How do you cope with guilt & regret as you move towards old age?

I am an anxiety prone person, respond badly to stress and I worry about everything. However, I am also rational and, while some forward and contingency planning is a good idea I do realise that worrying doesn't solve or help anything and is often corrosive of one's own life and upsets others. Therefore, I try to take myself in hand and stop the stressing.

If I wake in the night now I say, 'Bad brain chemistry. Things will look better in the morning,' and distract myself with 'fluffy' topics.

I do 'the life audit' which I taught myself to do years ago. Even if bad things have happened or I have lost something I had I do the 'Pollyanna' thing and 'count my blessings'. I ask myself what's good about my life and what I value. I find I can be grateful about many things: living in a free and decent country, free healthcare , education and benefits, a pension coming at 65, a lovely house and garden, beautiful nature, reading, culture and the Arts, lovely children and so on.

Additionally, there is also the comforting idea that failures and disasters can be recovered from and even learnt from. I failed two driving tests but passed the third. I didn't get to do a masters degree but had a great career otherwise. My DD didn't get into Oxford but met the love of her life and (now) fiance at another great university at which she attained a first. My DS nearly had himself thrown out of sixth form but recovered enough to obtain a degree and a great job in a charity. And so on.

A few years back when I was teaching and heading for a breakdown and sometimes wished I could go to sleep and not wake up I forced myself to realise how devastated my family would be if I did anything silly. I said to myself that if I didn't care about my life for my own benefit I could use it for theirs. Incredibly, thinking of them gave me a purpose and cheered me up. Though retiring from teaching was the gift that went on giving!

I think that it is hard for someone like me who is quiet, reserved and had a pretty tough early life to be too optimistic but I find that making myself be positive and thankful gets me on from day to day.

The other day I watched a squirrel scampering around the pear tree and thought I was blessed.

I totally understand all these thoughts as I have had them too, but finally I am determined to take a MINDFULNESS course to learn how to put the past aside, not worry about the future and just live in the present. I hear good reports and just hope the course works for me.

I totally agree with BlueBelle...I have had CBT and am having counselling but no so called "coping strategy" can shut your thoughts off or stop those regrets etc creeping into regular dreams, which leave me drained and weepy the next day...

Hello I'm new to this forum which I am finding absolutely fantastic in its openess and the topics so varied.

I am a fairly new grandmother and relatively inexperienced but I gave a problem which someone might be able to help with. I keep having nightmares about my grandchild being kidnapped - don't know if this is common but it's really worrying me. Should say there is no issues with his parents and everyone seems happy if exhausted (they are not young parents and both work full time) They don't live nearby but we go down when we can to let them have some 'couple time'

Maybe this happens to loads of grandparents but I do hope this phase passes soon.

Dear Bee I can totally relate to your last post re having a termination as I did the same. It's only now, so many years later, that the memories have returned to bite me! We both know we can't change it, but for me it's now there niggling away. I only very recently told my sister about it ..... It was a great help to finally talk about it to someone I trust. You're very brave to be so open on Gransnet. You've helped me this morning! Thank you.

Now get yourself out in the sun for a nice lunch somewhere xx

lilyflower that is a great post. So sorry to hear your past problems, but I agree if possible the best thing you can do is live in the moment, and value all the everyday things - particularly nature: scents, flowers, trees, birdsong; these are gifts and it would be sad to miss them.

Sometimes we are in situations for the first time and react in an emotional way, which looking back could have been better. When it's the first time how do you react? With experience you may have acted differently but we learn as we go along. Be kind to yourself. Hindsight is a wonderful thing.

If only, if only, two very powerful words. If only we had known consequences of our actions so many of us would have chosen a different path in life or reacted differently in a situation. I know that with hindsight my life would have been so different. I can totally understand where bee63 is coming from. for you Bee63.

I am so sorry but I accidentally put my first post on someone else's active thread. Apologies.

Bee - having a termination is always a big decision and in the main women do not take this decision lightly. It is a profound and life-changing decision, so I am not surprised that this is preying on your mind, even after all these years.

When we look back on bringing up our children we do tend to forget or gloss over how very hard it was day in and day out....that daily stress and the need for constant vigilance and patience. Perhaps in a way you need to try and remember how very hard it is/was and why you needed to make such a difficult decision. You did what you believed to be best for your existing children in order that you could give of your best to them. A difficult but wise decision in the circumstances in which you found yourself at the time.

I think you need to imagine that you were having the same conversation with a friend in a similar situation - think what you might say to her about her decision. Then say the same to yourself. So often we are much harsher on ourselves than we are to others.

I do understand why you are finding it hard, but you can only live in the day and forgive yourself (if forgiveness is what is needed) for the past. I do not think you need to forgive yourself for the termination decision - you just need to be kind to yourself and have faith in your reasoning at the time. Please don't beat yourself up.

