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Hi, it's Lynn, your adulting coach. This video is dedicated to the many parents I've spoken to who wish they had known that their son or daughter was autistic sooner.
It's also dedicated to the graduates that I know who wish they had said or done something differently.
We all have regrets, especially the mom who helped their autistic graduate, cry and storm and meltdown and then turned around and beat herself up because she didn't show up the way and help the way that she wished she could.
Because it's just so hard to watch our loved ones suffer. We think if only I knew better if only I could reach them better if only I knew the way in to help and we just feel that sad feeling of regret.
Could you really feel it?
Here's a way to think about it that might be helpful.
Regret can be a useful gift. It helps us to identify what's happening between where we are and where we'd like to be. That helps us really frame up the importance of what we want to know.
Then when we also look at the gain, how far we've come, we can be inspired by how much better we are than we used to be. And that gives us the confidence to keep trying to level up all those skills in our life. So that we do show up more and more often as the person that we want to be.
S: We can start out with "my child is suffering" that's the situation we're seeing the suffering.
T: The thought is I'm not good enough.
E: We have regret
A: We beat ourselves up
R: We're dissatisfied.
That's the result of those beatings. We're dissatisfied and beating ourselves up over and over again. And ruminating on how we're not the parent or the friend or the child, daughter son that we really need to be.
We can shift from that by thinking
S: They are suffering.
T: I'm showing up the best that I know how now.
E: That thought helps to inspire an emotion of acceptance.
A: And noticing how far I've come and where I can get better. I can reflect more from the heart first, and then from the head.
R: So now I'm grateful for the regret because it informs me as to what I need to practice. Good to know.
We feel that fear and take the wheel. we feel that feeling of regret in our bodies. That's where emotions come from that vibration in our body.
And then we take the wheel with our head our logic and we say okay, what can we do next? How do I want to think about this now?
How has my past created the patterns that I use most often? And what can I learn from them? And what kind of compassion can I give my younger self so that I can move on and grow?
I am going to borrow some wisdom from Daniel Pink, who wrote THE POWER OF REGRET.
He suggests that there are four types of regrets that we have in life:
1. Foundational ones, the COULDA, WOULDA, shoulda.
2. Boldness ones. I really should have taken on that risk.
3. Moral ones where I was really not acting true to the virtues that mattered to me on that instance
4. Connection ones. I really wish I had reached out or I had done better to listen, or I had kept the connection with those people that mattered so much to me, that I've let go.
Our regrets identify our values, what's important to us. It's really important for us to notice what we are regretting so that we can now transform it.
He suggests we:
1. Reframe it with self compassion, okay, you're doing the best you can. And now what are you going to do next?
2. Talk about it with others. I really value the communities I'm in where I can write about the regrets that I have for not knowing about autism when I was younger, because there was there are so many autistic people in my family that I love and I could have loved them better. If I had known. We talk about that.
3. Then we extract the lesson. Okay, well, the past is in the past. I can only go forward. I'm going to listen again more with my heart and then with my head, love and the logic that will form a connections with the people that I love.
Even Aristotle knew that, you know, anybody can become angry. I'm just going to rephrase this quote. Anybody can feel regret. That's easy. But to be regretful with the right person, to the right degree, and for the right purpose and in the right way. That is not within anyone's power, but it is within ours.
If we don't want to do this, we won't ever learn it. It's not easy. It's painful. But we're going to push through the pain to learn the lesson.
That's what we do every week inside the Art of Adulting. I invite you to join us there.
Bye for now.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
