REGRET
Welcome to the Small Jar Podcast, where we moms of teens find the power to step off the emotional rollercoaster between motherhood and the empty nest. I'm your host, Jennifer Collins. Episode number 101.
Hello, my friends. As I was thinking about this episode, I was on a flight home from Spain after having spent two full weeks in Europe on a business trip with my husband. Up until that trip, it had been 20 years since my husband and I had been away for that long without kids.
I think the longest we'd been away without the kids since they were born was probably only four days. The sporadic long weekend, really. In the summers, we'd take a week or maybe 10 days of vacation, but with the boys.
And honestly, we're both usually working for some part of those vacations. So even though it was a work trip for my husband, it was predominantly a social and networking trip, so we had plenty of time to relax and enjoy the sights. So the trip started in Nice for a few days, and then we traveled to Barcelona, spent a day there, and then got on a seven-day cruise traveling around the Mediterranean, then back to Barcelona.
Needless to say, this was quite the adventure, and I felt pretty lucky to have been included. It was the fun of seeing new places, doing a Segway tour in Girona, walking around Pompeii, visiting a speakeasy on the bowels of the cruise line. There were a lot of good times, and I had the chance to meet some really great people.
But as I sat on the plane on the ride home, I noticed this feeling of regret cropping up in my mind. Regret is actually an emotion that comes up for us moms a lot, both in the context of our own lives and choices, but also in our lives as moms raising teens. So I decided to dedicate this episode to exploring the emotion of regret, what it means, and what we can do to overcome it.
So first, let me define regret to make sure we're on the same page. Regret is a feeling of sadness, disappointment, or remorse about something that has happened in the past or a decision you've made in the past. The underlying thought pattern here is that we're thinking, I wish something in the past were different.
This could be about choices we've made or maybe even opportunities that we've missed or that our kids have missed. When we think about things we wish were different, we can also often say that we feel guilty. In fact, I've observed that women will more often express that they feel guilt about the past than they say that they have regret.
And this is really interesting because while regret and guilt are definitely related, they're different in a few ways, and here's how. The actual definition of guilt implies that whatever action we've taken was wrong or harmful in some way. It implies responsibility for causing harm to someone else or potentially going against our own moral standards.
Were you aware of this distinction between guilt and regret? I'll be honest, I wasn't until I asked ChadGBT to explain it to me. I'd been sitting on the plane thinking about how I regretted some of my choices, and it actually raised the question in my mind of why I didn't choose to say to myself I feel guilty about my choices. I could easily have chosen to say this, and I didn't necessarily choose the word regret over guilt based on any understanding of the difference.
And honestly, you get to use whichever word feels right to you if you're feeling like you wish something about the past were different. But this question of was the choice harmful is an interesting one. Certainly if I've done something wrong or against what I know is right, I feel a heavier weight than if I just wished something were different.
But there's a lot of gray here. I can definitely feel a heavy burden of guilt or regret, whatever you prefer to call it, even if I know that my choices or behavior weren't morally wrong or that I didn't actually hurt anybody. These emotions can still feel really heavy.
You can feel the burden of responsibility and remorse and feel the sense that you need to try to make amends or make up for your past choices even when you didn't do anything intentionally wrong. In past episodes, I've talked about the mindset trap of personalization. This trap I actually refer to as mom guilt just because I have no doubt you know exactly what I mean when I say mom guilt, whereas personalization isn't a word we typically use.
But personalization is when we take things personally or blame ourselves for something even when that thing may have little or nothing to do with us. An example is how we might think we've done something wrong if our teen ignores us, or how you might take responsibility, even think it's your fault if your teen makes a poor decision or fails in some way that you think you might have been able to help them avoid if you'd done something differently. Notice the nuances here.
Personalization involves feeling guilt or regret about something even if that thing has nothing to do with you. It's about taking undue responsibility for events or circumstances that are actually beyond your control. This is one of the mindset traps I've explored in the mindset trap series.
It's a trap because this sense of responsibility we feel is imagined or exaggerated. It's not necessarily based on an accurate assessment of what's true, particularly if that thing we're taking responsibility for is in fact entirely out of our personal control. Think of other people's behaviors or moods, even the outcomes of other people's experiences in their lives, the results and consequences our teens might face.
