Regret and disappointment are both emotions that you can feel when things do not turn out the way you wanted them. For example, when you have invested some money in a company that bankrupts, you can both regret your decision and be disappointed in the outcome.
However, there are quite a few difference between them as well. First of all, regret is always linked to your own in actions, whereas disappointment can also come up outside of your doing. Secondly, in regret you have the strong urge to undo your action, precisely because you are partly responsible for what happened afterwards. In disappointment, you were more powerless over what happened, so you have more of a tendency to do nothing or get away from the situation.
When this happens, you probably have to do the work of forgiving yourself. This might help you unlock self-compassion so you can move beyond regret. Our regrets can become ruminations when we feel stuck in our present circumstances, Dr. Roese says. If the pandemic has you sitting home thinking and overthinking about regretful situations, Dr.
Roese suggests trying something new. Much like forgiving yourself might bring a little bit of peace, sometimes your regrets involve other people. If, for instance, you regret not visiting your family when you had the chance i. Other times, however, it might not be appropriate or even possible to reach out. Allan says. If you suspect that someone will genuinely benefit from your delayed apology, it might be appropriate to reach out.
It might seem counterintuitive, but if you find yourself thinking about your regrets it can help to write about them. Humans are fallible and some regret is inevitable. Let your regrets guide you to make better decisions going forward.
Telling other people about your regrets will help them too if they are faced with similar decisions. Even with a regrettable situation there will be things that you did right. Rather than dwelling on it, take positive action to right the wrongs. Amy believes that we experience more regret than we did in the past , because of the abundance of choice we have as a result of modern technology.
Choices underlie regret — so the more we have, and the more options we can see, the more chances to regret our decisions. Technology also means that we have to make much faster decisions , without perhaps putting enough time into making those choices. A recipe for regret! This man was a patient of the psychoanalyst David Morgan, of the Institute of Psychoanalysis , who spent several years helping him explore what had compelled him to work so hard and to ignore his children he has been anonymised and gave Morgan permission to use his case.
He had, unconsciously, repeated this by impoverishing his children by not being there for them, in turn impoverishing himself of these loving relationships, in his efforts to overcome the traumatic poverty of his childhood. Regret can be all-consuming, and it can destroy lives. We can see it all around us, whether it is the man who cannot forgive himself for cheating on his first girlfriend and has not had a serious relationship in 30 years.
It is not unusual for patients to seek therapy because they feel plagued by regret and unable to live full lives because of it, says Morgan, whether it is over affairs, career choices or relationships. It is self-flagellation, and it can be incredibly damaging to our mental health.
It is exhausting, it sucks all joy and fulfilment from our days and it leaves us stuck, always looking backwards and unable to move forward in our lives. The cognitive behaviour therapist Windy Dryden says that, when we are trapped in this cycle of regret, characterised by rigidity and inflexibility, we only seem able to blame ourselves for what has happened, rather than seeing our behaviour in a wider context and understanding why we took the path we did based on the information we had at the time.
Under these conditions, regret will become toxic. Yet, strange as it sounds, there are people for whom this kind of regret can become a safe haven, because it can protect them from the pain and risks of living a full life. Ready to make a fresh start, she signed up on various dating websites, and began going on first dates.
She was very preoccupied with getting into the right relationship but, unconsciously, she was doing all she could to protect herself from getting into one at all, because she was terrified of repeating the disappointment and the hurt she had already endured.
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