Hello, hello, hello, my beautiful friends. I hope you’re doing well. 

We are recovering from a house full of COVID from the past week or so. Amazingly, the only one that didn’t get COVID was my 4 year old.  And the only rationale I have is that he is basically like a feral honey badger which are immune to just about everything. 

But other than that, we’re all doing well. 

And I hope you all are doing well and staying healthy and safe. 

Today we are talking about regret, which is something that comes up for most everyone! 

Now, a quick trigger warning. I am going to be talking about termination in this episode. I won’t spend a whole lot of time on it but I think it’s important that you all know it’s going to be discussed. 

A few areas where regret comes in with the clients that I have and other women that I have talked to is like, We should have started earlier. We should have gone to the dr sooner, or many you had a termination prior to your infertility journey and there’s a lot of shame and regret tied into there. Maybe you had a miscarriage and opted for medical intervention and there were complications from that, or vice versa, you didn’t opt for medical intervention and there were complications. Regret can truly come from any thought but these are the ones that I hear most frequently. 

So I’ve coached so many people who tell me about something from their past, something that they did or something that they didn’t do and then they tell me that they feel regret. Now, it’s very important that you understand that your regret is not coming from the thing that you did, or the thing that you didn’t do, or the thing that happened in the past. It is not coming from the past. Regret can’t come up from the past and jump inside your body and make you feel anything. 

The regret that you are feeling right now is coming from a sentence or thought that you are thinking right now about the past. But many of us believe when we’re feeling regret that that sentence or thought is important or useful to think about. And I want to offer to you that that is a lie. It is not important or useful for you to walk around thinking about the thing that you did, wishing you hadn’t done it. Or thinking about the thing you didn’t do questioning whether you should have done it and generating regret for yourself. It’s not important and it’s not responsible or useful in most cases. 

I don’t typically give absolutes and say that it’s never useful because who knows, we really have to take a closer look to determine. But I will say that I can’t think of one time right now off the top of my head when regret would be useful or responsible. I know it feels that way, I know it feels like you need to punish yourself. But you don’t. 

Regret does not make what you did in the past right, or wrong, or anything else. All regret does is punish you and diminish your ability to be resourceful and creative and impactful today and going forward. That’s it. And it just makes you feel bad. 

So let’s use an example of not starting trying earlier or not going to the dr sooner, because they are typically related. Now, first off, these are lies. Like out and out lies. Bc they pre-supposes that there is a perfect time to start trying and a perfect time to seek out medical help. BUT that eliminates the nuance in literally everyone’s lives. 

So let’s take starting earlier- what is earlier? Give me a time frame. 5 years earlier? Were you in a place where starting a family was a safe option? Mentally? Emotionally? Physically? Financially? If you think back 5 years ago, did you WANT kids. I know you desperately want that now and sometimes when we look back we can conflate our current desires with our past but really think about it- were you even considering kids 5 years ago?

We need to acknowledge that time scarcity is a REAL thing that plagues the infertility community. It isn’t a figment of our imagination, but scarcity is typically a manifestation of wanting control. Of wanting to feel safe. Scarcity doesn’t feel safe. Typically when we feel that urgency of doing something of getting something, it is because of how we think it will make us feel. And that comes with family planning, money is a HUGE source of scarcity. Now, I am not discounting that there are concrete scarcity concerns in this world (food, shelter, potable water) but that’s not what we’re talking about. We’re talking about a mental construct of scarcity that we experience during infertility. 

Then there’s this idea of we should have gone to the dr sooner- what would that have looked like? Give me data. We have typically frameworks for when to seek out medical professionals, right. We have if you’re below 35 and you’ve been actively trying for 1 year to seek a professional, 35-40 it’s 6 months and above 40 its 3 months- however, that is a framework. Not everyone chooses to follow. Again, because there is nuance in this world. Were you in a place financially to afford seeking out medical interventions? Were you in a place where you believed that to be necessary? You know I think I was at the dr the moment the clock struck one year on us trying- but that’s not the case for everyone. And that’s perfectly fine. It’s not meant to be for everyone, it’s a guideline. 

