People tend to experience different emotions, some of which are constructive, while others are destructive. One of the most commonly experienced emotions is regret. Feelings of regret can arise from looking back at past behavior and decisions and believing that a better outcome could have been achieved if different choices had been made. How to get rid of regrets, because they cause discomfort and anxiety? This question is asked by many who suffer from destructive emotions.
The most common areas that cause the greatest regret in people are education, career, romantic relationships, raising children, and self-realization. A feeling can consume a person so much that he loses touch with the present and spends most of his time thinking about the past. Such a person does not actually live in real time.
Why do we regret the past?
It would seem that what could be more ridiculous than being mentally stuck over and over again on a past situation that we are no longer able to change? According to experts, this feature of our psyche is a tribute to evolution. “By fixating on past experiences, humanity has managed to survive. But animals, for example, do not need this experience - their instincts allow them to live in the “here and now” mode - there is no danger at the moment, there is nothing to think about it,” explains clinical psychologist Alisa Galats .
Naturally, now we are not faced with the task of surviving, but the ancient mechanisms of the psyche continue to work automatically.
According to the expert, our fixation on the past and obsessive regrets can have different reasons. “Sometimes this hides dissatisfaction with the current situation, and then we look for a kind of justification for it in the past - “it’s because I married Petya, not Vasya.” Sometimes we just want emotional closure for something that is still bothering us. But the more we think about it, the more we plunge into memories and destructive emotions like into a swamp. It happens that these regrets, in principle, are about dissatisfaction with oneself and one’s decisions,” says the psychologist.
How to stop worrying about past mistakes
In order to take the first step towards changing your life for the better, you should stop thinking about the bad. The following tips will help you stop worrying:
- Learn control. It is necessary to clearly understand that increased anxiety and constant worry have a destructive effect on mental and physical health, shortening life. Learn to keep your emotions under control and not give in to your worries.
- Analysis of possible difficulties. Take a moment and think about what you are really afraid of and what problems you consider to be the worst. Try to come to terms with these thoughts by letting in all the “worst things”, and then think about how you could cope with unwanted situations.
- Monolithic wall. You can’t sit in one place and expect that sooner or later life will get better on its own. This doesn't happen. If you want it to change for the better, be ready to take action. Take the habit of meditating every day, creating a solid wall within yourself that will demarcate your painful past from the happy future you are working towards. Behind you is the past, covered with reliable protection, in front of you is the future, which depends only on you, and you are between, in the present.
- Increased employment. A person is inclined to indulge in stupid and sometimes even dangerous thoughts if he has too much free time. Stop messing around and sign up for courses or training that will help you develop your skills and talents. Not only will you have a great opportunity to learn something useful, but your mind will also be occupied.
- Positive thinking. Try to think only about good things, listen to invigorating music, read motivational books. There is enough negativity in the world without your worries, so it’s worth getting any bad thoughts out of your head.
- Active life position. Remember that you are surrounded by family and friends who also need your attention. Often the problem of anxiety appears because a person focuses on his own ego. Put your interests on the backburner and find time to communicate with loved ones.
Important The most important thing is to get rid of increased anxiety. If you cannot cope with stress on your own, then seek help from a doctor. The right antidepressants will help you overcome nervousness.
Why is such a jam dangerous?
According to the expert, the feeling that there is some “mistake” in the past and the desire to mentally rebuild one’s life taking into account “if only” leads to a devaluation of the present. “What happened in the past can never be changed, it is a closed door. And all our attempts to look into it do not allow us to appreciate what we have now, which means that we cannot change anything in the future, we cannot improve the situation. In this state, your entire focus is shifted to the past, and there is simply no strength left for today’s life,” comments Alisa Galats.
According to the expert, constant regrets about the past, feelings of guilt due to an allegedly wrong decision are also a path to decreased self-esteem, anhedonia, and sometimes to depression. “The feeling that you made a mistake in the past, and since then life has not gone at all as it should, is one of the clinical symptoms of depression,” adds the psychologist.
Release and burn
How to stop regretting? Many psychotherapists offer a fairly effective method. You will need to set aside at least a week in your schedule. For seven days you need to remember only the negative. Be completely honest and write down in a notebook all those actions and words that turned out to be stupid and negative.
Write down all negative thoughts in a notebook. Write down what you thought about during the most difficult moments in life. Record all unseemly acts done and unfulfilled promises. At the end of the week, burn your notebook, let go of your past, and stop regretting missed opportunities.
How to learn to let go of thoughts about the past?
