Haunted by the Past Part 1: Guilt-Ridden Ghost

Welcome back to the Thriving with Depression Series! Thank you for joining me on my adventure! 

To view the full series, check out our archive! As a reminder to new readers, you can start anywhere, even here as articles do not need to be read in any particular order. 

Who says ghosts don’t exist? As far as I am concerned, 99% of people have been haunted. Haunted by the past that is. The 1% of people who are not haunted by the past, either have amnesia or have severe cognitive disabilities. The rest of us have been haunted by the two ghosts: the ghost of regret and the ghost of hurt. The first ghost is regret. The ghost of regret refers to things we wish we had handled differently in the past. Either we believe we did something wrong, or we just wish we would have gone down a different path when presented with the choice. The second ghost is hurt. This refers to when others hurt us, whether intentionally or not, and we are having difficulty dealing with it. 

This article deals with the ghost of regret. 

How many times do we look back in the past and regret things we did or said? Maybe we said an unkind word to someone, we failed to keep a promise, or we believe we should have said something in defense of someone else. Life moves quickly and often we have just a few seconds or a minute to respond to a situation. Per Dr. Eva M. Krockow, Ph.D., some sources suggest that the average person makes an eye-popping 35,000 choices per day. (Please see How Many Decisions Do We Make Each Day? | Psychology Today). So, is it any surprise that we make mistakes?

Regret can be paralyzing, stopping us from moving forward, stopping us from living in the present.
You can’t live in the past if you want to live in the present. That doesn’t mean you can’t ever think about the past. It is important to remember the past; especially all of the good memories and the people that we used to know. It means that you can’t let the past control you. You can visit the past; you just can’t live there. 

But our mistakes, failures, missteps are there to help us learn and grow. Life is a school. My personal opinion is that we are here on earth together so our souls can grow, to reach a higher plane of being. We are meant to make mistakes. There are two main types we make mistakes. 

• One reason is misknowledge which is a failure to understand correctly. It is when you do not understand a situation and say or do something that is considered incorrect. 
  
  
• The second reason we make mistakes is we become reactive. It is when we don’t think before we act. Sometimes we’re just tired or let our emotions get out of control. 

So, how do you get past the past?

You go back to the 3 main steps of thriving with depression:

• Step 1: Reframing your Point of View
• Step 2: Read Out Loud. 
• Step 3: Stop and Smell the Roses. 

Yes, they will work for the past, not just present issues. They will also work for worries for the future as well. Just like Dicken’s A Christmas Carol, it can work for the Spirit of Christmas Past, the Spirit of Christmas present, and the Spirit of Christmas Future. 

Let me tell you a story. When I was younger, I decided to start my own charity. The plan was to combine money from myself, family and friends and donate the cash or supplies to a different organization each month. One month I bought supplies for an organization that assists women and children in abusive situations. When I dropped off the supplies, I asked them if they needed anything else. They were desperately looking for someone to babysit the children on Wednesday nights. I offered to do it, although it wasn’t something I enjoyed or felt comfortable with. Although I have two children of my own, I never felt comfortable babysitting children under 5, unless I know the child really well. I have always been more comfortable with older children. But I felt guilty saying no, so I agreed to do it, (Never a good reason to do something). As Wednesday night came closer, I was dreading it. Wednesday came and I called and canceled, feigning illness. The next day I felt horrible. I had let down people who were counting on me. I realized that I needed to be honest about what I can and am willing to do. Doing something out of guilt and pity is the wrong reason. There are many other activities I would have been comfortable doing. This mistake helped me to learn to speak my mind, and, if I promise to do something, to follow through. If I don’t like an experience, I don’t have to repeat it. 

The reason we make mistakes is to learn. To quote Batman, Thomas Wayne says: “Why do we fall Bruce? So that we can learn to pick ourselves up”.

I reframed my negative thoughts about the event. My negative, self-punishing thought: I let someone down who was counting on me. I reframed this to: I learned to be honest. I am now comfortable speaking my mind. (I am a people pleaser, so it did take me a while to put this lesson into play on a regular basis). Being truthful alleviates my anxiety and dread about frequently doing chores/activities I don’t like. We are here to use our specific gifts; not pretend to be different people than ourselves. That doesn’t mean we won’t ever do things we dislike. I don’t recommend telling the IRS you refuse to pay any more taxes or tell a police officer that you have no intention of obeying the speed limit.  But you needlessly stop agreeing to do things out of guilt or pity. The organization would have eventually found a babysitter. There are many people who enjoy watching small children. And it would make a difference to the kids. Children are perceptive. They can tell if you are uncomfortable or don’t want to be there. And the last thing kids need is to feel like a chore. My watching them would have been a disservice. 

Important Note:
Reframing past events needs to include what you learned from the past. 

Because that is the whole purpose.
The purpose is not to rehash the past and make you feel bad about yourself. 

You need to stop feeling bad about what you don’t do well and feel good about what you can do. Let me give you a hypothetical example. Let’s say your favorite candidate of all time was just elected president. You are finally excited about the future of the country. But there is a credible threat on the president’s life. Someone close to the president plans to bomb his office but you don’t know who. So, you need a team to break into the White House to save him. (Yes, I watch too many movies. And, if you want, you can think of the president as a her). You need a team of four. You need someone who understands how security works in the White House, maybe a former secret service agent. You need someone who understands the computerized security system in the House; a computer whiz kid. You need a friend or confident of the President, someone he will listen to and believe that he is in danger. Lastly, you need an organizer/planner for the operation- someone used to managing a team with different jobs and personalities. So, let’s say you let it be known on the down low that you are looking for a team. But only computer experts show up to the interview. You don’t have a team! You can’t save the president. He will be assassinated before the end of his first month in office. Game over. 

That is why it is important we use our different talents and gifts. The world won’t work if everyone wanted to do the same job. Ok, maybe I’m being overdramatic, but you get the point. 
Regret is a complex issue and it may feel like you can’t get past the past. But it is absolutely doable. 

Remember

• Everyone has regrets.
• They are they for us to learn. Life is a school. 
• You can use the three steps of thriving with depression to help overcome it. 

Because this is such as an important topic, I will continue to discuss the topic in future articles. 

Please join me again as I visit the past.