ever. A part of them will remain forever empty. Even future babies, if they come along, will never fill that gap. The loss of a baby can be devastating, whatever stage of pregnancy the couple are at – whether it’s a miscarriage (before 24 weeks), a stillbirth (after 24 weeks) or losing the baby during or after birth. Losing a baby at any stage is shocking and traumatic for the parents. A multitude of painful feelings can crowd in. Life may feel thin, sad, empty, pointless. If you know someone who’s lost a baby, it can be difficult to know what to do for the best. Nothing can take away their pain, though it might help you to understand the kind of things your friend or loved one is going through. What it’s like to live with baby loss • The parents have lost a person they thought they would spend the rest of their lives with. Not only have they lost a baby, they’ve lost the hopes and dreams of a cherished future. • It’s a bereavement that can feel just as raw as if the baby had grown up and lived a longer life. • There often isn’t much after-care in hospital, following the loss of a baby, and so the parents may be feeling abandoned and all at sea. • Some of the clinical terms used when a mother miscarries can be quite upsetting. These terms can feel depersonalising and hurtful, even though it’s just medical professionals doing their job. • Losing a baby can leave a mother feeling like a failure, as if she’s done something wrong. These feelings of guilt and self-doubt can sometimes develop into depression. • Grieving parents can feel very, very alone in their loss. No one truly understands the pain they’re going through. • They don’t want to take care of your reaction when they tell you what’s happened. Sometimes people can get so upset about the news that the bereaved parents end up taking care of the feelings of others. It’s not meant to work that way. • It can become unbearable to see other people pregnant or with babies – especially people close to them. What’s worse is people not telling them they’re pregnant, for fear of upsetting them. • The loss can sometimes affect the parents’ relationship as the partners struggle to come to terms with the loss individually and together. • Months and sometimes years down the line, they may still be mourning the baby they lost. How you can support someone through baby loss Acknowledge their loss. This is one of the toughest things for grieving parents: when people around them don’t know what to say, and so act as though nothing has happened. They want their loss to be acknowledged. Don’t let your awkwardness get in the way of that. Avoid clichés. Don’t just trot out the typical things people might say that they think will make the bereaved parents feel better – like, “oh, your baby is too good for earth and has gone to heaven,” or “well, you’ll be able to have another one soon”. That kind of phrase really doesn’t help. They want a human being in front of them who cares and who really doesn’t need to say anything – just be there. Let them talk. Losing a baby can be a lonely time. Your loved one may feel as though no one understands. Even if you don’t truly understand (and you won’t unless you’ve been through it yourself) be there with a sympathetic and caring ear. Keep your own emotions in check. They’re the ones suffering, not you. Don’t break down and make them the ones to look after you. They need your support. You can show your sadness. Of course. But you may need to be the strong one while they’re feeling vulnerable. Be sensitive to when they might need an ally. It can be hard to be around other people with babies and bumps when you’ve lost a baby. Tears can threaten at any point. Keep an eye out for when your loved one might need you to cover for them in a social gathering. Help create a socially acceptable excuse when they need a moment by themselves. Urge them to stay off social media. Facebook, Instagram etc – by their nature – showcase shiny happy people doing shiny happy things. Life events such as pregnancy and babies are often catalogued in minute detail. Especially in the early stages, it may feel healthier and safer for your friend or loved one who’s lost a baby to give social media a miss. Until they feel strong enough to engage again without breaking down. Keep an eye on their mental health. Painful emotions do pass, generally. Sometimes they don’t, especially if there are some underlying issues from earlier in life. A new loss can tap into earlier losses, with compound effect. If your friend of loved one is showing signs of tipping into depression then you may want to suggest they see a therapist who can support them through the darkness – until they’re ready to walk into the light again. For confidential support from one of our therapists, you can book an appointment by emailing appointments@theawarenesscentre.com or calling 020 8673 4545.

How To Support Someone Who’s Lost A Baby

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