Accept the situation. The past cannot be returned, and no matter how much we think about it, it will not change. Therefore, stop tormenting yourself with guesses like “if I hadn’t been stupid then, I would already be married.” Instead, accept that the situation has changed. “As they say, “history does not tolerate the subjunctive mood,” so leave your “ifs.” Then the situation was different - you were a different person, the circumstances, resources, etc. were different. Therefore, it is impossible to compare yourself today with yesterday,” notes the psychologist.
Recognize mistakes. “The only thing you can do with the past is learn from it. Therefore, stop blaming yourself and think - what has this situation taught me? Think about how you can use this experience in the present,” the expert recommends.
Let go of the past. According to the psychologist, it is also important to psychologically let go of the situation and close the emotional connection with it. For example, this can be done by writing yourself a letter from the past, in which you explain your motives, feelings, and wish yourself not to repeat the mistake in the future. You can also write a letter to someone who has hurt your feelings in the past and express all your emotions in it.
Focus on the present .
The only thing we can control is the present. “If we spend our energy on regrets, we often don’t even notice the good things we have in the present. Or we can’t understand what we really want,” says the specialist. After you have let go of the past, pay attention to what is happening in your life now - what doesn’t suit you about it? What do you want? What resources do you have? After thinking about this, think about what small step you can take to change the situation. “Start taking action, and you will notice how much easier and more dynamic your life will become,” the psychologist concludes.
How to get rid of feelings of regret
Regardless of the reason, the emotion of regret seriously poisons life and sometimes leads to neurotic disorders. It is simply necessary to get rid of it. As, indeed, from all other destructive feelings.
Mindfulness helps you free yourself from less pain, remorse and self-judgment. You need to understand and realize two simple things:
- You couldn't have done anything differently in that situation. If only because decisions about other options came to you later, and not exactly at that time.
- It's gone no more. It is alive only in your memory. There is only one present moment - Here and Now. Dedicate all your thoughts and actions to him. It is not the situation itself from the past that torments you, but your memories of it.
- There are no right or wrong actions in life. There is only your reaction to them and attitude to the situation.
Feelings of regret over past failures should not develop into fear of failure. “You can often learn a useful lesson from failure, so failures are the best help.” Hong Zichen
Often we are tormented by regrets because we were unable to control the situation in time. It seems to us that if everything was in our hands, we would know exactly what to do better. But when we realize that not everything depends on us, we begin to worry.
We can only get rid of regrets when we give up routine and control over situations occurring in our lives. And as long as we strive to control everything, we will have a feeling of regret in our lives.
Disappointment, regret, ambition, the desire to control the situation are an integral part of the personality and life path and nothing can be done about it. You just need to enjoy every day you live.
Regret can be the reason why a person begins to feel disgusted with life instead of enjoying it. However, if we learn to respond to it correctly, regret can even help us.
In the absence of any difficulties and problems, it is very difficult for a person to change. Any “shake-ups” contribute to the growth and development of the individual.
So, the feeling of regret contributes to the effectiveness of the learning process, the evolution of our consciousness. Taking the wrong step, saying the wrong phrase, we regret it, the feeling is not so pleasant, as a result, we remember our mistake in order not to repeat it.
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Learn to live today
Very often, with our constant glances to the past, we lose sight of everyday joys. People have forgotten how to enjoy a simple autumn sunny day, just watch on a rainy evening how drops flow down the glass. A person can live for years only with his past. No one is saying that you need to break up with him forever. But we cannot change it. The most valuable thing we can take away from our past life is invaluable experience.
So let it go and live in the present. It may be harder, but that's life. Nobody said that we are born for carefree happiness. Happiness must be earned. But life cannot be built with endless memories of the past.
Still to come
To stop regretting missed opportunities, you need to understand that they not only existed, but will also exist in the future. There is always room for opportunity in life. The main thing is to notice them in time. Regretting the past makes it much harder to do this.
It is much more important to make the right decision when a new opportunity appears in your life. How to do it? Which decision can be considered correct? According to psychologists, the choice will be correct if it is based on your own interests and desires.
You just need to understand that a missed opportunity is not torture. No failures, problems, etc. await you. This is just a missed opportunity. In addition, tomorrow a new opportunity may arise that will bring much more joy into your life.
Better late than never
A person often complains about fate.
He feels sorry for himself, his lost opportunities, his youth. In principle, you can always blame fate or people. But does this make sense? Man is the creator of his own life, is it worth complaining about the past? If something was missed somewhere, you first of all have to blame yourself. But if you just cry and tell how bad everything turned out and how it could have turned out, there will be no use. As long as a person is alive, nothing is lost. As long as he breathes and has reason, he can move mountains. You can dream of dancing since childhood, and at 50 you can enroll in a dance school. And nothing is impossible. Yes, no longer 15, not the same gait, not the same figure. But there will be a sparkle in your eyes and the strength to move forward!
