Studies have shown that regrets are associated with negative effects on well-being, including lower life satisfaction and the presence of depressive symptoms.
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So it’s important to figure out how to make peace with them.
Lisa Franks, LCSW, founder of Journey to Wellness Counseling in Temecula, California, says unprocessed regret doesn’t dissipate; it becomes embedded in the body and nervous system, surfacing later as anxiety, irritability, or self-doubt.
“Unresolved regret can become a barrier to living fully. It can keep people stuck in avoidance or perfectionism, chasing a sense of control that never arrives,” she says.
Acknowledging regret, on the other hand, can be a turning point in dealing with your feelings. “When you stop avoiding [a regret] and meet it with some gentleness, you can usually see the intention behind the original choice: protecting your heart, trying to keep the peace, or wanting to feel safe or loved,” says Robins. “Once you understand that, regret softens. It becomes less about self-blame and more about self-understanding.”
For Gonzalez, her regret over how she handled her health crisis became a turning point that reshaped every part of her life. “I realized I had modeled endurance over balance, achievement over well-being.” she says. “Scaring [my daughter] in that way was devastating, and it reminded me that being strong isn’t about how much you can push through — it’s about how well you can care for yourself and those who love you.”
Letting go of regrets is also important. “[It] doesn’t mean erasing the past; it means transforming it into insight,” says Franks. “When we can see regret as a teacher rather than a verdict, it becomes a source of self-awareness and resilience.”
Gonzalez took her learnings to heart. “[Regret] taught me how to transform pain into purpose, and to dismantle the myth that slowing down is failure,” she says. “It also strengthened my empathy as a leader and as a mother, and helped me build a mission around helping others recognize their own warning signs before they reach a breaking point.”
She says that writing her book, The Purpose Pivot, in which she addresses the importance of pursuing success in a healthy, holistic way rather than letting it become a constant grind, was part of her healing. Now at peace with the past, she says the book “allowed me to take one of the most frightening moments of my life and turn it into something that could serve others.”
