Regrets? Time for an inner spring-clean

by Sarah-Leah Pimentel · September 15, 2014

Regrets. We all have them. A bad decision we made, or a decision we failed to make. Perhaps I should have thought more carefully about the consequences of situation X, or perhaps I should have taken the risk and been less afraid of the consequences.

The sacrament of reconciliation can help us in overcoming regrets. (Photo: Tim Kupsick)

The worst regrets are perhaps those of broken relationships. A child who grew up without hearing you say you love them. A friend whose problems you didn�t have the energy to deal with. Parents you should have visited more often, but are now no longer around.

This last kind of regret is possibly the worst. Once someone has died, there is no way to go back and do what we should have done in life.

I have spent the last year having a mental argument in my head with a friend I hadn�t seen for a while. Although we�d once been close, we had moved into different spaces and had seen very little of each other over the last few years.

Last year, a mutual friend gave me news about him. But I was still sore that we�d lost touch and so much time had passed, and so I chose not to pick up the phone, and instead just played various versions of the same scene in my mind. In all of them, I told him that I was angry with him.

Last month I found out he had been killed in a horrible accident.

It�s strange, the first thing that came to mind was not that I was still mad at him. My first thought was: I�ll never be able to speak with him again. And it wouldn�t matter what we�d talk about either. What if I had just picked up the phone�

Regret. I realise now that it�s a debilitating emotion. Regret is being trapped in a past you can�t change and stands in the way of future healing. But I realised last month that regret also carries with it a misplaced sense of pride.

Just think of the language we use when we express our regrets: �I should have�, �I could have�, �if only I had…�. This suggests that regret is not about the other, but about myself. And instead of letting go of our faults and omissions, we often carry them through life, like unwieldy luggage dragged with us wherever we go.

These regrets trap us in the past and poison our future relationships. Regret is a kind of death from which new life cannot be born.

Fortunately, as Catholics, we have the ability to discard this crippling baggage. The sacrament of reconciliation is the gift the Church gives us to approach Christ in childlike trust and know that all things will be made new in the light of God�s love. It is a place where we can let go of the past and look forward with hope to the future.

Above all, confession is the place where we can give voice to our regrets and allow Jesus to mend and heal those things we cannot. It is where we hand over our misplaced pride and humbly say: �Lord, this is not about me. It is about those I love and whom you love too. I am powerless to change the present course of events and a resolution seems impossible. But, Lord, with you all things are possible.�

The start of spring is traditionally the time when we air out and clean our homes, to welcome the aroma of the budding flowers and the warmth of the sun. Perhaps this spring time, we�re also being called to a spiritual spring clean.

It is time to get rid of all those regrets and believe�truly believe�that God�s spirit can bring peace to those things that can no longer be fixed and courage to face those situations which, through grace, might still be restored. And for something new to be born.

And as I mourn the loss of a good friend whom I hope to meet again in heaven someday, I do so without regret. Instead, I draw encouragement from St Paul�s words: �Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret, but worldly sorrow brings death� (2 Cor 7:10).