February 20, 2017
Parents: don’t live in your regrets
We talk with a lot of parents in our line of business. We talk with parents who are making the incredible, selfless decision to to give their child a life they don’t feel they can provide. We talk with parents who struggled with infertility, and who are coming to adoption because their vision for creating a family had evolved. We talk with parents who have parented before, and have different ideas for how they want it to go “this time around.” And throughout all those conversations, a common theme is regret. They regret that things didn’t work out a certain way, they regret certain behaviors, or twists and turns to their story. Often they’re paralyzed by this regret, and have overblown it to such proportions that it’s debilitating. And it breaks our hearts, because in all these instances the intentions were pure and the goals were inspired. But life takes its own paths, and we have to learn to go with the flow.
Maybe you’ve had these feelings of regret about your parenting story. Here are a few tips for addressing it, working through it, and letting that go.
- Talk it out, and commit to releasing it. It’s so hard for us to move past big, emotional things in our lives when we haven’t fully processed them. If you’re harboring guilt and regret, it’s sitting in your gut, unable to leave, and it’s likely causing a lot of unnecessary stress. Choose someone with whom to share your regret, get it out in the open, and consider it released. Focus now on moving forward and living in the moment.
- Address your regret with the person it most intimately involves. Does your regret involve a birth child, adopted child, your spouse or partner, your child’s birth parents, a friend or family member? Sit down with them, create a peaceful space, and let them know how you feel — why you’ve been stuck in this place for so long. No matter how it goes, you will know that you’ve done what you can to address the situation, open up dialogue, and make your peace with someone who is part of your story.
- Journal it out. Writing about our feelings is always the best way to process what’s going on in our head. Often it sits inside us, roiling around, with no way to get out. That makes it so hard to move forward! Turning to a journal whenever you feel this regret creep in will give you the space to immediately move it out of your head and into a space where you can properly process and address it. We promise you will feel instant relief and clarity.
Have you suffered extensive bouts of regret in your life? How did you move past it?
