It happens to everyone: we missed good opportunities or made decisions that negatively affected our lives. And, looking back at the past, we fall into longing for the unfulfilled, or, conversely, we blame ourselves for the unsuccessful development of events. Three tips will help you get off repeating the same route and see new perspectives.
Without analyzing the mistakes made, you can repeat them over and over again. But what if we tend to cycle on the past? There is a huge distance between analyzing the causes of failures and getting stuck in the endless playing of the same disc "but if I were then".
The caveat against such a fixation is literally as old as the world. The biblical myth about Lot's wife, who broke her promise not to look back at the walls of her native Sodom and turned into a pillar of salt, can be read as a parable that teaches us not to look too much at the past.
However, the millennia that have passed since the creation of this myth have not changed the human tendency to yearn for something that no longer exists.
Perhaps only the time machine in science fiction novels is capable of transporting us into the past. Becoming the author of a book with a similar plot is almost the only excuse for mentally fixing on situations that are left behind. By the way, and a good cure for melancholy. But only a few people write novels, and those who are mired in fruitless regrets about their former helplessness cannot be counted.
TIP ONE: TAKE A STEP
Recommendations of experts can be reduced to a single instruction: "get up and go."
At first glance, these words seem to be too general a wish. Where to go and why, we ask ourselves, and for the thousandth time we plunge into a quagmire of painful memories. However, psychotherapists do not in vain recommend an increase in physical activity as one of the first steps to overcome life crises.
You go out into the street, you see a bird, a dog, a child on a bicycle, a grandmother with Nordic walking sticks, measuring steps forward and further. Look at all this and gradually enter into the present.
When you spot a sparrow on a branch, you take a step towards discovering the opportunities that your work, hobbies, friends and even foes offer.
It's also a good way to avoid the pessimist role that Oscar Wilde wittily describes: "This is the man who complains about the noise when luck knocks on his door."
You have returned from a walk, from a theater, an exhibition hall - and you felt that the world is rich and diverse, and a little opened the grip of exhausting thoughts about your mistakes in the past. Do not miss this state, use it for your own good.
TIP TWO: GIVE YOUR PAIN TO PAPER
Write down your past decision or situation that you deeply regret, says clinical psychologist Laura Reagan. Determine why you think about it so much. What exactly are you regretting? The consequences of your past actions or inaction have caused problems in your life?
Write down why you did it this way and not otherwise. Try not to judge, but to empathize with yourself.
Reagan gives an example of how to describe a traumatic situation in order to get a positive result, using the example of regrets about an abusive relationship: “N and I started dating, and he was very kind to me. I wanted to trust him and did not recognize the warning signs when he got angry and behaved in a frightening and aggressive manner.
This is understandable given the fact that my father behaved the same towards my mother when I was growing up. I didn't have a model of respectful romantic relationships that would help me recognize the unhealthy dynamics of my relationship with N. "
TIP THREE: TURN PAST MISTAKES INTO THE SOURCE OF YOUR DEVELOPMENT
Consider whether you will do something differently if you find yourself in a similar situation in the future. Write down your answer. Focus on controlling your regret today.
Write down one or two changes you can make and steps you can take to achieve them. For example, Reagan suggests, if you regret a past relationship, you should analyze those moments, stages, parts that traumatized you. By doing so, you will define the boundaries that you would like to set in future relationships.
Reagan emphasizes that our regrets often have layers that are unnoticed and unrecognized by us. They are made up of fears and feelings of shame about who we were if it didn't fit with who we wanted to be.
We think about our past, about right and wrong choices. It is necessary to realize and accept that the wrong steps are not only possible, but also must be done as often as the right ones. We are made to make mistakes as well.
If the reactions of our brain were reduced only to the optimal solutions in each situation and never confused illusions, trust in deceivers, choice of dead-end paths and wrong turns at the forks, then we would remain the same today and forever. We would be deprived of the opportunity for development, ossified or turned into the very pillar of salt.
But, fortunately, people can be wrong. Let's thank ourselves for our mistakes, look at the sky and take the next step.
