Sarah Rhea Werner:
This is The Write Now Podcast with Sarah Werner. Episode 148, “Forgiving Yourself”.

Welcome to Write Now, the podcast that helps all writers, aspiring, professional, and otherwise to find the time energy, and encouragement you need to pursue your passion and write. I’m your host, Sarah Werner and today I want to talk about regrets. I think a lot of us, or, you know, most of us <laugh> probably have some regrets that we’re living with. A feeling of having missed out on something in the past, a feeling of not having done something that you wanted to do, even the feeling that time has passed you by. Maybe you regret an argument with a friend or a family member. Maybe you regret not getting to know someone better while you still had the time. Maybe you regret not spending more time with your kids or, to flip that trope on its head, maybe you regret not having dedicated more time and energy to your career. Maybe you regret teasing someone in second grade. Maybe you regret murdering someone. Or maybe you even regret missing out on a writing session because something else came up.

I think that, large or small, most of us are living with some kind of regret or regrets, plural. Yes, even the people who have tattoos that say “no regrets” or “no regurts” if the tattoo is spelled incorrectly – thus creating a paradox. And I think many of us are carrying these regrets around, you know, figuratively speaking. I think we find ourselves burdened or weighed down by memories of the past, failings, missed opportunities – murders, hopefully <laugh> et cetera. And I think a lot of us, myself included, when we’re holding onto these regrets, we are giving them some of our attention, some of our focus, some of our energy, and maybe even punishing ourselves for them. We might think, “oh, I wasted that opportunity, and I really regret it, and I don’t deserve another chance” or, “I regret not having writing in my teens or twenties or thirties. So why bother starting now?”

I carry all sorts of regrets and several are really prominent. Several I am still carrying today, and the weight is heavy. Like when I took several years off of writing because I was so burned out from college and my new job and I “wasted” my time. I regret not getting into podcasting before my thirties. And I think, “oh my gosh, if I had just started podcasting in my twenties, I would be like a legend right now. I would be so much further ahead than I am today.” I regret never having the chance to have been one of Forbes’ “30 under 30”; a social media luminary. I even regret some things that I could not have controlled. I regret that I was not born into a fabulously wealthy family. I regret that I didn’t go to fancy private schools. That I had to work so long and so hard for such little money. I even regret the way I look or, you know, if not overall, then at least certain aspects of how I look.

I think you can see that if we spend enough time thinking about it, if we spend enough time and energy dwelling on it, it’s very easy to let the regrets pile up and consume us. And I have a choice just like you have a choice. I can hold onto these regrets, and focus on them, and live into them, and let them become my reality. Or I can let them go and move forward. Now <laugh>, I’ve worked with people before who say, “oh, Sarah – don’t carry that around. Just let it go!” And nobody ever tells you, or tells me at least, what letting go of something actually looks like. Like it’s all very well and good to say, “oh, you’re angry? Just let it go.” Or, “oh, you’re feeling resentful? Just let it go.” A million times easier said than done. So that’s what I wanna talk about today, my friends and fellow writers. What are we still holding onto? What regrets have we dug our claws into? What are we still angry at ourselves for? What are we still punishing ourselves for? And what do we do with that?

So what happens when we focus on our regrets? Well, I know that in my case, it keeps me dwelling mentally, physically, all of the things – on the past, instead of focusing on the future or even the present. These regrets can really hold us back. And ironically, holding ourselves back now with regrets will create regrets… Moving forward into the future. I have to say, I have regretted the time that I spent dwelling on regrets. And it’s really easy to lose yourself in that avalanche. So why do we spend so much time and energy focusing on our regrets if they don’t actually do anything to serve us? Like, what’s up with this? Why are we like this? And I wanna tell you, I am not a psychologist, psychiatrist, anything like that. I do not have any official training in how the brain actually chemically works, but I do have decades of experience with regret. So I’m going to talk about it from that angle.

