Jan 12 • General discussion
Regret Pt 2
Regret is not automatically a problem. In fact, almost certainly a degree of regret does surprisingly have its uses. It allows us to reflect, ultimately learning from the prospect that the next time we do things differently. The trouble, on the other hand, starts when regret stops moving and starts looping, when you can’t quite let go. Instead of pointing forward, it turns inward as a negative self-reflection of whatever that feeling is, which boils up inside: embarrassment, anger, loss, guilt. For many people, regret quickly becomes tangled up with self-blame. So rather than thinking, “ahhh, that didn’t quite work the way I wanted it to,” the narrative instead shifts to, “there may be something wrong with me.” Research consistently links this kind of self-blaming regret to depressive symptoms, especially in people who tend to ruminate and sit still (Kraines et al., 2017). The decision itself fades into the background, while the emotional judgement radiates pity and remains centre stage. The mind keeps replaying the same moment, searching for a version of events where things turned out differently.
This process is especially powerful when it becomes so overbearing it causes a sense of pain. This is when regret is experienced alone. Without anyone to challenge our interpretations, we overestimate how much control we had in the first place and sink into the uncontrollable depths which our own mental health has the ability to drag us. Hindsight makes uncertainty look obvious, as if the “right” choice should have been clear all along. In reality, most decisions are made with incomplete information, altering views, competing priorities, and that good old emotional pressure which often smudges over most things. Fundamentally, when regret is held privately, these contextual details are easy to forget, and what remains is a simplified story of personal failure.
Most frustratingly of all, anticipating regret can also make decisions harder rather than easier. When people become highly sensitive to the possibility of future regret, even small choices can feel loaded, like they hold the weight of the world, when in reality, you just missed out on a catch-up with an old friend. Research suggests that the fear of regret increases decision-related anxiety, which leads to avoidance behaviours, such as delaying decisions or defaulting to the safest option available (Buckell et al., 2022). While this might reduce immediate discomfort, it often comes at the cost of satisfaction, growth, or change. Over time, people can find themselves feeling stuck, not just because they lack options, but because every option feels emotionally risky, and never having a sense of safety is a fuel of anxiety to the ultimate degree.
Frequent regret has also been linked to lower life satisfaction and poorer emotional well-being, particularly when people struggle to regulate their emotional responses (Sijtsema et al., 2022), which all links back to this growing decay in mental health we are witnessing across generations. The key distinction here is between reflection and rumination. Reflection involves revisiting the past with curiosity and openness. Rumination does the opposite. It narrows attention, magnifies mistakes where you can’t escape them, and keeps your emotional wounds open without offering resolution. The ever-present weight of regret increases as time passes. So much so that, in later life, regret has been shown to feel more permanent, tattooed in, tied to missed opportunities that cannot easily be revisited because, well, life has moved on. Research with older adults shows that chronic regret and persistent rumination are associated with these higher levels of depression and emotional distress, which is shown to spike especially when people feel they have no way to reframe their past choices (Bruine de Bruin & Dombrovski, 2016). The clear message here is that regret becomes heavier when it feels final.
What ties all of this together is isolation. Regret becomes most damaging when it is treated as a private burden, carried silently and interpreted as a personal flaw. When responsibility, uncertainty, and emotional fallout are kept entirely within the individual, regret is far more likely to erode well-being rather than support learning. This raises an important question. If regret becomes heavier when we carry it alone, what happens when it is shared?
In his book A Promised Land, Barack Obama, sorry to get political, but given the state of global civics, the greatest modern politician we have seen in years on a global stage, openly reflects on the decisions he made while in office, many of which carried irreversible consequences. Despite his position and achievements, he describes moments of lingering doubt and regret, choices he mentions that cause him to still turn over in his mind. What makes these regrets bearable, however, he suggests, is not certainty about having chosen correctly, because at the end of the day it’s likely there will never be enough evidence to always know you made the right choice, but the knowledge that these decisions were made as a union. They were debated, shared, and carried collectively. The weight of regret had therefore been spread, rather than burdening just one lone individual.
This insight matters because it cuts against a common assumption that we all selfishly hold. We tend to believe that regret diminishes with success, authority, or expertise. Sometimes, very much so, these have a comparable impact on our feeling of regret. Yet Obama’s reflections suggest something else, something bigger and what I see as far more impactful. Regret does not disappear simply because someone is accomplished. What changes is how regret is held. When decisions are made in conversation with others, regret becomes contextual rather than isolating. It remains present, but it loses its sharpest edge, that edge which causes our mental distress. Rather than that gaping wound before, it is now surgically stitched and in the healing process. No, it’s not revolutionary, but it is still important.
This same dynamic can be observed on a much smaller scale in group therapy and support settings. People often arrive carrying regrets that feel deeply personal and morally loaded. They expect judgment or dismissal, but instead, what frequently happens is a welcome sense of recognition. As stories unfold, individuals hear their own experiences reflected back through different lives and choices. The details vary, but the emotional pattern is familiar. Regret shifts from something that defines the self to something that belongs to the human condition. One person from an anonymous group in such a setting once put it simply: “Nothing anyone said fixed it, but somehow it stopped feeling so heavy.” This captures an important psychological mechanism. Community does not erase regret. It changes its meaning. Hearing regret spoken aloud normalises it, reducing shame and interrupting cycles of self-blame. What felt like a private failure becomes part of a shared emotional landscape. Community, in this case, becomes a lit candle in a dark room. Enough candles mean more light of positivity.
From the perspective of regret minimisation theory, this can be understood as a form of external emotional regulation. While the theory typically focuses on intrapersonal processes, communities act as social extensions of this regulatory system. Emotional responsibility is redistributed. Instead of asking, “How could I have done this?” individuals are invited to ask, “What can be learned from this?” Regret becomes information rather than indictment. You see the twist there from before? Shared responsibility also plays a crucial role. In collective decision-making contexts, whether in therapy groups, activist movements, collaborative projects, or that all-important uni assignment you left until the night before, setbacks are less likely to be interpreted as personal incompetence. Community psychology research suggests that groups frame failures as collective feedback rather than individual fault. This reframing protects against the kind of self-blame that fuels anxiety and depression. The emotional cost of regret is spread across the group, making it far more manageable in any context. Crucially, communities also provide narrative structure. They help people tell different stories about their past choices. Regret is not denied, but it is situated within a broader context of effort, uncertainty, and shared intention. Over time, individuals internalise these group narratives, learning to relate to regret as experience rather than error.
What Obama’s reflections and group-based experiences reveal is the same underlying truth. Regret hurts most when it is carried alone. When regret is shared, debated, and contextualised, it becomes lighter without losing its meaning. Community does not eliminate regret, but it transforms it into something that can be lived with, learned from, and, ultimately, integrated into a more resilient sense of self.
Regret, then, is not something to be eliminated or outgrown - It is part of how we make sense of our lives. The problem is not that regret exists, but that we so often try to carry it alone. When regret is isolated, it hardens into self-blame and shame, but when it is shared, it softens into something more workable.
To be clear, community does not remove responsibility or erase past choices. That will stick around. What it does offer instead is perspective (your new favourite word). It reminds us that uncertainty is not a personal flaw, that difficult decisions rarely come with perfect information, and that regret is a common response to caring deeply about outcomes. In this way, the community turns regret from a verdict into a process. Not something that defines who we are, but something that helps shape who we become. This rational signifies that the impact of the community is exponential - the even greater viewpoint is that the community can help in any context of mental health disturbance, but that's to come later.
1
0 comments
Regret Pt 2
