The stickiness of regret
Illustration by Gabriella Marsh
by Karen Fischer
In the iconic 1946 Christmas movie It’s a Wonderful Life, protagonist George Bailey’s life journey is riddled with regrets that he can’t make peace with until the climax of the film. There is the choice to wait to go to college to allow his brother to go first and realizing, when it’s his time, that it’s too late. There’s the trip to Baghdad that he never took, and the honeymoon with Mary he never had, and the opportunity to get in on the ground floor of the plastics business with his friend Sam Wainwright versus living paycheck to paycheck with his family’s business that, once again, he didn’t take.
Though viewers watching the movie can easily see the overarching message that relationships and community are the stuff that counts, one can’t help but identify with George Bailey and those inevitable forks in the road of life.
With only so many years and so much time, we’re often forced to make decisions to go one way or another. Sometimes it seems no matter which road we pick, we must say goodbye to one version of life in order to welcome another. And how we reflect on these kinds of decisions while we’re making them can be quite different from how we feel about them later when looking back.
George Bailey had a point in his languishing. Researchers have identified two different types of regret — regret from action and regret from inaction. Of the two, regrets due to inaction (chances never taken, opinions never voiced, decisions never made, etc.) are the ones that can lead to higher levels of depression.
Writer David H. Pink in his book The Power of Regret: How Looking Backward Moves Us Forward found that individual regrets largely end up in one of four categories:
Connection
These are the regrets that people tend to feel when a loved one passes away that centers actions not taken. Lana Lipe, a licensed clinical social worker (LCSW) with a private practice in Indiana, often counsels individuals grappling with loss and those types of regrets that become entangled within it.
Lipe has often observed in her work that throughout times of grief, clients often feel regret over not expressing their feelings, harboring unresolved problems, or not spending enough time with loved ones who have passed away.
Foundation
This category centers on actions not taken that will one day benefit your future self, like saving for retirement, starting a college fund, caring for your body, or getting an education. They’re often tied to time-sensitive actions and a moment that has long passed.
Boldness regrets
Similar to foundational regrets, boldness regrets are actions not taken that may have seemed unattainable or risky at the time, but later in life, one wishes they had tried. Think: moving to a new town just for fun, committing to a partner at a pivotal moment, or not taking a trip with friends to create memories for years to come. These are regrets where fear got in the way and created inaction.
Moral regrets
Ever stay up at night thinking about a time that you said or did something hurtful to a classmate as a kid? These are moral regrets, or times when you know you weren’t the best version of yourself. These are the regrets of actions you took but wish you didn’t.
Dana Carretta-Stein, a licensed mental health counselor and owner of Peaceful Living Mental Health Counseling in Scarsdale, NY, notes that there is a great deal of potential in feeling a healthy sense of regret in this type of situation.
Sometimes regret can be used positively as a learning tool for how to conduct oneself in the future,” she says. “Regret can be a mobilizing emotion to fuel someone’s motivation to change.
Handling regret in a healthy way may take time, but there are strategies that might help you to let go in a way that is useful. These may include:
Seeing the grass
What exacerbates regrets, recent research studies have found, is the idea that the grass is always greener on the other side. When there is no way of knowing what one’s life may have looked like with different decisions, the tendency to romanticize those alternate possibilities is higher.
If you have a regret centering a decision taken or not taken, try to find a way to see what that version of life could have actually looked like. That may mean talking to a friend or family member about the highs and lows of the same decision they made that fell in a different direction.
Alternatively, if you got snubbed for a job opportunity and the role was given to a different candidate, it may be worth exploring their background to see what experiences they had that ended up earning them the spot.
When you have a window into seeing or understanding a decision with clarity, it’s easier to acknowledge it for what it is and let go of personal regrets or self-blame.
Gabriella Marsh
Listen to your body
According to both Carretta-Stein and Lipe, regret is a powerful emotion that needs to be listened to.
“Shame and regret are life-preserving emotions when experienced in a healthy, rational form,” says Carretta-Stein. “The feeling of regret helps us to make informed decisions later on that will help us maintain connection with others and with ourselves.”
From Lipe’s perspective, learning from regret means practicing self-compassion and realizing that intense internal emotions are trying to help one make sense of loss.
“Regrets act like a mirror, revealing what truly matters to us and prompting self-awareness about our actions and values,” says Lipe. When grappling with intense regret, try to take a bird’s eye view to see what your mind and body may be trying to express for you to learn how to make potentially different choices in the future.
Acknowledge regret may not be worth its weight
A 2022 study on regret published with Science Advances noted that little neurobiological research has been accomplished to locate what aspects of regret are positive for people to carry along with them, which means that researchers still don’t know if it’s a productive emotion.
If you’re struggling with trying to pick apart regrets to find the lesson in them, remember that no one is keeping score. There comes a point where holding regrets is like drinking poison and expecting to not get yourself sick. If you’re making yourself sick trying to make sense of your regrets, it may be time to put the poison down.
To avoid feelings of regret in the future, Lipe recommends making thoughtful decisions aligned with values, remaining present, and considering long-term outcomes of short-term decisions.
“It's better to see experiences as lessons to learn from rather than getting stuck on our mistakes.”
Know when to seek support
While regret has its place in the emotional canon of humans, there is a line between a healthy amount of regret and an amount that gets in the way of moving forward with life.
“If you’re experiencing an unhealthy level of regret, then it’s worth working with a trauma-informed professional to unpack what that regret is connected [to],” says Carretta-Stein.
Lipe concurs that leaning too deeply into self-blame throughout processing regrets can lead to higher risks for depression, anxiety, and chronic stress. If such emotions persist, it may be time to seek out support.