If any of you listening are trained, psychologists, psychiatrist, therapists, et cetera. Please let me know in the comments what you think about this topic. You can find the comments over on my website at sarahwarner.com. That’s S A R A H W E R N E R.com. Find this episode of the Write Now podcast and scroll down to the bottom of the show notes where you can leave as many comments as you like. I may regret saying that <laugh>. But okay- Before I get us too far off track: why do we hold onto these regrets? Why do we carry them around? Why do we find them important? Well, I have a couple theories.

My first theory is that we tend to remember and focus on our regrets because we can learn from these mistakes. We can learn from the things that we regret doing or not doing. I stopped writing for several years and I was extremely unhappy during those years. So I regret not having written for those years and I hold onto it so that I remember that, “oh yeah – When I’m not writing, I’m not happy.” I regret not having gotten into podcasting sooner. And why do I hold onto that? I hold onto that to remind myself, “oh yeah. If there’s something I’m interested in doing, I should do it and not put it off so that I don’t have future regrets.” But once we take away a lesson from an experience, is it worth holding onto the regret? I would say no – that that regret no longer serves us. And yet we still hold onto them. Or at least I still hold onto them. Maybe you’ve evolved like ascended to a better plane of being. But I know I still hold onto many of my regrets. And why do we do this?

We’ve talked about learning a lesson from these regrets, but I don’t think that’s the whole story. I think that for some of us a regret – a particular regret, maybe a group of regrets, whatever it is in your case, it’s a known entity. We visit and revisit these regrets because we’ve already lived through them. And in a way they’re safe. They’re in the past, and that is a safe place to dwell because it is a known entity. Comparatively, the future is unknown. The future is scary… Potentially. The future holds all sorts of unknown elements, and risks, and dangers. And I think for some people, they prefer the devil they know. They prefer a known discomfort, a known pain, a familiar pain; to an unknown present or future.

In a way, regrets become places that we can go to hide. We know them, we understand them. We’ve studied them, they’re safe. And for some of us, maybe it even feels good to revisit these regrets, to dwell in them. And I’m not saying it’s necessarily fun, but revisiting our regrets often stirs up some kind of emotion that we need to feel. We can’t help it. Like, when you have a cut in your mouth and you can’t stop poking your tongue at it. We can’t leave it alone. We inspect it from 700 different angles. We feel like we need to, we feel compelled to, maybe we feel like we deserve it. And heck, maybe it even sort of feels good to be a victim, to be a martyr. Maybe for some people, myself, yourself included. Maybe it feels good to look back on a regret and say, “wow, I really blew it. Wow. I really missed out. Wow, do I regret having done or not having done that?” And now everyone can feel sorry for me.

I know that this sounds a little cruel. I know <laugh> I know that this sounds a little cruel, but this is something that I have done myself: dwelling in past regrets. Because it gives us permission to feel like a victim. Because it allows us to feel sorry for ourselves. Because it gives other people a reason to feel sorry for us. Because there’s some sort of righteousness that we feel when we think of ourselves as martyrs. Some of you might have experienced this before and you’re nodding along like, “oh my gosh, yes, I have felt that before.” <laugh> But maybe some of you are like, “I do not know what you’re talking about, Sarah,” and that’s fine. But if you are feeling this, please know you are not alone. I have been there.

It almost feels like a realistic excuse to stay stuck in place to not move forward. Well, I didn’t start podcasting ten years ago. So why bother starting now? It’s easy to justify. It’s easy to compound our regrets. And if you have any regrets about things that were once a dream: a dream of becoming a published author, a dream of doing book signings and speaking at conferences, a dream of doing a poetry reading at a local coffee shop, a dream of getting your manuscript picked up for a movie. Maybe sometimes it feels safer for these to remain dreams; perfectly encased in our memories – preserved unadulterated, pure. Perfectly preserved as a “what could have been” that we can revisit and relive in a way without actually taking the risk of investing time and energy and money into something and to have it fall short of our dreams. Easier to dwell in the regrets than to move forward and attempt to make that a reality.

