How To Deal With Regrets From The Past

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I think the majority of humanity has experienced regrets. Regrets of doing "wrong" things in the past. Regrets of certain choices that have been made, opportunities which were not taken or maybe even people which were hurt because of a certain choice one has made. Believe me, I have done a lot of foolish things in the past and I must admit that for a long time I had a lot of troubles overcoming the feeling of regret. 

"It was eating me from the inside out"

For quite a while regret was eating me from the inside out, and I didn't know how to deal with it. I think most of us have experienced the feeling of regret at some point or at several points in our lives, or maybe you are experiencing it right now. It can be devastating, and in some cases even self-destructive. Because of the problems I had regarding overcoming this emotion, I thought it might be of value to share my experience, because over time I have come to understand a few things about regrets which are still helping me to this day. 

The source

When I just sit by myself and examine the emotion of regret, I have the feeling that I want to understand it. I want to understand where it is coming from, and from there I came to the realization that regrets are simply wishes. Wishes that we could change the past. The thing with the past, is that it's non-existing. The only thing that does exist is the here and now. This very moment. The present. The past is gone and the future has yet to come. It is all inside of our heads, in our memories, in our imagination. It doesn't matter what we are trying to do, or how hard we wish for things to change, but it is certain that the past cannot be changed. What is done, is done. We cannot turn back in time like in the movies. Everything we do has consequences. It is simply the law of cause and effect. 

What can we do?

The good thing here, is that we can learn from these experiences. We can recognize what we did wrong, or what we would have done differently today, because that's exactly where regrets are coming from. They come from the fact that we know better now. We have to learn from our mistakes, that's why I used to say that mistakes are our best friends. We gain wisdom from them, ready to apply here in the present or in situations in the future. It's also a matter of acceptance. Accepting that back in time we were not on the same wavelength as we are now at this very moment. 

Forgiveness

After acceptance, it's time to find the strength to forgive ourselves and maybe that's even the hardest part, but it's also a crucial one. The realizations I just mentioned can be very helpful in this process. Also this, is a matter of accepting and letting go. The fact that we keep replaying these past events over and over again only rises more feelings like sorrow, sadness and/or anger,  but we cannot let those feelings control our lives because when we allow that it's becoming destructive. That's why it's of utmost high important that we forgive ourselves and to not confuse this with reflecting on those past events. That's a good thing because we learn from it, but endlessly dwell in thoughts filled with self-blame won't make any sense. 

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