I will ALWAYS stand by the belief that the decision you make it the best decision because it was the one you made with the information you had available to you at the time. Now, we are socialized and conditioned to second-guess and not trust ourselves as women- thank you diet and beauty culture for the constant bombardment of how we have all of these flaws and someone else knows how to “fix them” – but I digress and you all know that I could digress on that one for a while, but it still stands true. 

And that goes for any of the other examples I gave earlier.  A Big one is termination, for literally any reason. This is a judgement free zone. There are reasons for termination medically and personally and it’s not my place to decide what is just and what it not. But there is a lot of guilt and shame that is carried by women with a history of termination, regardless of being on an infertility journey now, or not. There’s a lot of thoughts like, “I had my chance” or “that was my only shot”

Now, the reason I say that it’s not useful or responsible for her to walk around thinking that is because I don’t have a time machine. Do you have a time machine? If you do then maybe we want to feel regret. Regret might be useful in that particular situation. Maybe we want to go back in time and not have that termination procedure, or not do something else, or do the thing that we think we should have done. But if you don’t have a time machine then I see zero point in feeling regret. Regret does not make you a better person today. Regret does not help you find better resources, solutions, or peace. So that’s lie number one- regret is not as useful as your brain believes it is. 

And this rolls right into the second lie of regret which is that you should just feel it. I’ve heard clients say different versions of this, it sounds kind of like it’s just not fair for me to not feel it. It’s not right for me to let it go. I don’t deserve to not feel terrible because of whatever it is that I did or didn’t do in the past. I don’t deserve better. There is this idea that you deserve the punishment of regret- you might not think about it in that way, but that can be what’s happening. 

And this is again a toxic trap you guys, this is what culture and our primitive brains want you to believe. It’s like, “You don’t deserve to feel any better. You screwed up. You’re not a good person clearly”, because if you believe that guess what you’ll create? That, you will create evidence for that, you’ll continue to be that in some version or other. It will keep you stuck if you can believe that. So you don’t have to earn the right to feel good, my friends. And you don’t have to punish yourself by feeling bad. That doesn’t make amends for anything, it really doesn’t. 

And the third lie- which really relates to lie #2 is If I don’t feel regret then I’m going to keep making mistakes, maybe even that same mistake. This comes up a LOT in weight loss. Like ALL the damn time.  If I did something that I think was terrible and I don’t feel regret then I’m going to keep doing that thing. And that’s where again I would say that’s a lie, complete lie. Do you know why we do ‘bad’ things? Because we feel bad, I know that sounds really overly simplified. It’s the truth. We don’t do ‘bad’ things when we’re feeling good. I keep putting bad in quotes because bad is subjective. WE have all kinds of verbiage around this when we talk about diet and exercise. I fell off the wagon. I screwed up and ate XYZ, I didn’t go to the gym before or after work yesterday. Like your brain will come up with a TON of these examples. Maybe it’s not diet, maybe its supplements or you have a really big goal this year or something.  But it’s just not true. No one ever became the best versions of themselves, by kicking the shit out of themselves. Now, it’s absolutely true that you can lose weight, exercise, get pregnant, achieve a goal by kicking your own ass, by white knuckling it, but why would you want to if there is a different way? If that different way is with love and compassion for yourself- that actually feels good. 

Every one of us gets to decide what is good, what is bad, what is our best behavior, what is sabotaging behavior, what is morally right and wrong. All of that’s up for grabs but even if you want to decide that was bad, that was wrong, that was evil, or that was just not what I want to do going forward. Feeling bad doesn’t generate useful behavior going forward. It makes it much, much harder going forward. 

It is not required to feel regret in order to completely abandon some kind of behavior that isn’t serving you. You can feel commitment instead. You could feel curious instead. You could feel motivated or inspired instead, and any of those will take you 10 times further than regret. 