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Remember: today you are no longer the same person you were yesterday, in a past traumatic situation. Even if it seems that no significant changes have occurred, and you have the same set of character qualities, this is still not entirely true. You have gone through a long experience and gained new impressions. Try not to judge yourself for making what now seems like the wrong choice. It’s just that with that knowledge and experience, a step was taken that seemed the most optimal. Forgiveness is a necessary act to help us overcome our dependence on the past. Stop judging yourself and others, and look to the future. After all, it is much more interesting to work on tomorrow than to look at the past under a magnifying glass.
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What do people regret when they look back on their lives at 30, 40 and 50 years old?
One young man, a Quora user, asked a question that worries many: what do people regret when they look back on their lives when they are 30, 40, 50... years old? The question sparked a lively discussion, the most interesting answers from which we will share with you today.
Lessons with the particle “not”
I think it's interesting to know what people regret before they die.
It is believed that Beethoven said on his deathbed: “Clap your hands, friends, the comedy is over!”
Before his death, Lou Costello remarked: “It was the best ice cream I ever tasted.”
I want to share with you the lessons I have learned from my mistakes in my youth. All of them can be designated by just one particle “not”.
Don't buy things
Instead, invest in your life experiences. Travel. Go to the girl who told you “maybe”, even if she lives on the other side of the world.
Search problem
People always strive to make the perfect choice—the one that will ultimately bring the greatest benefit. However, in reality, especially when time is short, you have to make decisions that you will later regret. Imagine your family is planning a summer vacation. You and your partner sit down at a round table, review proposals and discuss various details (including travel times, estimated budget and hotel reservations).
You come to a common denominator based on your own ideas about the ideal vacation. Some people like the warm and clean sea and the beach within walking distance, while others want to see as many sights as possible. You, like most people, believe that the best choice is the offer that gives you the most fun for the least amount of money. The problem with all these searches is that they completely ignore the decision-making process and focus only on the final result.
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Influence of uncontrollable factors
Psychology studies the processes caused by any activity, but most people do not take into account constantly changing factors. So, when choosing a vacation spot, you think that in six months you will have an ideal picture. A lot of effort was spent on making a decision and dozens of options were reviewed, so you are firmly convinced that you are right. The last thing on your mind will be the constant storms and cold seas in early July.
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Six months before a vacation, it is impossible to predict the weather with at least 80 percent accuracy. Your family can only hope that the heavenly office will be merciful to you this summer. Otherwise, you will be doomed to sit in the hotel and swim in the indoor pool. Was it worth flying several thousand kilometers and spending most of your family savings on it for the sake of what you can do in your city?
The problem of belated regret about an imperfect action..
The problem of belated regret about an imperfect action. According to Yu. V. Bondarev. I. P. Tsybulko 2021. Option 2
Should you put off your plans for later? How do imperfect actions make you feel? These are the questions that arise when reading the text of the Russian Soviet writer and screenwriter Yuri Vasilyevich Bondarev.
Revealing the problem of belated regret about an imperfect action, the author narrates in the first person. Every evening, walking along the alley, the narrator saw a single window in the night, which attracted him with a cozy green light.
He “imagined a heated room, shelves lined with books all over the walls,” and in his imagination an image arose of a cute “stooped, with the kind wrinkles of old age,” a lonely scientist or writer, “surrounded by a blessed paradise of books.”
One day, the hero had a strong desire to go into this small house to meet a person close to him in spirit.
He could say that he had the wrong number, and get to know a person who had moved away from the bustle of the world, and strike up friendly relations with an intellectual who was interesting to him. But the hero did not dare to take this action, did not knock on the door that so attracted him with its mystery.
Later, the narrator very much regretted his imperfect action, because after some time he saw an unfamiliar woman through the window. At that moment the house, the alley, and the window seemed false and unfamiliar to him.
He suddenly realized that a misfortune had happened, that his “imaginary friend, that gray-haired old man with a shuffling gait,” to whom he was so emotionally drawn, had passed into another world. And the narrator needed this man as a close friend.
Both examples: the indecisiveness of the narrator, who did not fulfill his dream of meeting a person close in spirit, and seeing a stranger, an unfamiliar woman instead of the old man, complementing each other, cause the reader to regret that the hero missed the chance to acquire a friend close to his interests, whom he so not enough.
The author's position is as follows: indecision sometimes becomes a cause of regret. Actions not completed on time make you later bitterly regret that you missed your chance and did not realize your desires and dreams.
