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

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.

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.

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

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.

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...

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 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.

We have all made mistakes in the past...some huge, some embarrassing, some not worth worrying about. I often think how I would have done things differently but because I am happy with life as it is now I move on from these thoughts. It seems to me you are not happy and looking back brings back the negative and not the good.
Write it down to get the thoughts out of your head..I bet you'll find there will be more good than bad.

Back in the day - when very young - a teacher wrote in my autograph book (what happened to those? - Social media I guess)
"Time that is past, thou never canst recall
Of time to come thou art not sure at all,
Time present only is within thy power,
So now improve the present hour!
A long winded way of saying "Live each day as it comes" All you can do really and it's true you can't go back so try not to fret about it.

I understand totally whet you are coming from Bee but I have come to understand that we look at things from the past with our existing 20/20 hindsight and without the benefit of all the life experience that we have since had and what all of those events have taught us.
We just have to tell ourselves that this is now and that was then - very different times and nobody else will look at our lives as critically as we do to ourselves. As someone else said - do forgive yourself.

Bee, you did the best you could at the time with the best of intentions. When I mentioned to my youngest DS that I was riddled with guilt regarding his and siblings' childhoods that is what he said to me and it gave me some solace. You cannot blame yourself now for what you decided so long ago and I am sure the children you have benefitted from the love of a great mum. Forgive yourself

I always think that I did what I thought right at the time, given the circumstances and my knowledge and life experience. If anyone had told me I was doing it wrong, I wouldn't have listened anyway.
It all anyone can do; what they believe to be right.

I have no guilt and no regrets and realise I am probably a very lucky person.
When you are diagnosed with a life limiting illness it makes you focus on the important things.

I don't feel guilt. It's such a corrosive emotion. There is always a plus side to be found in any situation. If my path through life has taken what might be understood as a 'wrong' turn, for example, my marriage, which only lasted 15 years, I reflect on what I gained from it - two wonderful sons and their families. How lucky am I? Maybe I 'should have' studied law but becoming a teacher took me to a rewarding job in a beautiful and interesting part of the world. "Non, je ne regrette rien".

No, not all my decisions have been bad, I've had many successes too - but it's the wrong choices I'm now dwelling on with such guilt & regret ( a termination of pregnancy for example ) at the time I was in a very difficult place financially, wasn't coping well with the children I already had, marriage not great - but I've ridden all those storms and things worked out ok. I wish I'd been stronger at the time and kept the baby, but I panicked. That's a decision you can never 'put right' - there have been other regrets too, so I guess it just all hits you when you get to a certain age.

Write a list - every time you have a regretful thought, then write down a good thing that happened or that you did or decided. It is a good exercise and helps to focus your mind on a balance. I absolutely refuse to believe that all your decisions were bad!

Bluebell and bee63 I am with you both on this one even though I am busy and not depressed. Some times some of things I've done come back in a big hot embarrassed rush and its just like I was there all over again. I keep thinking people can see through me to the person I was rather than the person I am now.

I agree with sluttygran, forgive yourself , life was different then and we hopefully have got wiser with age.
If you can do something to help others now you will have some good things to think about.

I do sympathise, Bee - I'm just the same!
If the bad decisions I made in the past had only affected me I would just shrug and get on with it, but they affected my children, who still live with the bad memories, and I find it very hard to live with the guilt.
I comfort myself by thinking that I did the best that I could manage at the time - and hindsight only came later !
I still find that guilt is a very painful emotion which has, at times, made me feel deeply depressed, but hey, I've never done anything illegal, and I'm sure that you haven't either, so maybe we should forgive ourselves and seek reconciliation with those we feel we may have wronged.

As momb says, you can learn from a bad decision, and who has not made them? The thing that haunts me are the occasions (mercifully few) in my life when I have let people down. Increasingly in recent years, those occasions hang round my neck like an albatross.

I think it's fair to say that there are some personality types who do live in the past inasmuch as they just can't let go and move on. This can be highly debilitating and cause mental health issues.

Almost everybody has 'regrets' and some have had terrible things happen in their lives, over which they had no control.

Do you only think of things that you regret bee

I think it would be strange not to reflect on things we could have done better but the bigger picture is what counts.

In my case, I do have regrets but on the whole I think I've done alright.

I don't suffer from guilt bee63 as I don't honestly think I could have done any more for my family than I have done (in the past and present) . As for regrets ( in the words of the song ) I have a few . Regrets that I made wrong decisions in life . Like you I do look back and think "if only I had done this or that differently" or whatever but no point in dwelling on those things now.

And there are those who refuse to wallow in their emotions.

Sometimes we learn from bad decisions and grow from experiencing difficult times. Hopefully learn more empathy and tolerance. There are very few people who sail through life without some bad/sad things happening.