I really recommend mindfulness meditation. I too used to look back and worry and feel guilty about things I could have done better. I recently went on a one day retreat at the local Buddhist centre. I have techniques now to stop me doing all that worrying which is such a waste of time.

Bee I don't know your story (nor is it my business) however please maybe check you aren't depressed or/and maybe need counselling. It can catch up with us all.

I get you. I really do. Having a story of life you would read in a book and more bizarre than I too have had to have some intense specialised therapy.

Yes my adult youngsters did too experience difficulties from my experiences bought through from my difficult childhood I recreated in adulthood. However I have worked to change it all round and made my amends to them for the parts I let them down in.

It hasn't affected them long term. I have been able to support them and help them see the plus side from the experiences and so on. They have far more compassion and thought for other people, have learnt to stop and wonder a person story as to why they are as they are. For example they don't judge the homeless.

We can use all things for the good of others however minut it seems to you. I hear that you need to change around the way you think of things it seems to me.

I do voluntary work in areas that I identify with and have a heart for. It helps me also feel I am giving back to the universe and others too

Hindsight is an awesome thing and only developed with hindsight which is ofcourse the irony

i have no guilt about any of my decisions i've made over my life - and few regrets too.
i regret marrying my now ex husband but it seemed to be a good idea at the time BUT i wouldn't have my two wonderful children and four lovely grandaughters.
i was at school and living my life at a time when you did what your parents expected and, i suppose, my life was fairly sheltered [late 50s and 60s].
i don't regret the career path i chose and although i regret marrying my now ex husband and not leaving him sooner, i don't regret where i am right now.
i have made some wrong decisions but, on the whole, i'm content with my life. i don't wake up in the night full of guilt and regret.
in 1995 i was diagnosed with ovarian cancer and had to have a complete hysterectomy [thankfully no further treatment was required] so i now tend to live my life from day to day - i'm thankful to be alive and this, i think, outweighs any regrets i may have.

bee I have had many discussions about my DD's (at times difficult) childhood and there are situations which she feels I didn't handle properly (some of those I agree with though not all). The relevant thing is, she has learnt from it how she would approach these issues with her own (future) children, and I am sure yours will have too - they will have learnt not to make the same mistakes (where there were any) with their own children.

Just 're read your additional post on your termination. There is s specialist support group called REFLECT run by the Christian church (no it is not judgemental. It is supportive and non judgemental. I trained with them so I know ) It offers counselling services for anyone who has had a crisis pregnancy and also in your case those who are struggling to come to terms with a termination. Google it. They are in The UK. It maybe helpful for you to explore this in a place that you can breathe with people who are specialist trained and can help bring you the peace you deserve

Leisure - Poem by William Henry Davies

What is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.

No time to stand beneath the boughs
And stare as long as sheep or cows.

No time to see, when woods we pass,
Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass.

No time to see, in broad daylight,
Streams full of stars, like skies at night.

No time to turn at Beauty's glance,
And watch her feet, how they can dance.

No time to wait till her mouth can
Enrich that smile her eyes began.

A poor life this is if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.

William Henry Davies

Bee 63, Could you talk to some sort of counsellor about the termination ? Perhaps have a little ceremony of some sort to express your feelings. This one issue seems to be at the core of your regrets. I really feel for you.

I really don't have regrets now at all. There simply is absolutely no point in them and they serve no useful purpose.

Some 20 years ago my world fell apart, my marriage ended, my job went to pieces and I was a complete suicidal mess. I went to the railway station intent on jumping in front of an inter city train which I knew would be travelling at high speed and death would be instantaneous.

However when I went into the station to get the times I saw a train was due in heading to Devon and I had so many fond memories of family holidays there I decided to take one last look at the place.

I travelled to Devon and ended up living for two years as a hermit on Dartmoor, with no contact initially with the outside world other than buying some necessary survival gear. It was during one of my many long conversations with some standing stones that I realised regret and guilt were truly pointless emotions. There was no way I could change the past so all I could do was move on and vow to not make similar mistakes in future, and generally be a better person.

So gradually I moved back into society via spending some time as a lay brother in a Friary, eventually patched things up with my children and my ex wife who I now count as a friend. Now I have reached relative old age and I can honestly say I don't have regrets, but it was a painful process to achieve that.

And at the end of our life, we will have to account for how we lived it.

No we don'.

Sorry, last 't' in 'don't' did not register

Oh FFS Dauntless - what can you be thinking of?; though, come to think of it, I quite like the idea that you might have to account at some point for your thoughtless and unkind post.

The decisions we make are the ones that real right at the time, even though we may have regrets now. The decisions we made last week could be different than those we make this week.

That should read feel not real

That's very unhelpful and unkind.