So I get it. We hold onto our regrets for a number of reasons, but we have to ask, “are these regrets actually serving us?” And honestly the answer to that depends. It depends on what you want. Do you want to write the book or do you just wanna think about writing the book? It’s your life and there’s no right or wrong answers. There’s just what you choose to do and what you don’t choose to do. If it feels better and safer for you to dwell in memory, instead of actually making things happen in your life and living it; then that’s your decision. And it’s not my place to judge whether that is the right or wrong thing for you.

Now, of course, you know, from my biased point of view, I want you to fulfill your dreams. I want you to publish the book that you’ve been dreaming of publishing, to get that Hollywood deal, to find yourself on stage, to find someone whom your poetry has impacted, but you have to decide to make it happen. You have to decide to take those first steps, those second steps, the third steps, the tedious 10,000th step. You have to decide that you’re done dwelling in those regrets and that you’re ready to move forward. That you’re ready to let go of the things that have hurt you and that will keep holding you back. You have to decide to forgive yourself. I really do think that is the key to moving forward. And <laugh>, I’m not gonna end the podcast here and say, “well, there you go. Just forgive yourself the end!” Because, oh my gosh, what does that even mean? What does it look like? How do we forgive ourselves? Is it something we do in an instant? Or is it a lifelong process? So let’s talk about this.

When we talk about forgiveness, if we talk about it at all, we talk about it in the context of forgiving someone else. Maybe someone betrayed you, or stole from you, or said something nasty about you behind your back. Someone has wronged you in some way, and maybe somewhere along the way, someone has advised you to “forgive and forget” – to just pretend it never happened. But I don’t think that’s what forgiveness actually means. I think we need to process that something has been done to us that is wrong and we need to honor that. We need to honor our own experience and say, “yes, I was hurt by that. And I acknowledge that I am feeling a lot of pain from X, Y, or Z. Forgiveness isn’t pretending that something never happened. It’s not erasing the validity of your own experience or erasing some part of your story to make yourself or other people feel better. That’s not what this is. Rather, I believe at least that “forgiveness” means acknowledging that something bad has happened to you or been done to you, and choosing a path of peaceful resolution instead of violence, corrosive, anger, or revenge. Any religious implications aside, “forgiveness” is good for us. It’s good for our health. When we hold on to anger that we have towards someone else, because they’ve wronged us – when we hold onto that anger, it eats away at us. Again, I don’t have any data or scientific studies to prove this in any way, just my own experience. And maybe you have experience with this too. Maybe someone has hurt you or wronged you and you’ve carried around this hot burning anger in your chest, and it’s actually done more damage to you than it has to the other person.

When we’re talking about forgiving someone else, the conversation can get really complicated because the other person might not realize that they have wronged or hurt you. They might not admit that they’ve wronged you or hurt you. They may not realize it, or they may not even ask for your forgiveness. Maybe they just don’t care. But honestly, forgiving someone else: it’s not about them. It’s about you. It’s about what you want to hold onto and focus on. What do you want your life to feel like? Do you want to hold onto that anger to that thirst for revenge? Do you want to blame someone else for how your life turned out or how your life is turning out? I decided a long time ago that for me, the answer is “no.” Blame is easy, but it’s not productive. It doesn’t do anything good for me in my life. And I don’t wanna carry it around. I don’t wanna carry around anger and hatred, and you have to make this same decision about the things that you’ve done to yourself. <laugh> In a way it’s simultaneously easier to forgive yourself than someone else, because there’s only one person involved and that’s you, but it’s also harder to forgive yourself I think sometimes because you really have to be in a place of self-awareness like – you really have to be intentional about understanding what you’ve done to yourself. Acknowledging that you have done something, whether it is not getting started podcasting before you turned 30, whether it is not having published your novel or appeared in the Forbes “30 under 30”, while you still could – acknowledging that, “you know what? Yes, that is something I wanted. But the time for that has passed. And now I can only decide what I have to do moving forward.” And then deciding, “where do I want to dwell? Do I wanna dwell in the past? Do I wanna live in the unfulfilled dream? Is that what I want?” And for some people, maybe the answer is “yes,” but for, I think many other people, especially if you feel a drive in your heart to create the answer is, “no, I wanna move on. I wanna move forward. I wanna write the book. I don’t wanna hold onto the anger about not writing the book. My energy is better spent actually sitting down and writing the book.” And so we must forgive ourselves. We must release the anger, the resentment, the feeling that we need to be punished or that we don’t deserve anything good… We need to let go of that stuff so that we can spend our precious time and energy moving forward and achieving the things we actually want to achieve.