Without analyzing the mistakes made, you can repeat them over and over again. But what if we tend to cycle on the past? There is a huge distance between analyzing the causes of failures and getting stuck in the endless playing of the same disc "but if I were then".
The caveat against such a fixation is literally as old as the world. The biblical myth about Lot's wife, who broke her promise not to look back at the walls of her native Sodom and turned into a pillar of salt, can be read as a parable that teaches us not to look too much at the past.
However, the millennia that have passed since the creation of this myth have not changed the human tendency to yearn for something that no longer exists.
Perhaps only the time machine in science fiction novels is capable of transporting us into the past. Becoming the author of a book with a similar plot is almost the only excuse for mentally fixing on situations that are left behind. By the way, and a good cure for melancholy. But only a few people write novels, and those who are mired in fruitless regrets about their former helplessness cannot be counted.
TIP ONE: TAKE A STEP
Recommendations of experts can be reduced to a single instruction: "get up and go."
At first glance, these words seem to be too general a wish. Where to go and why, we ask ourselves, and for the thousandth time we plunge into a quagmire of painful memories. However, psychotherapists do not in vain recommend an increase in physical activity as one of the first steps to overcome life crises.
You go out into the street, you see a bird, a dog, a child on a bicycle, a grandmother with Nordic walking sticks, measuring steps forward and further. Look at all this and gradually enter into the present.
When you spot a sparrow on a branch, you take a step towards discovering the opportunities that your work, hobbies, friends and even foes offer.
It's also a good way to avoid the pessimist role that Oscar Wilde wittily describes: "This is the man who complains about the noise when luck knocks on his door."
You have returned from a walk, from a theater, an exhibition hall - and you felt that the world is rich and diverse, and a little opened the grip of exhausting thoughts about your mistakes in the past. Do not miss this state, use it for your own good.
TIP TWO: GIVE YOUR PAIN TO PAPER
Write down your past decision or situation that you deeply regret, says clinical psychologist Laura Reagan. Determine why you think about it so much. What exactly are you regretting? The consequences of your past actions or inaction have caused problems in your life?
Write down why you did it this way and not otherwise. Try not to judge, but to empathize with yourself.
Reagan gives an example of how to describe a traumatic situation in order to get a positive result, using the example of regrets about an abusive relationship: “N and I started dating, and he was very kind to me. I wanted to trust him and did not recognize the warning signs when he got angry and behaved in a frightening and aggressive manner.
This is understandable given the fact that my father behaved the same towards my mother when I was growing up. I didn't have a model of respectful romantic relationships that would help me recognize the unhealthy dynamics of my relationship with N. "
TIP THREE: TURN PAST MISTAKES INTO THE SOURCE OF YOUR DEVELOPMENT
Consider whether you will do something differently if you find yourself in a similar situation in the future. Write down your answer. Focus on controlling your regret today.
Write down one or two changes you can make and steps you can take to achieve them. For example, Reagan suggests, if you regret a past relationship, you should analyze those moments, stages, parts that traumatized you. By doing so, you will define the boundaries that you would like to set in future relationships.
Reagan emphasizes that our regrets often have layers that are unnoticed and unrecognized by us. They are made up of fears and feelings of shame about who we were if it didn't fit with who we wanted to be.
The psychologist urges us to stop being a prosecutor in relation to ourselves, because we have the right to be imperfect, to be wrong. And recognition of this fact is critical. After all, if we did not get the opportunity to make mistakes, we would never be able to do anything useful.
We think about our past, about right and wrong choices. It is necessary to realize and accept that the wrong steps are not only possible, but also must be done as often as the right ones. We are made to make mistakes as well.
If the reactions of our brain were reduced only to the optimal solutions in each situation and never confused illusions, trust in deceivers, choice of dead-end paths and wrong turns at the forks, then we would remain the same today and forever. We would be deprived of the opportunity for development, ossified or turned into the very pillar of salt.
But, fortunately, people can be wrong. Let's thank ourselves for our mistakes, look at the sky and take the next step.
