Ep. #4: Regret and our Past

In this episode, we examine what it means to have regret and the other underlying emotions of regret. I use the story on which the movie Arrival is based ("The Story of Your Life" by Ted Chiang) to reframe our perceptions and feelings of regret. It's possible to accept regret as just a part of our journey and our story without giving weight to it. I also talk about using storytelling and writing in the third person to work through our interpretations of the past, present, and future. Memories are just thoughts and stories selected and assembled by our brain. So, we get to decide how we want to tell the story of our past and how much meaning we want to give to moments and feelings of regret.

Transcript

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Welcome to unleash your inner power with Dr. Janny Chang, the podcast that helps women from all walks of life use thoughtworks research and storytelling to help rewire your brain and kick outs in your personal and professional life. Hello there, my queens, thank you so much for joining me in this podcast. This is Dr. Janny Chang, and I am a life coach. I am on podcast number four. And this is going to be focused on regret in our past. So I had actually written copy for this podcast around my birthday, I just turned 41 years old, I can officially say I'm not in my 40s. I don't know if anyone else can relate. And I deliberately choose to go all out on my birthdays, that's my birthdays, my husband's birthdays, my kids birthdays, we go all out because it's just, it's just so fun and festive to celebrate. And I think especially as we get older, I think it's the realization that life is short. And that any momentous occasion that we can use to celebrate that we should write. And so I make that conscious decision to do that. And it's also a time for me to reflect on my life where I am right now and where I want to go, and where I've been in the past on my journey. And so that made me think about regret. I also just had a wonderful day and my birthday, took the day off for my nonprofit full time job. And read books on psychology and coaching. And my husband, I got a Thai massage, it was glorious. You know, we hadn't gotten a massage since last March. So it was just an amazing day, I spent time with my kids, we took them to the county fair. It was just perfect. It did go and pass by pretty quickly though. But I'm just I'm happy to be here I actually, you know, had written an outline. And I was thinking thoughts about this before my birthday and also during my birthday and then basically started from scratch afterwards after my birthday. So just so you know, though, I have deeply reflected on this, this topic of regret in our past. And so I wanted to bring and share with you my thoughts in this podcast. Now I am going to refer refer to in this podcast, the movie arrival. And you may have seen that it's one of the movies that is probably one of my favorite all time philosophical movies, and I love it so much. Also, because I think the main character, Dr. Louise is a linguist. And what she does in the film and trying to understand the this group, the alien group called the hepta pods is very much what anthropologists do is trying to understand the language and the culture of this group. And this movie arrivals actually based on a short story by Ted Chang. And I'm going to refer to that too. And it's it was such, in fact, I think it's actually better than the movie in the sense that you can read the thoughts of Dr. Louise and it's about also the way that time moves back and forth in the story. And that really gives you a sense of the circular sense of time, which I'll I'll talk a little bit more about. But first, before I dive into that just about regret, I want to just talk about regret in general. And there are different ways we can feel regret about the past, we can feel regret because of something we did or didn't do. In this case, I think reflect can be instructive and it can propel us to action. Now. We can also feel regret because of something that happened and how we handled it in response. Maybe in retrospect, we feel like we could have behaved in a different way. And that would have produced a different outcome. So it seems underlying this type of regret are other possible emotions like shame and guilt, yearning and histologia. So when I deal with clients who have regret, I would dig deep into uncovering those layered emotions, whether it's shame about something in the past that we did or didn't do, or even something that happened to us that's making us hide and secret or That feeling of regret is bound up with a yearning or nostalgia for how things were in the past and should be now. Now I've read quite a number of books recently on regret. And although nearly all of them examine regret in a very nuanced way, which deeply impressed me, I want to offer a way of thinking of regret, that is a little more radical and applies to all forms and nuances of the emotion. And it goes to the heart of the movie arrival, which is based on the short story by Ted Chang called the story of your life. Now, the story, the core of the story, is that it's about freewill, and knowing the future and of course, regret. So Dr. Louise is a linguist I've mentioned, she's introduced to this alien group called the hepta pods. And she learns the language and their culture like an anthropologist, and she immerses herself so deeply that she starts to think the way they do. And they have a very different sense of time, and that it's not linear, like beginning middle and end, but rather circular. They have knowledge of the past, present, and future all at once. And she calls it a simultaneous mode of consciousness. It's revealed in the story, that Louise also adopts this circular sense of time, and that she knows her future is going to be filled with loss, loss of her husband, and loss of her daughter, but that she makes the same exact decisions to be with her husband and bring her daughter into this world, even though she knows there will be loss. So I'm going to refer to some quotes that Ted Chang writes in the short story that are just so powerful to me. So he writes, what if the experience of knowing the future changed a person? What if it evoked a sense of urgency, a sense of obligation to act precisely as she knew she would? Now later on Louie says herself, she, it's because the short story is actually in, a lot of isn't in her first person. And she says, Now that I know the future, I would never act contrary to the future, on meeting her husband, and knowing that she would split up with him later on, and that her daughter would die. Louise, still