So how do we forgive ourselves? Like what does this actually look like? Again, like I said earlier, it’s very easy to say, “we need to let go of this,” and then not talk about how to let go of it. I think this process could look different for everyone, but I wanna share with you what it looks like for me. And it’s in my case, at least it wasn’t an instantaneous thing. It wasn’t like I could just snap my fingers and say, “wow, I’m done! I can move forward and everything is wonderful forever!” I have a good friend whose father was killed by a drunk driver. And my friend decided that he didn’t want to live with the anger and rage that he felt every day that his father had been taken away from him too early. So he decided to forgive this person, but he realized every day when he woke up that he had to forgive that person again, because the rage would fill up and the resentment would start to build. So for my friend, forgiveness was a daily thing and it was difficult at first, and then it got easier, and then he was finally able to forgive mostly. But I even think for him now it’s still a process. So what I’m saying is: it’s necessary for us to forgive ourselves if we want to move forward in new ways, but it can also be difficult and it can take time. Like any other healing process, it takes time. But I think at least I would say it’s still worth it.

So I told you I was gonna talk about my own self forgiveness process. For me, it starts with acknowledgement. It starts with actually looking at the thing that I have done wrong, which is it’s hard. It’s hard to look at something you’re ashamed of. It’s hard to look it in the eyes and say, “yes, I did this. Or I failed to do this. I acknowledge this. I own this.” My next step is to accept that, okay, I’ve acknowledged this. Now I need to accept that it happened. And in most cases accept that I can’t undo it. I can’t go back in time 15 years and write in all those years that I didn’t write. I can’t even time travel to yesterday when “something came up” and I wasn’t able to do my writing session. I can’t go back in time and not grow up poor. And I need to make my peace with that so that I can move forward. So acknowledge the thing you regret. Accept that it has happened, or you have caused it to happen. Really accept it.

One of the tools I use to help myself accept things is with the saying, “the best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now.” This is the phrase that I meditate on – and I’m not talking about like, you know, sitting in silence and going “om” – I mean, this is the phrase that I recite to myself when I realize that I need to acknowledge and accept something that I regret. I regret not planting that tree 20 years ago. I wanna go outside right now and sit under the shade of a tree that I did not plant 20 years ago. I have to acknowledge, “I cannot do that. That is not possible. Okay, so what can I do?” And I think that’s the real turning point is moving from regret about the past and transforming that anger, that resentment, that shame into productive energy. “Okay, this is over, or I can’t do this. Or the time for this has passed. What can I do?” Blame isn’t productive. Resentment is not productive. Action is, and the act of creativity has healed me more than many other things have. Sometimes it even helps to process the regrets in your creative work.

I’ve definitely done that. And it helps me to understand different aspects of it, different elements of it. And the more I understand it, the more I can acknowledge and accept it and move forward. Because we can’t go back to what we’ve lost to time. We simply cannot do that. So we need to accept and honor ourselves and our purpose by moving forward and doing what we can with what we have right now. The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. But the second best time is now. It’s okay to move forward. It’s okay to release the guilt and the shame. It’s healthy even. And I’d love to encourage this for you.

