73| Reflective Self Care, Not Regrets - Look Back to Move Forward

What if the moments you once overlooked, rushed through, or even regretted are actually the key to understanding your growth, healing old wounds, and learning how to experience more self care in your everyday life right now? Learn how taking a different look at your past could completely change the way you move through your present and shape the way you build your future.

Transcript

What if the moments you once overlooked, rushed through, or even regretted are actually the key to understanding your growth, healing old wounds, and learning how to experience more self care in your everyday life right now? Learn how taking a different look at your past could completely change the way you move through your present and shape the way you build your future. This podcast is always 20 minutes or less so you don’t have to feel overwhelmed or overhaul everything in your life, but just make small, simple changes to create more calm and peace. To get to your better life, make small changes and begin to live it!

Hey friends, welcome back or welcome for the first time, thank you as always for being here. Today we’re going to get a little reflective. There’s something interesting that happens as we slow down and get reflective especially as we get older. We start looking back at moments we really didn’t notice while we were living them, and they feel different. Sometimes they feel more meaningful, sometimes they feel bigger, sometimes they feel a little bit softer and not as awful as they felt at the time. It could be a time you struggled thru but now you see what you gained from the struggle or it’s not so painful anymore. Or maybe just a random day that didn’t seem special but maybe it involved a conversation with someone who’s no longer here. At the time, those moments may have felt ordinary. You probably weren’t sitting there thinking, “Wow, this is going to become one of the most meaningful memories of my life.” You were probably distracted, stressed, rushing, overthinking, or wondering what was next. And yet years later, somehow those moments show up differently in your memory. Sometimes we don’t fully understand the value of a moment until it becomes a memory. Sometimes we need distance before we can see clearly. And how many of us spend too much time looking backward with regret instead of looking backward with curiosity and compassion. Looking back isn’t supposed to only be about replaying mistakes which I’m sure we’ve all done or are still doing. It’s also about discovering meaning and recognizing growth. It’s about finally understanding lessons that life was quietly trying to teach us all along. I think sometimes we expect ourselves to instantly understand every experience while it’s happening. We want immediate clarity, immediate wisdom, and healing. But life doesn’t usually work that way. Sometimes experiences are seeds, and seeds don’t bloom the second they’re planted. They need time, space, and nurturing. We need the seasons as much as plants do. Sometimes you don’t fully understand what a relationship meant until years later. Or you don’t understand why something painful happened until another chapter of your life opens up. Sometimes you don’t even realize how happy you were until life changes and you look back and think, “Wow… that was actually a beautiful season.”

So think about how often we survive moments we thought would break us completely? At the time we’re convinced the pain will last forever. We think we’ll never feel okay again whether it’s a relationship, a job loss, a hurt. And then one day, without even realizing exactly when it happened, we’re standing in a completely different emotional place. Not because the experience never mattered, but because time gave us perspective. There’s a quote from Søren Kierkegaard that says, “Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards.” We understand so much in hindsight. We connect dots later. We recognize patterns later. We appreciate certain moments later. But while we’re living life, we usually don’t get the luxury of fully understanding it all in real time. And maybe that’s okay because if we fully knew the purpose of every experience immediately, maybe we wouldn’t grow the way we’re meant to. Maybe part of the wisdom is allowing life to unfold before having to dissect and assign meaning from it.

I think about this when it comes to difficult seasons in my own life and I certainly didn’t understand why things happened as they did. There are things that felt unfair while they were happening that later became some of the greatest sources of growth in my life. Not because I’d ever want to relive them necessarily, but because they shaped me. They taught me empathy. They taught me resilience. They taught me boundaries. They taught me what to avoid and more importantly, what to be grateful for. Struggling on my own when I was younger taught me how strong I am. Going thru my divorce later in life taught me how to rebuild, how to find my true self but not all at once. Some lessons honestly only become visible with emotional distance. There’s also something incredibly healing about realizing you don’t have to judge your past self so harshly. Most of us did the best we could with the awareness we had at the time. We look back now with more wisdom and think, “Why did I stay there?” “Why did I tolerate that?” “Why didn’t I know better?” But the truth is, you learned by living it. You learned because you went through it. That knowledge didn’t exist in you at that time but it does now.

