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Author: Christine Carter

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Tips for Letting Go of Old Regrets

Recently, I went to high school Back-to-School night with my first husband, Mike, and we ran into a colleague of his I’d never met before. “This is Christine,” Mike said brightly, and then he hesitated. “My, um, my…ex-wife.”

As soon as we walked away, he apologized. “I’m so sorry for introducing you as my ex-wife. It’s such an ugly term. I should have just said you were Molly’s mom, but he doesn’t know Molly, so I wasn’t sure what to say.” We have been divorced for ten years; we’ve both been re-married for five. I harbor no ill feeling about being called Mike’s ex-wife, but I was touched by his sensitivity and kindness. At the end of the evening, he even opened my car door for me.

Mike is just such a nice guy. We get along so well now that you’d never know that our relationship was once high-conflict, marred by anger and criticism.

I have hundreds of old narratives about what went wrong in our marriage, but I’ve never been quite sure which one is true, which one to believe. The narrative that haunts me the most is the one in which our divorce was my fault. I was too critical of Mike; I provoked too much conflict. I should have seen that my complaints about him were actually things I didn’t like about myself. I should have accepted that romance would inevitably fade, and, at the same time, I should have worked harder to keep the romance alive.

This narrative is laced with the fear that I behaved selfishly, and, as a consequence, I’ve harmed my kids irreparably. It inspires shame and regret, launching me down a slippery slope of self-criticism that leaves me feeling like I’m not good enough.

I’ve been thinking about this all week. September 10th was Rosh Hashanah, the first day of the Jewish New Year. My husband, Mark, who for the record is just as nice a guy as Mike, is Jewish, and I go with his family to services at their temple. For ten days after Rosh Hashanah, Jews show sorrow and regret for wrong done in the previous year.

I must have some catching up to do, because when I was reflecting on my regrets about this past year, I felt sorrow for mistakes I made a decade ago. It’s not that I regret my divorce; I don’t. I do believe it was the right thing for our family. But I could see clearly what I would do differently now, given the chance. It was time to let go of some old regrets.

Over the last 10 days, I moved through a few steps that have each been helpful.

1. Forgiving myself

Yesterday was the “Day of Atonement,” and it brought me some peace. I’d been reading about self-forgiveness, and Rick Hanson’s recommendations unlocked something in me. He advises us to acknowledge the facts surrounding the circumstances or behavior we regret, including those that are hard to face. I let myself remember the divorce, and all the people that it affected, both then and now.

Then, I thought about my mistakes. But Hanson recommends distinguishing between our moral failings and simple unskillfulness. This step was a huge revelation to me. As I look back on my failed marriage, I see a mess of unskillfulness. Even things that might be perceived by others as immoral—to some people, divorce itself is immoral—seemed to me to stem from my own lack of certain emotional skills.

It turns out that the list of things I’d do differently wasn’t that long. Ten years ago, I simply didn’t have the skills I needed to keep my marriage together. There is an innocence there that is easy to forgive.

2. Taking accountability

This sort of self-reflection can be really productive. It’s important to take accountability for our mistakes and our failings, and to repair the hurt we cause other people. How else can we do better?

Seeing that I behaved unskillfully allows me to take responsibility for mistakes that I made, rather than clinging to my judgments and justifications. At the same time, it helps me not let my mistakes define who I am. I am more than my missteps and bad habits.

It also gives me somewhere to go: I can practice now the skills I needed then. This approach helps me respond when well-meaning people—observing how well Mike and I now parent together—wonder out loud if we ever regret getting divorced. We are different people now than we were then. Getting divorced gave us ample opportunity to practice more skillful ways of relating to one another.

3. Practicing acceptance

Here’s something I’ve learned the hard way: Acceptance is the precursor to atonement. I’ve finally surrendered resistance to my divorce and my unskillfulness, as well as the sorrow that I’ve felt about it all.

I’ve also, finally, found peace in accepting that there is a lot I don’t know. I don’t know if the marriage would have worked if I’d been more skillful. It’s easier to think that there is no way it would have, so it doesn’t matter what we did and didn’t do. For ten years, I’ve been constructing narratives that make my memories more black-and-white than they really are. These narratives provide me with certainty that I did the right thing. But only until they don’t.

“Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is an absurd one”
―Voltaire

Certainty can be temporarily reassuring, but it can also turn on us, revealing its opposite. One minute I’m sure that my marriage with Mike would never have worked; the next I’m sure it could have, because look how well we get along now.

Accepting uncertainty is such an underwhelming alternative to feeling certain that you did the right thing, even if feeling right doesn’t last. But, ultimately, uncertainty is the lesser of two ills; as Voltaire wrote, “Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is an absurd one.”

I do know one thing for certain, though: If I’d made different choices ten years ago, I would not have the life I have now. It’s a life that I love, one where I’m happy and fulfilled. I love Mark and his big, loud Jewish family. I love our marriage, even when it’s hard. I can’t imagine life without my amazing stepchildren, whom I love and adore beyond reason. I know my daughters can’t imagine life without their stepsiblings and stepparents. It’s a life that I would never consciously give up. But, ironically, it’s one that I was giving up, unconsciously, every time I harbored those old fears and sorrows.