I would also love to know <laughs> what are your thoughts on this topic? Have you ever been in a place where you have needed to forgive yourself? Have you ever thought about forgiving yourself? I know that for a lot of people, there’s just not this realization that we often need to forgive ourselves, just because of how the word “forgiveness” is used in society. It’s always used for someone else – forgiving someone else. Let me know your thoughts out on my website. So what you do is go out to Sarahwerner.com again, that’s S A R A H W E R N E R.com and navigate to the show notes for episode 148. And once you’re there, go ahead and scroll down to the bottom of the show notes. It’ll be underneath the transcript for this episode – and yes, there are full transcripts for each and every episode of the Write Now Podcast out on my website – you’re gonna navigate to the comment section and just let me know your thoughts. While I am not able to respond to every email I get. I do respond to every single one of the comments that are left out on my website. So I would love to hear from you there again, thats Sarahwerner.com and just let me know your thoughts – on forgiveness, on anger, resentment, anything that you felt towards yourself. And if you’ve been able to let go of it. I have so many people that I want to thank for making this episode possible.

You may notice that the Write Now Podcast does not have ads. I don’t have sponsors. I don’t interrupt the middle of this episode to try to sell you a mattress. Any of that stuff. I mean, not that there’s anything wrong with that, creators need to get paid, but it’s something that I have chosen not to do. Instead, this show relies on donations to keep going, and it covers hosting costs, website costs, my time, all of that kind of stuff. So I wanna say a special thanks to the people who do support this show through Patreon, through Ko-Fi, however, they decide that they want to support the show. And I’m not sure if it’s pronounced “ko-fee” or “coffee”, but you know, whatever <laugh> It’s confusing. I wanna especially thank my Patreon supporters, including Tamara K. Salman, Amanda King, Laurie, Regina Calabrese, Amber Fratesi, Charmaine Ferrara, Dennis Martin, Michael Beckwith, Mike Teft, Sarah Banham, Summer, That Guy, Tiffany Joiner, and Whitney McGruder. Thank you all so much for your thoughtful and generous support of this show. Through your donations, you are helping so many people around the world pursue their passion and write, and I’m just really grateful for it. Thank you.

If you would like to become a patron of the Write Now Podcast, you can absolutely do that. You can go to my website, SarahWerner.com, navigate to the show notes for today’s episode 148, and click the button that says, “help support this podcast.” It will take you out to Patreon, which is a secure third party donation platform that allows you to donate $1 per episode, $2 per episode – whatever you feel like. If it’s something you’re interested in trying out, I do encourage you to do that. You can also make a one-time donation of a dollar, $2, $7 million, whatever you happen to have lyying around, over at Ko-Fi.com/SarahWerner. And there’s a link to it on I think my Twitter. I’ll try to put one up on my website. If that’s something that you’re interested in doing, I’d really appreciate that. If you’re not in a place where you can financially donate to the show, that is totally understandable. And definitely okay. I appreciate you regardless. Thank you for listening.

Something that is helpful that you can do that costs zero money is just telling someone else about this show. Anyone who, you know, who would benefit from the Write Now Podcast, let them know about the Write Now Podcast. Show them how to download it on their phone, if they’re not already a podcast listener, make sure you direct them to *this* Write Now Podcast, because I’ve been doing this podcast for seven years and several other podcasts with the name have sort of risen from the murky depths. So yeah, make sure they’re listening to Write Now with Sarah Werner. That’s this podcast. Please know that I, I deeply appreciate it. So thank you.

If you want other free stuff from me, go out to my website and there’s all sorts of stuff out there, including my Dear Creator’s newsletter, which I send out… or try to send out, every Monday morning. It’s different material than you’ll find here on the Write Now Podcast. It’s a little bit more of just a personal letter from me to you, kind of explaining what kind of creative challenge I’m facing, or what I’m up to, and hopefully it provides insight and encouragement for the week ahead. So you can sign up for that again, out at sarahwerner.com, just click the button that says “get sweet emails” and those will be sent to you. Okay. I think that’s it for now. This has been episode 148 of the Write Now Podcast, the podcast that helps all writers, aspiring, professional, and otherwise to find the time energy, and encouragement you need to pursue your passion and write. I’m Sarah Werner and I encourage you this week to start looking for ways in which you can forgive yourself.

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