These are not in our control. And yet we often take responsibility, don't we? This is the fascinating thing about thought work. Whether we're talking regret or guilt or personalization, all of these concepts, these emotions, they're all about how we perceive the circumstances of our lives.
We're each walking around day after day wearing a pair of tinted sunglasses. The vast majority of us have absolutely no idea that we're wearing them. We simply think that the way we see the world is the truth.
Sure, many of us realize that others have different opinions about the world than we do. But when it comes to the beliefs we have about our lives, about our families, our teens, about how we define ourselves, and how we think about how everyone in our lives behaves, how we behave, the choices we make, we have opinions about all of it. We have expectations about what it's all supposed to look like, and then judgments about what it actually ends up looking like.
And many of us don't even realize that our thoughts about all of this are simply a lens. One perspective. A perspective that we are unconsciously choosing.
So my first goal with every episode of this podcast is to remind you to recognize that you are wearing tinted sunglasses. Always. And if you don't see this, then you have absolutely no awareness about how your perspective is impacting the way you experience your life, for better and for worse.
So I've talked about two emotions, regret and guilt. And as I move forward, I want to focus specifically on feelings related to things that have happened in the past. Past behavior, past choices.
I'm going to go through a number of ways that we as moms in the emptiness straddle find ourselves feeling guilt or regret about the past. Now I want to preface all of this by saying two powerful questions I want to invite you to ask yourself when you're experiencing any type of guilt or regret. And I'm going to apply these questions to demonstrate their impact.
The questions are, number one, is what I did morally wrong? And two, what actual control do I have over the situation? Two really simple questions. But we often don't stop to assess, maybe even challenge, the way that we feel. We feel guilt or regret and we automatically assume this means that we've done something wrong.
That we're somehow responsible. It feels so true. And yet, this is just another mindset trap, my friends.
Emotional reasoning. My friend, your feelings are not facts. They are simply a reflection of how you are viewing the circumstances of your life.
And look, you get to think whatever you want to think about your life. But if you're looking at your life and feeling guilt or regret, these feelings do not prove that the way you're thinking about these circumstances is true. They don't prove that you actually should feel guilty or have regret.
Even going back to that first question I offered, is what I did morally or ethically wrong? Well, the answer could be yes. I could decide that I did something or made a choice that was actually against what I know in my heart is right. Let's say, just for illustrative purposes, that I cheated on my husband.
I'm not making an admission here, just illustrating a point. So if the fact was that in the past I had cheated on my husband, and I felt guilty about that decision, I could look at the situation and answer that yes, in fact, this behavior is against my morals. And so my guilt would be appropriate.
I had, in a sense, earned this feeling because what I had done had, in fact, violated what I know to be right. But in your day-to-day life, when feeling guilt or regret about much less dramatic choices or circumstances, how often are you taking a step back and asking this simple question, did I actually do something wrong here? Is my guilt warranted here? Remember, just because you feel guilt or regret does not actually mean you deserve to feel that way. Let's stick with this cheating example and answer the second question.
What control do I have over the situation? Well, in the past, I had control over my decision to cheat. Again, this is just an example. But here's the interesting thing.
If this was a choice I had made in the past, there's nothing I can do about it now. The past is done. There's no changing it.
I think this is one of the most difficult aspects of regret or guilt about the past. We can spend a lot of emotional energy ruminating about the past, wishing it were different. This is especially true if we think our past choices have negatively impacted our lives today.
And at a minimum, when we're thinking about the past and wishing it were different, feeling guilt or regret, these negative emotions are actually what we want to escape from. We want to relieve ourselves from that punched-in-the-gut feeling of having made a choice we wish were different. So in essence, in the cheating example, we have guilt that's warranted based on past choices that we feel are morally wrong.
And we did have control over those choices at the time we made them, but now have no power to change the past in this current moment. And maybe for the sake of this conversation, I should add a third powerful question to the mix. Now what? Was it morally wrong? Yes.
Was the decision in my control? Yes, it was. But I can't change it. So now what? Well, in this case, I would say the answer is to take responsibility for that decision, accept the consequences, and figure out what that means in terms of moving forward.
I purposefully wanted to start with this dramatic example to illustrate that even when we make a decision that we feel is truly morally wrong, we still are left with the decision right now. Now what? So let's explore some examples that might hit a little closer to moms and midlife, raising teens, approaching the empty nest. Where do we feel regret about the past? There are five different areas I want to touch on.
