How to Overcome Regret

Process to Overcome Regret

Understand What Happened

Understanding our thoughts and actions behind regrets helps us heal. Without such understanding, moving forward becomes difficult due to the vagueness. There is simply too much unknown to be able to overcome regret.

To get more details you want to understand the thoughts, feelings, and the decision-making processes that you went through.

For example, if you have regrets over not taking a job. You will want to better understand if there was fear in play, if it was a timing issue, are you basing your regret on information you never could have had or was someone else heavily influencing your decision.

The more you understand your action or inaction the easier it is to start to heal the various components. In our example above, if you identify that fear, was a problem. You can then dig into what the fear was. Maybe that leads you to another job mishap that was the original source of the fear. This would lead you to then go back and heal that job issue.

The best way to do this is to write out the story of what happened. Be as detailed as possible. Then take that and start to pull apart the different components. With these you can go deeper and ask things such as: how did I feel about this, was this the driving factor, did I fully understand this. There are more journal prompts below to help you with this.

Fully Acknowledge Feelings

If you haven’t processed your emotions, it can be hard to move on. Our feelings want to be heard! Using the story, you wrote above begin to process each emotion.

The best way to do this is to name the feeling. Then sit with it until it starts to dissipate. This may take a while if the feeling is intense. But some only require a few minutes.

Once your feelings feel heard it is easier to move on to the next step

Forgiveness

Forgiving yourself (or others) is critical in being able to release the regret. Without forgiveness you will still blame yourself for the situation, making it hard to move on.

Here is a journal prompt series to help you with self-forgiveness.

• What do I need to forgive?
• How does thinking about this make me feel?
• Why do I feel this way?
• Why did I make the decision that I did?
• Which of these are true? (Looking at this from the future it is easier to see what wasn’t accurate about your decision-making process. Helping to bring forgiveness.)
• What was I needing in that moment? (Both practical and emotional needs)
• What other ways could I have gotten these needs meet?
• What steps can I take to correct this for the future?
• Can I forgive myself? If yes write out “I forgive myself for __________”   If no, explore why not.

As you are working on forgiving yourself, self-compassion will also be important. If we can’t be gentle and kind to ourselves, it will be very difficult to move beyond anything. Without the ability to say, “it’s okay, I did my best” it will be hard for you to move on.

If you find you are not being nice to yourself during this, stop and take a break. Work on some self-compassion practices and come back when you are ready.

I have a meditation that will help you with having more compassion for yourself. You can listen to that here:

YouTube

Insight Timer

Meditate with Andrea Podcast Episode 18

Address Spiritual Components

Sometimes we can’t move past the negative feelings about a situation because of a still existing spiritual aspect. These can include:

• Self-Curse or thought form – we can curse ourselves. With enough emotion and repetition of a thought it can create a curse structure.
• Energy cords to a person that was involved with the decision or situation.
• Energy fields – the bigger an event or relationship is it can create its own energy field. It may still be there even though the event itself is done.

Once you remove them, it becomes easier to forgive yourself and move on.

For more information on spiritual healing.

Cord Cutting Meditation:

YouTube

Insight Timer

Meditate with Andrea Podcast Episode 53

Tools to Help You Overcome Regret

As you go through this process the following tools can help you understand the situation, manage your emotions, reframe negative beliefs and heal spiritual issues.

Journaling

The best way to dig in and understand what happened and what your feeling is to journal. Journaling allows you to sort through all the layers of a regret and build on what you learn over time. There are some journal prompts you can use below.

Present Moment Mindfulness

When you are stuck ruminating and not making progress, you can pull yourself back to the moment with mindfulness. With this you focus on something right in front of you or on your breathing. You can focus on the colors of your blinds, a burning candle or a plant. Anything that will allow you to be focused on the now and not the past.

If this doesn’t help, get some light physical movement and pair it with the mindfulness. Counting your breath while taking a short walk. Stretching while watching an ocean video.  This will engage your senses in the present moment in more than one way, helping you to break your rumination.

Counseling

The longer you go without being able to overcome your regret, you may need to seek help. We can’t always see or process our own stuff fully. Having someone trained to help you go through all the pieces can help you overcome regret.

Hypnosis

Hypnosis is a great way to get to the subconscious parts of regret. And at the same time reframe them. Working with a trained hypnotherapist is great if you are struggling to identify any root cause.

You can also use pre-recorded ones if you know what is going on and can’t seem to fix it. I personally use Hypnosis Downloads as they create their scripts with a psychologist and more than one hypnotist. Allowing you to ensure it will help. I have used them for over 10 years and have had great success.  Check out their No Regrets Audio.

Energy Recall

This will help you with the spiritual components related to energy cords and fields.

With energy recall, you are calling any of your energy back that may still be with that situation or the people in it. You can also return any of another person’s energy back to them. 

I have a long version of an energy recall and cord cutting meditation you can do for this.

YouTube (Note I am not monetized on this channel and don’t control ads. If you don’t have YouTube premium, I recommend you pick another platform.)

Insight Timer

Meditate with Andrea Podcast Episode 47

It is also available for sale as an MP3 Download

Recapitulation

This is a process from Toltec Wisdom that reclaims your energy by “reliving” the event. You call to mind the event, feel the emotions, re-claim the good parts and release the negative. It is very healing on multiple levels.

You can learn more about it here and learn an abbreviated way of doing it.

Soul Healing

If the above two don’t work, there may be bigger things in play that require a healing from a professional. This could include anything from curse removal to an energy field that is too big for the recall process.

Learn more and schedule an energy soul healing session here.

Journal Prompts to Help You Overcome Past Regrets

As you start the understanding process it may be hard to know exactly what to journal about. These prompts will help you work through your regret.

Start by writing out what it is you are regretting. Then ask yourself:

• Why do I feel it was wrong?
• What in that moment was I thinking and feeling?
• What did I need in that moment? (You can base this on the answers to the previous question. You are looking to understand what may have been driving your decision.)
• Why did I not choose another path?
• What other spaces do I struggle with similar issues? Is it tied to a deeper problem that still needs solved?
• If this was a repetitive problem, have I changed it? If not, why not? And how can I start to change it?

Other journal prompts that can help:

• Do I need to apologize to someone?
• What am I missing out on today because I won’t let go?
• What am I getting from not letting go?
• What lessons has this brought me?
• Am I still making the same mistake? If so, how can I stop?
• At the moment this happened was I doing my best?
• What was the value behind the regret that was violated? Do I need to fix that now?

A Couple of Things to Keep in Mind

• The bigger the event you regret, the longer it will take to get past. Be okay with this. Keep doing the work and you will get there.
• You cannot change the past. When you find yourself obsessing over this, stop and do a mindfulness exercise that brings you back into the present moment. If this doesn’t work, it may be time to work with a counselor.
• Be careful of making assumptions while you are trying to understand it. Keep asking yourself why as you journal through it.

Give yourself time, and you will overcome your regrets and move forward with life.