Alright, the regret lie number 4 is that it’s just something that happens to us. 

Now, this one can be a little elusive so stay with me. I’ve coached a lot of people who talk about spending so much money on acupuncture, supplements, energy healing, coaching, nutritionists, invasive testing at their request, international consultants for like specialty things like uterine biomes, all kinds of things. Now, let me make sure and level-set I don’t think any of these things are wrong or superior to one another or anything. This isn’t about the “thing” it’s about this belief of “I don’t want to regret NOT doing something.”

What they’re telling me is that they believe that regret is just something that would happen to them and that it would be a result of something outside of them or something from their then past, which is not true. Regret doesn’t just happen to you. Regret is something you create within you with your brain, with the story you believe. 

Again, this is not a jab at any of the things that I mentioned, IVE done several of those things. It’s this belief that if you DON’T do them you’re going to open the door up to beating yourself up over it. THAT’s the optional part. If you believe that regret is just some inevitability based on “right” or “wrong” choices, then it means that you are MUCH more susceptible to believe the first 3 lies about regret and that cycle is not likely to end. This like that if I don’t do something then I will regret it, well, that already feels kind of terrible, right? It already feels pressured, stressed, and maybe a little obligatory. But you are still choosing to do those things, right? Whatever it is, you can choose to do everything I listed and more WITHOUT it being under the pretext of “well, if I don’t do this then I will regret it” right you could simply reframe it to “I’m choosing to do these things to give myself XYZ- right whatever, a better shot, a more balanced experience, more support during this process”-whatever your reasoning. 

It's always your choice. 

You can choose right now you guys to not regret the past, if you choose to never think about things in a way that generates regret. You can just decide right now that no matter what, in 10 years when you look back on the decision that you made right now, that you will get your back and you will say, “Hey you, I got you. Thank you past me for making what seemed like the best choice. I have zero regret. I’ve got your back.” 

Ok, so those are the 4 lies about regret. 

And I think another quick aspect about regret, outside of the lies that our brains believe about it, is that we tend to hold ourselves to the standard of knowledge that we have NOW, to when we made that decision. I’ve heard so many of my clients say, well, if I had known what I know now- but bae, you DIDN’T that’s the point. You didn’t know what you know now. Lived experience is the best, and often most excruciating, teacher. It doesn’t mean you did anything wrong. 

When I am teaching my cleints about regret, I will often draw a pie graph, very poorly but my clients are incredibly gracious. But I want you try to visualize a pie graph or if you are some place that you actually draw one, give it a try. It’s a great reminder. 

Draw a big circle- then I want you to divide that circle by about 75%, 15%, and 10%- if my math is mathing, that’s 100%. 

Ok, in that section that is 75% I want you to write or to visualize the phrase, what we don’t know, we don’t know. The VAST majority of our current experience we try to make decisions on for the future based on incomplete information. We don’t know what we don’t know. That’s not a crime. It’s not intentional. If you waited to have children until your late 30’s bc you had no reason to suspect there would be any trouble- it was because you didn’t know what you didn’t know. That’s not a character defect. 

Now, for the 15% I want you to write – what you know you don’t know. This is the VERY small percentage of things that you are acutely or consciously aware of that you don’t know. Again, it’s not a problem, it just is. 

And then for that 10%, I want you to write “what you know”- this, this tiny pie sliver is actually what you know. It is dwarfed by the amount of things you don’t know that you don’t know.

So stop! Stop holding yourself to a standard that you had no idea existed at that time. Regret has zero value add in your life. Don’t believe the lies about regret. It doesn’t make you a better person, you don’t deserve the punishment, it doesn’t “keep you in line,” and it’s not just something that happens to you. 

Alright my beautiful friends, that is what I have for you today. No regrets. Let’s instead, think about who we want to be today and who you want think about and be going forward. It’s such a better use for your brain. Ok, have a great week. And I will talk to you soon.