These are number one, parenting choices. Two, relationship decisions related to our marriage or our partners. Three, career choices or career sacrifices.
Number four, personal fulfillment, really prioritizing ourselves. And five, health and lifestyle choices. So let's tackle the topic of parenting styles first.
Now I want to preface this by saying I have never worked with a woman who isn't trying her absolute best. So for the sake of this conversation, I'm not going to address decisions in parenting that are morally wrong, aside from maybe a white lie here and there or times when we've lost our temper. There certainly might be times when we've behaved in ways that we wish we hadn't when raising teens.
Let's face it, at times dealing with our teens' moods and behaviors can bring out the worst in the best of us. I consider all of this normal. When it comes to parenting choices, there are a few different categories of decisions that we might regret.
The first, as I mentioned, is having regrets about our own behavior or reactions to our teens. Another is regret about discipline choices, and this can cut both ways. We can regret being too strict and we can regret being too lenient.
Notice how the implication is in our minds there's some kind of Goldilocks level of discipline that will miraculously result in the perfect child. I know we're all working towards this, but is it even possible? Or more to the point, is it actually even in our control? Moms have also come to me with regrets over how their own nature or influence might have negatively impacted their kids. For example, I'm an introvert, so I worry that my son inherited social anxiety from me.
Again, is this actually in our control? Notice how personalization plays a role here too, how we take responsibility for things that are truly not in our control in any measurable way. We can also regret educational decisions we've made. Maybe we think in retrospect we should have sent our kid to a different school or hired a tutor earlier on, maybe even not pushed our kids so hard or pushed a little harder.
I've heard moms regret that they weren't involved more in supporting their kids through the college process. Again, all of this implying that there was some decision we made along the way that if we'd made a different decision, we might have changed the trajectory of our kids' academic success. We could also regret the choices we made in terms of the amount and the type of quality time we've spent with our kids over the years.
We might regret that we weren't able to develop a stronger bond with one of our children or that we weren't able to establish a more effective form of communication with our teens. I recently saw a parenting coach talk about how many parents who have used a particular type of parenting approach get to the teen stage and find themselves frustrated that all of that investment of time and effort in developing strong communication with their kids over the years didn't somehow allow them to overcome the moody dismissive teen years. It's such a perfect illustration of how you can, in fact, have done everything right and still things turn out in a way that you don't want.
Back to that powerful question, where do you actually have control here? We can have so many other areas of regret with our kids and because this is our kids, these humans we love more than life itself, the power and depth of guilt or regret over past decisions can feel really heavy. Even if we agree that the decisions we made had nothing to do with morality or doing something ethically wrong, we can still deeply regret past decisions if we believe that the impact of those decisions on our children has been negative. This question of control is also really complicated.
If you've been listening to me for a while, you've probably heard me say that you don't have control over your teen anymore. You don't have control over their emotions, you can't control how they think about the world, and you can't control their actions or the success or failure they have in their life. You can't control this, but you do have influence.
As you can probably already see, the line between control and influence can feel really complicated at times. What you think of as influence, your teen may see as control. But if you can hold on to this principle that you can't control your teen, but you can control yourself, you can take control over your next best decision, then this question of now what becomes really important.
And one of the decisions I truly urge you to make right up front is whether the regret you feel, whether the guilt you're feeling, is actually helping you. I think guilt is a powerful, helpful emotion when it comes to right and wrong. The reality that we feel guilt when we do something wrong is a powerful teacher.
It guides us to do less of those wrong things in the future. But when it comes to your parenting choices, does this guilt and regret really serve you? Is it actually even a decision you're making, or are you falling into the trap of emotional reasoning, believing because you feel regret that it must be true that you did something wrong? Remember, when you feel regret, you're simply thinking that you wish a past decision were different, that you wish you'd done something different in the past. But the truth is, the past is done.
So what's the upside to this regret? What decision do you want to make now is really the question. In fact, how might the guilt and regret even be holding you back from that next right decision as you parent your teen? So I'm talking about five categories where we can feel regret about the past, and I've covered number one, parenting choices. What about relationship decisions related to marriage or our partners? Roughly 50% of us get divorced.
Maybe we've remarried. Maybe we haven't. Maybe we have a healthy relationship with our partner or ex.
Maybe we don't. Maybe we've stayed in a marriage for far too long. So many different possibilities.