A study published in Psychological Science found that reflecting on difficult experiences in a self compassionate way can improve emotional resilience and personal growth. Not obsessive rumination like many of us do, not endlessly beating yourself up, but thoughtful reflection. There’s a huge difference between revisiting the past to punish yourself and revisiting the past to understand yourself. That distinction matters because regret keeps you emotionally trapped while reflection helps you evolve. One of the greatest acts of self care is learning how to look back at your life with gentleness instead of shame. To say, “I didn’t know then what I know now.” Giving yourself grace and kindness as you show up every day is essential. Every single person listening right now has moments they’d redo differently with the knowledge they have today. Every single person has relationships they handled imperfectly, opportunities they missed, risks they didn’t take, or seasons they misunderstood while living through them. That doesn’t mean your life is ruined or you’re a screw up. It means you’re learning and you’re human.

Some of the most meaningful moments in life don’t even look important at first. They sneak up on you later. Maybe it was laughing so hard with friends that your stomach hurt. Maybe it was being young and broke and eating frozen pizza on the floor of your apartment while thinking your life was a disaster, not realizing one day you’d actually miss those times. This reminds me of the Instagram posts on the last times. They’re funny in that it’s a mom who doesn’t realize the last time they pick up their child is the last time, or it could be an adult child who doesn’t remember the last time they sat on their parent’s lap and so as and adult they try to fit themselves in their dad’s lap and again they don’t realize neither the parent or the adult child didn’t realize this would be their last time. But that’s the point of this reflection is that sometimes we don’t realize those ordinary times are the last times or times to really appreciate. 

Perspective changes everything. And I think that’s why slowing down matters so much. We live in a culture that constantly pushes us toward the next thing, the next goal, achievement and milestone. But sometimes in racing toward the future, we stop appreciating the present and then years later we look back longing for moments we barely paid attention to while they were happening. That realization can feel bittersweet, but I actually think it can help us live more intentionally now because once you realize how many ordinary moments later become sacred memories, you start paying attention differently. You allow yourself to slow down. You start listening more carefully and start appreciating small things more deeply. You realize life isn’t only built from massive milestones. It’s built from thousands of tiny moments that you’re weaving to become the emotional fabric of your life.

And here’s something else I think we need to remember. Sometimes we can’t fully process experiences while we’re inside survival mode. If you’re overwhelmed, grieving, anxious, heartbroken, stressed, or simply trying to get through the day, your brain and body are focused on coping, not meaning making and that’s normal. Research from the American Psychological Association has shown that emotional processing often requires both time and psychological distance. In other words, sometimes your nervous system needs safety before your mind can fully absorb the lesson. That’s why certain experiences suddenly make sense years later during entirely different stages of life. You might hear someone else’s story and suddenly understand your own. You might become a parent and finally understand your parents differently. You might heal from heartbreak and realize the relationship taught you exactly what you needed to learn about yourself. You might go through loss and suddenly realize how much beauty existed in those ordinary moments you once overlooked and then you start to pay more attention in those ordinary moments and enjoy them on a deeper level. 

And doesn’t that relieve some pressure from all of us? That you don’t need to have your entire life figured out immediately. Or that you don’t need to immediately heal, get over whatever you’re feeling or instantly transform every painful experience into wisdom, it gives us some breath, some time, that some lessons need to breathe first so release the pressure of trying to figure it out and just go with it and know that you may see the insight much later. I think back sometimes on moments that felt insignificant at the time but now feel incredibly meaningful. Conversations I barely realized were important or experiences that just seemed like a normal experience but looking back became an aha moment. And I think all of us probably have memories like that. It reminds us that life is happening all around us, right now whether life feels wonderful or you’re struggling, it’s all part of the process. That thought changes the way you move through the present. It doesn’t mean pretending everything’s wonderful all the time. Some seasons in our lives genuinely hurt. Some seasons are exhausting. And some stretch us to our breaking points in ways we never asked for and hope we never do again. But even difficult chapters can contain moments of unexpected beauty hiding inside them. Growth is realizing life is rarely all good or all bad at once. Most seasons contain both grief and beauty together but it’s always easy to see the grief isn’t it, but sometimes you need time to see the beauty.

One of the healthiest things we can do is stop trying to erase painful chapters from our story entirely. Not every difficult experience needs to become a source of shame especially if your past seasons hurt others. Some become wisdom, strength, compassion for others. Some become the exact reason you’re able to help someone else later. Have you ever noticed how the people who bring the most comfort to others are usually people who’ve lived through something themselves? I know for me having dealt with loved ones’ mental health journeys, having dealt with my own traumas, divorce, self image, whatever it was, we begin to listen differently, we understand more when we’ve gone thru those experiences. We stop judging or expecting perfection from everyone because life humble us into deeper empathy for others. And that kind of growth often only comes through reflection, not regret.