makes the same decisions, right? And she says, From the beginning, I knew my destination, and I chose my route accordingly. But am I working toward extreme of joy? or pain? Will I achieve a minimum or maximum? These questions are in my mind, when your father asks me, do you want to make a baby and I smile and answer yes. And I wrap his arms for me and we hold hands as we walk inside to make love to make you she's she's actually telling her daughter this. It's written in that poetic and first person form. Now, what Louise does that she learns from the hepta pods is no different than what we attempt to do when we try to make sense of the past and the future. Like Louise, we actually do know the future, right? We do know the future to seven, seven, we all know that death is inevitable for all of us. It's just a matter of when when we look back, how do we make sense of the past. So that's what Luis does, too, right. And we do the same thing we try to make sense of the past. We know that memories are not accurate depictions of what happened in the past. Memories are as Ted Chang writes, and another short story that he's written. This is what he says about memories. Memories are not be impartial accumulation of every second we've lived there the narrative that we assembled out of selected moments. Now I'm gonna repeat that, that last part because it is just so true, right? memories are the narrative that we assemble out of selected moments. And that's exactly what thought work is right? How we even see the past how we frame the past, are stories that we tell ourselves and thoughts that we tell ourselves, right? And that we've assembled out of the selected moments is not factual by any means. That changes the way we view regret, doesn't it? Since memories are assembled out of selected moments, we can choose which ones will be part of our narrative that changes what we know about regret because if we take what we learn from the short story by Ted Chang, then we can do side, where we choose to give meaning to certain moments, and where we don't. And even when death glares at us be inevitabilities of death in the future, we know that that's there. It doesn't take away from the meaning we've given to our past and present, what is regret them, but a tiny moment that we choose to give weight to or not? Louis certainly doesn't. And she has the foresight of the future, she knows that death is inevitable. But even then, she chooses the same path, because she also recognizes that there's beauty and pain in being fully human. And that one cannot exist without the other. She recognizes that, even though there's pain and losing her daughter, there's so much beauty in getting to know her. And all those moments, those moments that she has held on to she has chosen to assemble in her narrative. That's what's given her meaning in her own life, and also propels her to make the same decisions again, even though she knows that she will lose her daughter in the future. So she has this knowledge. So I think this can inform us on how we can view regret, right? I mean, what is regret, but a little blip in the past that we have chosen to give weight to and we can also choose not to give weight to. on a practical level, I think we can write our story of regret much in the same way Chang has done in his story. We can include snippets. And you know, you can also do this in third person forum, I like to, to write rewrite my past in third person. And you can detail the moment that spurs is regret if you have this moment of regret. That just seems to weigh on you. Go ahead and write out that story in third person. Put yourself back in that moment, what were you wearing? What were you thinking? What were you feeling at precisely this moment? then describe what's happening now as you are recalling this memory? The next snippet like a random frame in a movie is focused on the future. Imagine down the line, you're in the future? How do you see this moment regret? Imagine you're on your deathbed. How do you feel in this moment of regret? What does this regret mean to you? We're better yet even just put your imagination to use and imagine that you've been reincarnated 100 times over? What would this moment of regret, feel like to you? And what would you make it mean about you, when you don't have to resist it? resisting is like try to push it away, or you regret regretting. Right. And that just makes it worse. Okay, you can embrace it, just like with when we talked about processing negative emotions, accept it and let it pass through your body like a physical sensation. Now, this kind of reframing may seem radical and far fetched. But what it does, it takes you is what it does is it takes you out of your own mind, and shifts your mindset ever so slightly. Now, as I mentioned before, if it is something if this, this regret is something that will spur you to action, and you can still ameliorate this feeling of regret by doing something now in the present, then by all means, do that thing, take that action. And if you were my client, we'd work on a plan. And we would go ahead and, and figure out how to go ahead and take that action. Let me just add, though, that shaming or guilting, yourself never works. I know some people think that shaming is going to get the right result. I know that some of us have felt that shame way upon us when we've been down a certain path and done the right thing, despite the shame. But I just want to say that I think it's the extra compassion and love that will more effectively spur the kind of action you want, and help you show up as the kind of person you want. Right? Because it's the internal motive that matters who you are inside. So you may take certain actions because of shame. But if it's still based on coercion and strength and extrinsic motivations, which we know don't last, then you're not really being true to yourself. Right? It's like that lack of integrity. And it also doesn't last, right? What's more enduring is when you are true to your own values. And that is about that change internally, right. And that change internally comes from self love and compassion. So have compassion for your past self, even if you made a mistake, we did something regret bless that person. That person that you may not even recognize now, because now you're a different person, right? Bless that person. recognize your own humaneness. recognize the need of that person, then what kind of feelings of validation she needed, and why she acted in that particular way. So recognize that emotional need that that drove you to that action of regret, right, and then just bless her. Give her a hug a virtual hug in your mind. Send