What are your regrets? Again, I'm going to steer clear away from the question of morality. I've already covered cheating. But I want to focus on the question more of control.
As we go through these examples, it becomes more and more clear. The decisions we've made in the past are in the past. If we don't have control over our teens, we most definitely don't have control over a significant other or ex.
What is your mind telling you should be different? Are you focusing on the past and your regret? Or are you taking responsibility for the decision you're making right now, in this moment? The decision you're making to stay? The decision you're making to perpetuate a relationship that you don't want? What control do you have now? The same applies to number three, career choices. So many women come to me with regret over having stayed home. And let me actually rephrase that because this distinction is important.
They don't so much regret having stayed home to raise their kids. What they regret is that now that their kids don't need them as much anymore, they find themselves feeling lost and without purpose. They're typically thinking that if only they had kept up some piece of their professional life, that they would have that to fall back on as a new focus as they transitioned to the empty nest.
That maybe that new purpose would save them from the feelings of loss that they're experiencing now as they let go of their kids. I think this is another of those perfect illustrations of how we can get caught in an emotional storm of positive and negative emotions. Most of my clients who have what they call the privilege of staying home to raise their kids have felt a true sense of gratitude for that time.
They love the sense of meaning and purpose that raising kids has given them in their lives. But as with anything that we love, letting go or having to transition to a new normal and the dynamic of our relationship with our kids as they grow up, this is inevitably going to involve loss. That bittersweet feeling.
It's tempting to think that somehow, if you had managed to keep your toe in the water of some job, that you could more easily transition. And whether or not that could be true, because the only reason it would be true is because you'd believe it to be true, the real truth is you've made the career decisions that you've made in the past. So the question remains, now what? Is the regret helpful or holding you back? In this example, notice how thinking that you should have maintained a career quickly leads to other thoughts like, I'm not qualified to do anything meaningful, or no one will hire someone like me.
How are those thoughts helping you, my friend? Number four is personal fulfillment, prioritizing oneself. This is related to the career question in that it involves the degree to which you have maintained a sense of self, an identity beyond being a mom. Raising kids can be all-consuming.
It can also be isolating. Especially when we face challenges with our kids, we can start to close in on ourselves because we don't really feel like we can be honest with other women about what we're going through. We don't want them to judge us or our kids.
So we stop connecting as much with friends. We can be so busy running our kids to and from practices, helping them jump through the crazy hoops of high school and college admissions, supporting them through any number of challenges. It can be all-consuming if you let it.
And it can be even more jarring as your kid grows up. We might be left feeling unanchored, not sure of who we are without the purpose of being a mom. In other cases, it can feel like our kids still desperately need us and we're afraid to let go for fear that they can't be successful without our support.
And then again, we find ourselves at a crossroad, stuck wishing the past were different, or wishing that somehow we'd been able to support our kids in a way that didn't consume as much of our own identity. But you have no control over the past. You only have control over your next best decision.
Now what? The last category, number five, is health and lifestyle choices. This is an important area, but it so often falls by the wayside when we're caught up in so many of these other issues and challenges. But again, the past is done.
There might be some aspects of your health that you don't in fact have any control over. But have you taken the time to decide where you do have control? Or better, what is that one next action you can focus on? That one next best decision that can help you move just a bit closer to your health goals? It's so interesting how in going through these examples, for the majority of us, guilt and regret don't often come down to us actually doing anything wrong. So much of it is simply about wishing our past decisions were different.
And it's so easy to get caught up in that regret. Because here's the other hard truth. Change and positive momentum can take time to create.
If we're talking about the relationship you have with your teen or in your love life, your career goals, your personal fulfillment or health, you can't just flip a switch and make everything fit the mold of exactly what you want. And it can feel like a heavy lift. Especially if we've actually been trying to be successful and find that our best hasn't been good enough yet.
That you haven't figured it out yet. So you can start to think, what's going to be different if I keep trying? It's easy to feel stuck. Stuck in regret and a disappointment.
Ultimately thinking that you wish things were different and that you don't have the ability to change them in the future. Now it's like you don't only have the regret about the past, but you start to feel regret ahead of time. Like not only do I feel regret now, but I'm destined to feel forever disappointed in myself because this is where I'm going to stay.