Accepting the past and all its messiness has allowed me to let go of what I’d actually already lost. Already I’m better able to shift my gaze away from the past, to focus my attention on the present. The past, and my stories about the past, no longer feel relevant. There is no emotional hook. This, I’ve come to believe, is atonement.

How to Be Anxious and Miserable

Sometimes it’s easier to see how we can achieve fulfillment and contentment when we examine what we’re doing in to sabotage them. I hope you enjoy this flip on the Secret to Happiness from my presentation at Happiness and Its Causes in Australia.

Do You Want to Feel More Confident? Or Successful? What About Content?

What do you want to feel more of in this one wild and precious life (as Mary Oliver would say)?

I’m not wondering about what you want to achieve or accomplish, I’m wondering how you want to feel. Shooting for the feeling-state that you want more of (maybe you want more happiness, confidence, or fulfillment) will always take you down a different path than setting your sights on a particular achievement. Emotions are more motivating—and far more fulfilling—than an achievement goal in the long run.

Maybe you you really want to grow your business, but you feel too exhausted and overwhelmed right now. An achievement goal would be to grow your business by 25%. But probably what you want to feel is successful, while at the same time feeling well-rested.

Next, identify the activities in your life that already produce the feeling-state you are looking for. These activities don’t need to be habits or things you have done recently; they just need to be things that have produced the emotions you are after in the past. We human beings are terrible at predicting what will make us feel happy (or feel anything positive) in the future. Although we think we know what will make us happier, plenty of research shows that we tend to be wrong about what actually does.

We have better success in the future when we look at what has produced the results we are looking for in the past. For example, a client of mine identified that she wanted to feel more calm, and two activities that make her feel calm are walking her dog in the morning and meditating.

Having a nice long list of the tasks, circumstances, behaviors and activities that already make you feel how you want to feel is going to be handy for the next few activities we’ll introduce as a part of this online course.

So spend some time reflecting on the feeling state that you are after. How do you want to feel when you find your flow? Which activities and pastimes have produced the feelings that you want to feel?


This post is taken from “The Science of Finding Flow,” an online course I created as a companion to my book The Sweet Spot: How to Accomplish More by Doing Less. I’m sharing “lessons” from this online class here, on my blog. Want to see previous posts? Just click this The Science of Finding Flow tag. Enjoy!

To live and let live, without clamor for distinction or recognition; . . . to write truth first on the tablet of one's own heart— this is the sanity and perfection of living, and my human ideal. Mary Baker Eddy

Thursday Thought

To live and let live, without clamor for distinction or recognition; . . . to write truth first on the tablet of one’s own heart— this is the sanity and perfection of living, and my human ideal.
Mary Baker Eddy

What Will People Say When You Pass Away?

Since her own bout with burn-out and crippling exhaustion, Arianna Huffington has been giving great advice for finding greater meaning and fulfillment in life: Start working on your eulogy, and stop working on your resume.

She elaborates:

It is very telling what we don’t hear in eulogies. We almost never hear things like:

The crowning achievement of his life was when he made senior vice president.
Or
He increased market share for his company multiple times during his tenure.
Or
While she didn’t have any real friends, she had six hundred Facebook friends, and she dealt with every email in her inbox every night.

After we’ve passed away, people will recount the ways that we made a difference in their lives and in the world. They will tell stories and recount memories of times we enjoyed together. They will talk, in essence, about the meaning that we found in this lifetime, about our value, our impact, and our purpose.

When we start working on our eulogy instead of our resumes, we reorient our efforts toward meaning and away from achievements. We look away from the glitter of external rewards: the decadent meal, the Botox, the designer shoes, the higher paycheck, and the more prestigious title. We look inside ourselves to see what really lights our fire, what really brings us peace.

Please note that this probably isn’t about finding a different job. It’s about identifying the meaning that is already there.

We humans find our calling in all types of work—as janitors and ministers, as executives and hairdressers, as artists and parents and mail carriers and farmers. One study found that among administrative assistants, one-third considered their work a job (they focused on their paycheck—not the meaning or enjoyment they derived from the work), one-third considered it a career (mostly a series of ascending achievements), and another third considered it a true calling (they felt that their work was interesting, socially useful, and truly worthy of their time and energy).

Researchers have found the same results in other occupations. People tend to be more or less equally distributed in each of the categories of job, career, and calling.

It isn’t the job description or title that determines meaning— whether we consider our work a job, a career, or a calling. It’s the person. It isn’t about the prestige or even the helping nature of our work. It’s about the meaning we personally find in it and express through it, and the effort and commitment we give to it. So what do you want people to remember? 

Questions for Introspection

Think about what your friends and family will say at your funeral. What do you want them to say, and what would they likely say now?

Now, take a step back and think about what meaning you find in your work, and in your life.

What are you passionate about? What do you find most interesting, important, and worthy of your time and energy? What positive impact are you having on the world and other people?

Do your time and effort reflect your commitment to the work you value the most?

This is a first step towards discovering what you value, so that you can better prioritize your time. The next activity is about how best to prioritize.


This post is from a series on finding more meaning in how we spend our time. If you are interested in learning more, check out “The Science of Finding Flow,” an online course I created as a companion to my book The Sweet Spot: How to Accomplish More by Doing Less. I’m sharing “lessons” from this online class here, on my blog. Want to see previous posts? Just click this The Science of Finding Flow tag. Enjoy!