So what’s the difference as you’re thinking back? Regret says, “I should’ve been different.” Reflection says, “I learned something valuable.” Regret keeps replaying the wound. Reflection helps transform the wound into wisdom. And I know some people listening may have memories they struggle to revisit because there’s still so much pain attached to them and that’s ok, that’s understandable. Healing isn’t linear. Some experiences leave deep marks. But even then, there’s power in remembering that your past is not only a collection of mistakes, but it’s also evidence of survival. You made it through things you once thought you couldn’t survive and you adapted. You kept going and here you are, still listening and wanting more, and that deserves acknowledgment too.

I also think it’s important to recognize that some lessons can only be understood after contrast enters your life. You don’t fully appreciate peace until you’ve experienced chaos. You don’t fully appreciate healthy love until you’ve experienced unhealthy relationships. You don’t fully appreciate your own resilience until life asks more of you than you thought you could handle. And sometimes what looked like a detour in your life was actually preparation. That relationship that didn’t work out may have taught you boundaries. That failure may have redirected you toward something more aligned. That lonely season may have helped you build a relationship with yourself to move from feeling alone to feeling strong in solitude. No one wants to go thru the hard parts of life but if you grow from them, they become easier in reflection and you realize you don’t have to hate your past self in order to grow beyond them. You can honor the person you were while also becoming someone new. You can look back and say, “I understand you now.” 

Take a moment and think about a memory you once misunderstood. Maybe something you thought was a failure but later realized redirected your life in a meaningful way. Maybe a season you rushed through that now feels a little bit precious. Maybe a conversation you didn’t realize would become one of the last conversations with someone important to you. Life is full of moments like that. And maybe instead of constantly asking, “Why didn’t I appreciate it then?” we can ask, “How can this awareness help me appreciate life more now?” Because that’s the real gift of reflection. It teaches presence. It reminds us that the little things matter, the ordinary days, the daily connections, all those ordinary times matter and that’s what makes up your life. 

And maybe the reason memories become so emotional later is because deep down we recognize how quickly life moves. One minute you’re in the middle of a season and the next minute it’s a chapter you can never fully return to except in memory, that person is gone, that way of life has moved. And I know that sounds sad but maybe it helps to remind us to put the phone down sometimes, to tell people we love them, to enjoy the laughter, to notice things and to make room for unstoppable joy. 

Allowing yourself space to process your life instead of endlessly outrunning it, distracting ourselves with the busyness of life instead of giving ourselves the quiet time needed to reflect, and heal, and grow that is self care. And not all reflections will be the fun Instragram type, it’s ok if it takes time to process some of the difficult reflections, you’re not behind because you’re still processing something from years ago, you don’t have to just “get over it”. Grief, healing, growth is specific to your own journey, your own life so don’t compare to anyone else. 

But can also be your reminder today that looking back doesn’t always have to hurt. Sometimes looking back reveals beauty you missed, or the strength you didn’t realize you had. Sometimes it reveals how far you’ve actually come. Before we wrap up, pick a season you can reflect on or a conversation or interaction that is still carrying into your world today. Now ask yourself these questions. What did that teach me? What strengths did I develop because of it? What beauty existed there that I may not have appreciated at the time? And how can I carry that awareness into my life now to help me be more present, to more fully enjoy my now? You might be surprised by what surfaces. And maybe this week, instead of rushing through every moment trying to get to the next thing, you find yourself pausing a little longer. Maybe you appreciate the ordinary things that one day may become extraordinary memories. The people sitting at your table, the laughter, the conversations, the growth you’re maybe experiencing right now in listening today.

If today’s episode resonated with you, share it with someone who’s been carrying regret or is trying to learn how to see their past with more compassion. Maybe send it to a friend who needs the reminder that healing and understanding often take time and they deserve to have that time. Please follow or subscribe so you don’t miss any of our short discussions about growth, healing, and self care because consistency is key to this and if you’re able to leave a 5 star review, thank you, not required but thank you. Until next week, look back with compassion, trust that some lessons need time and remember that some of the most beautiful parts of your life will happen in the every day, ordinary moments. So pick up your adult son, jump on your mom’s lap, enjoy a good belly laugh, and enjoy the here and now as we reflect, grow and deepen our lives, little by little and peace by peace.