Reflecting Regret

“Regret is a tough but fair teacher. To live without regret is to believe you have nothing to learn, no amends to make, and no opportunity to be braver with your life.”

~ Brene Brown

When I allowed myself to grieve during the Spring break, I knew I had two choices: stay in my pit or find a way out.

The second step to defeat regret is to say, “No more!” No more feeling sorry for myself, no more pity parties, and no more victimizing myself.

At the end of my last blog, we talked about weeds. How can we face our regrets without nurturing them? We won’t fertilize a patch of weeds in our garden, but we do single weeds out and apply weed killer!

I’m not saying regrets are useless. Dandelions, a famous weed, are sometimes referred to as a flower. This weed or flower, whatever your call it, actually is beneficial in many ways.

Similarly, I believe regrets help us learn in our lives. As the quote suggests, regret is a natural feeling after failure or defeat but can be one of life’s greatest teachers. This is why I believe the saying, “No regrets!” is extremely misleading and delusional.

"Dandelion” picture! Just kidding, these aren’t dandelions, but you get the idea. :)

I chose these because I took the pictures and would love to remember this moment!

In all fairness though, the word regret is a strong word and can lead to very destructive feelings as we talked about last time. This is why we need to address them rather than hide/ignore them or they will spread as weeds.

What caused the weeds to grow in our garden? Instead of simply cutting the top off (which may actually help the seeds spread), we must get to the root. Whatever is at the root would affect the fruit. A bad harvest will reduce profits but if we do nothing to the root, the next crop won’t improve. We will learn nothing from the current failure.

Grieving about that salty vegetable stew or simply blaming the recipe, is unwise! We can’t expect to follow the same recipe and get a perfectly seasoned stew next time.

Indulging in regret is one thing, pivoting is another. Many people find it hard to get rid of the regret. We sometimes trap ourselves into the feeling of being defeated and the desire to go back to the past when regret hits us and reverse it, which is impossible. This is why regret is so real as I experienced in the last blog. However, as I said in the last blog, regret will not go away if we dwell on it; on the contrary, “Learning to accept that I’m feeling horrible is the first step to make me feel unsatisfied and wanted to change the future rather than go back to the past.” This is where we come to a fork in the road.

Regret gives us a choice. We either sink deeper into it or we take it as a window of change.

If they grow in wrong places, dandelions are weeds; but somehow blowing off their flower petals symbolizes the hope to make dreams come true. Similarly, regrets are painful yet, if dealt with properly, can be the silver lining before our wishes come true.

After all, if this weed can be regarded as a flower that later blooms into a delicate, white orb, to grant wishes when one blows it away, can we dare to hope the same from regrets? What if our regrets can pivot us to grow in wisdom to become stronger and better? :)

But what if we are running out of time? Is it possible to rebuild after a series of regrets? Let’s explore in my next blog.

Till Next Time,

Isabelle

"Therefore let's also, seeing we are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses, lay aside every weight and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let's run with perserverance the race that is set before us."

~ Hebrews 12:1