her light and love, you know, envelop her in a glow of, you know, whatever color that is comforting to you. That's what works extra doses of love and compassion for your past self. And while you're at it, give some extra doses of love and compassion for your current judging self, right the self right now that's judging your past. So that's, I think what will make that lasting commitment to change behavior has to come from within. And it comes from that shift in your mindset, and in your alignment with integrity and the values that you have, right. But even if you make this change, I still want us to go back to Ted Chang story, the story of your life and how we can apply it to our own lives when we experience regret. what it has to do, is has everything to do with how we choose to assemble those moments and attribute meaning to them. Right. So therefore, regret is an optional thought. It's a story we've told ourselves, when we've neglected to see the end destination, love amidst pain and death, love that is accompanied by loss because we all experience loss. But loss doesn't negate the power of love and all the beautiful parts of life that we've experienced along the way. Right think about also all the great things that the marvelous things that happened from that moment regret until now. And even into the future, right from that moment of regret until now and even into the future. If you didn't make certain decisions, we don't know how the future would have turned out how the present day would have turned out, right? Because by racing that moment, you're also raising all the good things that happened between now I'm not trying to silverline this, I'm not trying to say, let's put a positive spin. I'm trying to say let's just look at things. Just entertain ourselves and look at things a different way. Because just by looking at things a different way can help shift our mindset ever so slightly. So what I'm asking you is what if the one thing that lies the ties the Sorry, excuse me? What are the one thing that ties the past, present and future together is that free will means we will choose the same path that we will always choose love, even in this messy and complicated life filled with pain and joy. And that we get to choose how to write and interpret our own stories. Because at the end of the day, memories are stories selected and assembled by our brain. And that even though regret is part of being human, right, it's it's just it's normal to have regret. We can decide where it fits into our story and our journey. Alright, that's it for today. I know this is a little bit heavily philosophical. I like to refer to literature and types of readings that I'm engaging in, that I think just strengthens the thought work method that we're using. right because that work is is the same thing, right? It's whether it's focused on the past or the present or the future. It's about the thoughts and the stories that we choose to tell ourselves right and that we shouldn't believe everything our brain tells us and as we see here, even regret that's based on memories, or memories are faulty right. They're not accurate depictions of the past. They We've already been filtered by our brain. So how reliable are they so when we regret something, we've just automatically assume it's based on truth, the way that our mind has seen the past, but we know that memories aren't reliable. And we've had deja vu, I think you've experienced that. Or we know that as we get older, or you know, you've had just like memories, I know that there were certain things I remembered, you know, when I was 10, about my elementary school, that totally changed when I was 18. versus when I was 30. You know, the memories, even though it's not the same exact place the same even the same moment, it just keeps changing as I get older, as I as I as I also accumulate other experiences, right? So even then we can see that the brain is not reliable when it comes to the way we remember the past. So, in that sense, though, it does give us the power to go ahead and choose how we want to interpret the past. And how we want to also interpret and give meaning to the sense of regret, feeling of regret, right, because in the bigger scheme of things, I think in Luis and Luis his case, in this short story, she focused on the meaning of life. For her it was that overwhelming love that she had for her daughter, and even the short lived, I think you would have the short lived relationship she had with her husband, but it was still based on love. And that gave meaning to everything, including the loss, right. And so that is what enabled her to make the same decisions again, even though she could predict the future, she knew it would happen. So it's just the way to look at it. And to look at our past, I think that we, if we take the story, and we apply it to any kind of regret, we feel, you know, it can shift the way we look and examine our own regrets, right. And also this underlying feelings of shame or guilt or blame. Right. All right, well, thank you so much for tuning in. You know, as always, I would love to hear from you. Please email me with your stories or any sort of feedback you have or any thoughts you have that regret. I love talking about this kind of stuff. So you email me at Janny Chang one@gmail.com, check out my website, www dot Janny chang.com sign up for a free consultation with me, I would love to work with you. If any of this resonates with you. If you also like to delve into literature and philosophy and thought work and anthropology all these different bits and pieces that will be would be customized to fit your particular situation and to into to help you live your best life and show up as your best self. And also just extending that self love. Right. So I think that's so important. And in everything I do in all these podcasts is that self love. And it sounds almost kind of cheesy and sounds like oh, well yeah, of course we love ourselves. Um, no, I think I think a lot of us especially as women, we're conditioned to, you know, survive and being the day to day but the self love that actually takes deliberate choice to put our priorities first and to really truly love ourselves and our my next podcast, we'll talk more about this. But, you know, I think that self love is really, I think, the crux of my mission and helping women unleash that power because your inner power depends heavily on self love and compassion. Alright, well Tune in next time and again, I'd love to hear from you. Thank you again for sharing this knowledge with me every minute. busy schedule I am grateful for you have a wonderful week, and I will hopefully hear from you soon.