Overcoming Regret: The Journey Beyond Selfishness

i think that people will look back at their life they're reviewing their life um and even if they've been a victim of something when i think of the regret idea and i completely agree with you someone who says they they have no regrets in their whole life i think they haven't dug very deeply into their own life um i do hear people say that everyone oh i think that's kind of a mantra in our day it's almost taken as a sign of self-esteem or emotional health or something [00:03:36]

i think people when they're talking to me at least and they're looking back and reviewing their life and that's a big part of what people do in counseling um is they'll they'll talk about their own selfishness their self-absorption they didn't notice the people around them so let me ask you a follow-up question because we i deliberately did not ask quick about this ahead of time just so we can kind of deal with this in the moment [00:04:39]

so why is it that the number one regret we would have would be selfishness but we never or almost never are motivated to try to get help to deal with our selfishness um well i think the way i think i piece it together is selfishness leads to difficult consequences sometimes disastrous consequences and problems in relation relating problems with your kids problems with your spouse problems with your parents problems with your work setting your boss that sort of thing [00:06:57]

psychology 101 is you're going to have the most um success working on and changing yourself it's going to be very difficult for you to change your wife change your husband change your children so i believe that in my core so i do want to move even if the person that's seeing me feels very victimized and very done poorly by the world and sometimes that's of course exactly right [00:09:55]

i don't want people to camp out in that position so i'm just generally going to try to move the work that somebody's there to do in the direction of taking a deeper look so i think that's a really good question john i don't think people start with i'm a narcissist i'm selfish i'm self-absorbed but we still get there so selfishness causes pain in my relationships or interactions or work or something [00:11:25]

an anxious thought uh is painful uh depressed thoughts and feelings are painful selfish thoughts and feelings are not necessarily painful in themselves but they lead to pain in my relationships in my outer world so that's actually almost part of the danger of selfishness is when i'm experiencing selfishness inwardly it might actually be kind of pleasurable to be dreaming about acquiring more or something [00:12:30]

i think the single biggest category of regret that i run into all the time just as a therapist a counselor is selfishness i think that people will look back at their life they're reviewing their life um and even if they've been a victim of something when i think of the regret idea and i completely agree with you someone who says they they have no regrets in their whole life i think they haven't dug very deeply into their own life [00:03:25]

i used to think the main regret i had was letting my middle son raise his jeep when he was 16 and then he got in an accident probably because of that that's the first thing that comes to my mind when i think of regrets but it's by no means the only one and again if i just think kind of deeply about it for a second [00:04:21]

when people come to you therapists will also often talk about the presenting problem people come in and they say my problem is i'm depressed or i'm anxious or having problems with my spouse how many people come to you and say my problem is i'm a selfish person and i need help to stop being selfish not any of them [00:05:15]

i think that's kind of a mantra in our day it's almost taken as a sign of self-esteem or emotional health or something regrets i've had a few but then again too few dimensions as frank sinatra put it right and that kind of you know uh that idea that no i don't have any regrets uh i can make no sense of that at all [00:03:58]

i think that people will look back at their life they're reviewing their life um and even if they've been a victim of something when i think of the regret idea and i completely agree with you someone who says they they have no regrets in their whole life i think they haven't dug very deeply into their own life um i do hear people say that everyone oh i think that's kind of a mantra in our day [00:03:36]

i think the single biggest category of regret that i run into all the time just as a therapist a counselor is selfishness i think that people will look back at their life they're reviewing their life um and even if they've been a victim of something when i think of the regret idea and i completely agree with you someone who says they they have no regrets in their whole life i think they haven't dug very deeply into their own life [00:03:25]