A few months into the lockdown I realized that my growing hopelessness was directly related to not just the uncertainty of the COVID-19 Pandemic but the fact it had taken so many of my choices away.  The small choices of everyday life.  And the more these small choices rolled away into the past, the more my basket of regrets grew in size and weight….

Soon this basket of regrets was all that I was holding onto.  Even brooding about.  Constantly looking back on my life.  Regretting decisions taken long ago.   It seemed as if all the wrong stuff of the past had come to roost inside my head and made it near impossible to remain happy and hopeful in the lockdown.  Yes, there were practical reasons for unhappiness.  Yes, there was the financial impact.  Yes, there was a negative impact on work.  Yes, there was disruption of life.

And here I was, simply adding to it all by wallowing in it night and day.  ‘Soon I was going to get a crick in my neck with this gazing back into the past’, I thought morosely to myself.  It was time to get over it.

You and I often turn back in our thoughts and in our mind.  Our regret is often erosive and sets up roadblocks to our progress in life.

Looking back is looking back on life and looking back on time.  It is that moment of regret which whispers softly within, ‘if only’.  Why didn’t I accept that job offer?  Why didn’t I complete my project in time?  Why didn’t this, that or the other?  Why did I not take this opportunity and why did not I do this while I was still working with XYZ?  We are in a state of self-blame and regret over something that has passed us by.  Whatever has passed by becomes even more precious, way better, more delicious, more rewarding and perhaps just the very best thing we could have done ever.  The very best that happened to us.  This sets up a pattern of thinking that hijacks our physical brain for a time.  Converting it into stress and brings about a feeling of helplessness in life.

This happened with me in June 2014.  India’s largest, biggest corporation flew me down to Mumbai for a chat at their head office and we shook hands over a CHRO role for their newly acquired huge media business.   The job offer reached me the following month.  The only condition was that I must join within one week or less.  Having successfully argued my case for a significant increment at my then employer, having also accepted a performance bonus I felt that a 5 days notice to join a new organization was not professional.  It was simply not a decent thing to do.   And so I let this opportunity go.  Yes,  I let the opportunity slip past.   And in a twist as worthy of a Bond movie as of real life, I had a falling out with the Chairman of my then company within one month of having declined that offer.   And it was evident and clear that I will be leaving the company shortly.  With or without a job in hand.

I would mentally re-live the moment of declining the new offer, the new opportunity countless times a day.  Innumerable times a night even while sleeping and most certainly, while tossing and turning.  My sense of regret was enormous for a long time.  What had happened with me was certainly troubling but I was torturing myself even more by reliving the past again and again.  Saying to myself, ‘if only I had accepted the offer in June, if only..’. And as my then working environment somehow went from bad to worse, the feelings of regret and reliving the lost moments, deepened.  Adding to the regret was the feeling that I didn’t really deserve what happened.  After all, I was actually doing the right thing by my current company.

How could I move from this feeling of being mentally frozen and stuck in regret?

I knew I had to get it right.  The first effort was to create an immediate goal, rather goals, on which to focus my energy and therefore my thoughts.  To give the circling thoughts a pause.  To provide something important and different to my brain and actually shift from stress to ease.   How interesting it is to learn that our thoughts are in direct communication with our body’s chemicals and hormones!  And shifting focus also changes the stress chemicals in our body.

I got out my trusted companion (my diary, no less!) and wrote out a fresh set of personal and professional goals.   Some things needed to be done immediately and some of them were longer term.  The beauty of small immediate goals is the keen focus they are able to provide us.   And when we complete the short-term stuff, it lends such energy to transform, to change our stressful thoughts.

I have learnt, the hard way J, that a small powerful technique to stop regret from overtaking me is to literally tear it all up.  Just tear up the regret, the whole experience around it.  Write down the negative experience.  Write also your stress filled and negative thoughts.   Honestly.   And then take a good hard look at the whole thing you have written.  Read it.  And tear it to bits.  That’s right.  Tear it up into little itsy-bitsy bits and throw it out.  Experts can sometimes also tell you to burn this piece of writing and that is a very powerful way of getting rid of it.  But the safety elements involved are so many in burning a page that tearing it to itsy bitsy bits is preferable.

So now you know that when regret strikes, you need to follow these two simple steps – give the mind and the physical brain something else to focus.  Concretely focus on.  And the second, burn it safely after writing it or tear it up.  With energy.  Both will help you get over it.