Dealing With Regrets
How do you handle regrets?
When my husband died I was flooded not with the things I did right, but with everything I did wrong…alllll my shortcomings that I hadn’t yet mastered. For me what’s made regrets difficult to get past is not having the opportunity to say “I’m sorry” or to be better and do better for my husband.
But I am making progress in that part of this journey This past week I finally felt peace from the regrets…gratefully.
I read something from Henry David Thoreau tonight. He wrote about making the most of our regrets and never smothering our sorrows, but tending to them until they change and complete us. He said, “To regret deeply is to live afresh.” In retrospect, I think I have done just that.
You see, I’ve learned that regret, if it presents itself, is not something bad nor something to avoid. Regret is a teacher of sorts to invite in…not as a permanent resident, but as a temporary visitor. Regret is an emotion that helps us to reflect, be introspective, and then bring about change. Then, having changed, we move forward in life a better, more complete version of ourselves.
We cannot go back and do differently, and that we must with time learn to accept. We are here rather to live, to learn, and to move forward ever wiser and shining ever brighter, and in doing that? There really is no reason or room for regrets.
That is my aim; that is my goal!