This is all I'm meant to be. My friend, regret could be that one emotion that's keeping you from creating the life you want in the future. It could be what's keeping you stuck.
I started this episode talking about how on my way back from my two-week tour in Europe, I was feeling regret. So you might be wondering what that was all about. In last week's episode, I covered the managed mindset.
The basic premise is that having a managed mind means you're in the driver's seat of your emotional life. That you can observe and be curious about your subconscious mind and then supervise those thoughts. Essentially decide on purpose what you want to think and feel.
It means you can decide what you have control over and what you don't, always knowing that what you do have control over is your next best decision. So I noticed I felt regret and I got curious. What was I thinking should have been different? Well, for one, I had missed my son's prom.
The dates of the trip conflicted with his prom and there was no way for me to leave the cruise early to be home with him. I felt guilty that I wasn't there to support him, even though in reality, he didn't need me to be there. My mom had stayed with him, so he had his Grammy to give him a big hug and take his picture.
And yet, I felt guilty, not even regret. Almost like I had done something wrong by not being there. I'll be honest that I also felt guilt that he was going to be going out to prom and I wasn't going to be there if something, God forbid, went wrong.
I felt guilt and regret, but recognized that I had no ability to be in two places at once. No control over the conflict and schedule. The truth was I couldn't be there.
The regret and guilt served no purpose. The only power I had was my next decision. So I put as many safeguards in place to be sure my son would be safe.
I reached out to friends for pictures. My mom had his back. I had a boutonniere and corsage delivered.
I did everything in my power and I decided to let the rest go. I also, if I'm completely honest, felt regret over my choices on vacation in terms of eating, drinking, and exercising. I only got to the gym twice the entire two weeks.
I never turned down dessert. I had wine every day. I could feel how tight my clothes were getting and felt run down and sluggish.
I'd gone into the vacation knowing I'd enjoy all the things, but also planning to try to stick to some concept of moderation. Everything's relative. I didn't go completely off the rails, but I definitely didn't restrict myself.
So looking back on my choices, feeling bloated and drained, my subconscious mind offered me guilt and regret. My mind wanted to tell me I should have made different choices. In the past, I always believed that I needed this tough love to get me back on track.
I'd go from limitless vacations to starvation diets, and then I'd wonder why I'd go back to eating too much weeks later because I was being so terrible to myself. Guilting myself into doing better never worked. So I recognized the guilt and regret and decided I made the decision to find compassion.
In my day-to-day life, I'm pretty disciplined. I wake up early to exercise. I eat healthy in a way that fuels my body and makes me feel strong.
I've cut out alcohol. But on vacation, when I was out of my routine and attending a lot of social functions, eating in restaurants with decadent foods, I most certainly could have made different choices. But the truth is I didn't.
The truth is I wanted the desserts and the cheese. I wanted the wine, and I enjoyed all of it. It was fun to let myself relax and not need to restrict myself.
I can regret it all, but why? The truth is this is what I wanted. There's no upside to beating myself up about it after the fact. But what I have control over now is my next best decision.
And that is not to beat myself up about it and to make the decision that I get to get back into my routine appreciating I had a break and got to enjoy all the things. That nothing is off limits in my life, but that there's a time and place for all of it. From big important decisions related to our kids, to more personal decisions related to our health, and even the way that we talk to ourselves, the way that we believe in ourselves, you get to decide what next decision is in your control.
But what I've discovered is that many of us don't believe that we have this control. We don't trust that we can make that next decision that will make an impact, that will move us toward our goal. But even this is a decision.
What would you choose? Why would you choose not to trust yourself to make a decision, to know that you can hold yourself to that decision? I heard someone describe life coaching once as helping people make decisions. And there is so much truth to this. It's empowering you to make your next best decision.
And this is never about a coach telling you what to do, but helping you find your power to trust yourself. Imagine what might be different if you let go of regret and trusted yourself to make a decision to answer that question. Now what? You have control over your decisions, even over how you think about your life.
This skill is what I teach in my one-on-one coaching program, Mom 2.0. These decisions give you power over your emotional well-being. They give you the power to change the trajectory of your life one step at a time. I've just opened a few additional spots for coaching, so join me in Mom 2.0. Take control of that next decision.
Until next time.
If you enjoyed this podcast, please leave a review and check out our coaching program, Mom 2.0, at www.thesmalljar.com.
You have more power than you think, my friend.