The author's position is close to me. We often regret that we cannot return lost opportunities, as something irreparable happens. In K. G. Paustovsky’s story “Telegram,” Nastya missed the opportunity to tell her mother warm words that her mother is the closest and dearest person to her.
The girl did not want to go from Leningrad to the village of Zaborye, where her old mother lived out her last days. She was even late for her mother’s funeral and bitterly regretted that she had not come to see her mother, who could never be returned. The girl was left with a feeling of irreparable guilt.
This guilt lay an immeasurable weight on her heart.
In conclusion, I want to emphasize that you need to have determination and be able to take advantage of the chance given by fate, so as not to regret later about unrealized opportunities.
Text by Yu. V. Bondarev
(1) The January snowstorm swirled, the frozen poplars creaked in the alley, the high wind rattled with iron, every now and then tore snow dust from the eaves, carried it along the whitewashed fences, over fresh snowdrifts, and it, this only window in the night, glowed with a green, cozy spot and, always equally bright, warm, curtained, attracted to itself, evoked a pleasant feeling of an unsolved mystery. (2) Invariably, every evening I was greeted in the alley by this home beacon in a wooden house, the light of a table lamp blocked by a curtain - and I imagined a heated room, shelves lined with books all over the walls, a worn rug on the floor in front of the sofa, a desk, a glass lampshade a lamp spreading an orange circle in the twilight, and someone, cutely stooped, with old, kind wrinkles, who lived alone there, surrounded by the blessed paradise of books, leafed through them with caressing fingers, walked around the room with a shuffling gait, thought, worked until late at night at his desk table, demanding nothing from the world, from its vain pleasures. (3) But who was he - a scientist, a writer? (4) Who? (5) Once last spring (in the swollen dampness of the March night, split icicles were dripping everywhere, thinly ringing, unfrozen puddles on the pavement shone like violet glass under the month), I looked at the familiar window, at the same greenish-warm curtain, illuminated from within, experiencing an irresistible feeling . (6) I wanted to come up, knock on the glass, see the swaying of the drawn curtain and his face, familiar in my imagination, dissected by a network of wrinkles around his narrowed eyes, see a table littered with sheets of paper, the inside of a room filled with books, a rug on the floor... (7) I wanted to say that I probably had the wrong house number, I wouldn’t find the apartment I needed - it was a primitive lie in order to even catch a glimpse of this captivating air of his clean home and work, surrounded by books - it seemed like his only friends. (8) But I didn’t dare, I didn’t knock. (9) And later he could not forgive himself for this. (10) No, two months later nothing had changed, everything was as before, and in the quiet alley it was spring, the May evening was slowly darkening in the depths of the Zamoskvoretsky courtyards; Among the fresh young greenery, lanterns over the fences were lit, a cockchafer with a humming sound pulled out of the courtyard, hit the glass of the lampshade, fell onto the sidewalk, froze, then moved its legs in a daze, trying to roll over. (11) Then I helped him, saying for some reason: “What are you doing?..* (12) He crawled along the sidewalk to the wall of the house, to the drainpipe (it was three steps from the window), and I felt some kind of that sudden discomfort that looked at me from the May twilight. (13) The window in the house was not lit. (14) It was like a failure... (15) What happened? (16) I reached the end of the alley, stood at the corner, and returned, hoping to see the familiar light in the window. (17) But the window glinted gloomily with glass, the curtain hung motionless, the pre-orange glow did not glow on it, as happened in the evenings, and in an instant everything became unpleasant, and it seemed that there, in this invisible room, a misfortune had happened. (18) With anxiety, I again reached the corner and, already subconsciously in a hurry, returned to the alley. (19) I inspired myself that now the green light on the curtain would flash and everything in the alley would become ordinary, peaceful... (20) The light in the window did not come on. (21) And the next day, on my way home, I almost ran into a nearby alley, and here an unexpected discovery struck me. (22) The window was open, the curtain was pulled back, revealing the inside of the room, bookshelves, some kind of map on the wall - I saw all this for the first time, more than once imagining my unknown friend at evening work. (23) An elderly woman with a man’s face and a man’s hairstyle stood at the desk and looked into space with absent eyes. (24) Immediately she noticed me, jerked the curtain - and a rough chill crept into my soul. (25) And the house, and the alley, and the window seemed false and unfamiliar to me.
(26) And I realized that a misfortune had happened, that my imaginary friend, that gray-haired old man with a shuffling gait, to whom I was so mentally drawn, I needed as a close friend.
According to Yu. V. Bondarev
Source: https://vopvet.ru/news/problema_zapozdalogo_sozhalenija_o_nesovershjonnom_postupke/2019-10-20-8187
