Step Three: Go Forth and Regret No More

It’s All About Forgiveness

Hopefully, you’ve begun the process of permanently removing regret from your life by walking through steps one and two of the No Regret Method. Thankfully, step three is the final step. Forgiveness is the key. It is crucial to cure your regret. However, it is also the hardest step.

Working through step one, standing at the crossroads, and step two, gathering information, was hard enough, right? Let’s review the no-regret theory and the regret example of Charlene’s decision before moving on to the process of step three.

No Regret Theory: A Final Reminder

The No Regret Theory states:

We make decisions with all the information available at the moment; whether that information is flawed or thinking is faulty at the time is of no consequence. After we choose, then follow through with our plan, reevaluating it later on when more or new information becomes available, or when our thinking becomes clearer, might lead to regrets. Regrets hinder us from taking the next step toward achieving our goals.

It’s about Forgiveness

O Israel put your hope in the Lord, because with the Lord there is mercy

and with him there is unlimited forgiveness. Psalm 130:7

Forgiveness is the last and most significant step in releasing regret, whether you can accept your decision or not. If, after you’ve looked at all your information and choices laid out on your paper, and you still feel you’ve made the wrong decision, then it’s all about forgiveness. It’s imperative to note that without forgiveness (especially of self), regret may continue to linger.

There are three types of forgiveness when dealing with regret: forgiveness from God, forgiveness from others, and self-forgiveness.

~ Reach Out to God

Reach out to God and ask him to forgive you for your decision. Only you will know if your past needs forgiveness from Him. Tell Him you are sorry for not asking for His guidance. Let Him know how much your decision changed your life, but that you want your life back. Once you have gone to Him, He will forgive you, and it will be as if the decision never happened.

Isaiah 43:25 says, “I alone am the one who is going to wipe away your rebellious actions for my own sake. I will not remember your sins anymore.” He also says in Psalm 32:1a, “Oh, what joy for those whose disobedience is forgiven, whose sin is put out of sight!” God remembers your sin no more and gives you joy in its place. Don’t keep going back to God asking for forgiveness for the same sin, for God will say, “What are you talking about?” He has forgiven and forgotten your repented sin. Jesus Christ already paid the offense in full.

 I John 1:9 says, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.”   

~ Reach out to Others

Some of our decisions involved other people; therefore, to be completely regret-free, we need to ask forgiveness from them as well. I know this isn’t easy, especially if you feel estranged from those involved in your decision. Going to them now, regardless of the time span, requires effort on your part. You must put down your pride, swallow hard, and make a phone call, write a letter, or meet face-to-face.

There may have been a time when you took a deep breath, stepped out in faith, and asked forgiveness from someone, and they did not give it to you. There is no guideline to follow, no recipe to make, no systematic flow chart that will lead another person to provide you with the forgiveness you seek from them. However, once you have asked the offended for their forgiveness, you have done your part. It is the other person’s responsibility to forgive you.  

The Bible says in Matthew 6:14-15:

“For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.”

Remember that the actions of others have nothing to do with your forgiveness from God or the release of the sin. However, when others do not forgive you, the responsibility to accept your apology shifts to the unforgiving person, as they stand before God. 

Within the Celebrate Recovery Ministry (a Christian 12-step recovery program), two of the twelve steps talk about making amends. Here are steps eight and nine:

Step eight: We made a list of all persons we had harmed and became willing to make amends with them all.

Step nine: We made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would harm them or others.

Step nine ends with “except when to do so would harm them or others.” This section of the step means that if the person might harm you, or if it would cause harm to that person or anyone else, you should avoid making amends with that person. Going to God with your amends is the only way to proceed in cases like this.

Sometimes it is impossible to ask for forgiveness because the person is no longer alive. Even though this may seem an impossible situation to overcome, it isn’t. One of the best ways to ask for forgiveness from someone who is no longer with you is to write a letter to them. I have often told people to then go to the gravesite, if possible, and read the letter out loud. This act purifies your heart and mind, preparing you to move forward.

I had a forty-seven-year-old woman in my office who had recently lost her mother. She came to me with old regrets still weighing heavily on her chest. Helen’s mother had been very ill for two years. Helen hadn’t spent much time with her because of the illness. She didn’t want to see her mother in that condition. Now her mother was gone, and Helen wanted to go back two years to spend those moments with her, but she couldn’t. Her regret was heartbreaking, but she needed to ask for forgiveness. 

As I took her through the steps of the No Regret Method, I saw a clear-eyed woman’s regret lifted by the last measure of writing a letter of apology to her mother. In the end, she took the letter and buried it next to her mother as a symbolic letting go of the regret.

~ Reach Out to Yourself

How can you regret something when the person from whom you have asked forgiveness gives it to you, or you symbolically ask for forgiveness through a letter? If you still harbor regret, then forgiveness from yourself becomes essential.

You need to forgive yourself. If you need to ask forgiveness of yourself, do so and then forgive yourself! Even though that is easy for me to say, I know tomorrow you will be back to not forgiving yourself. I have forgiven myself and taken it back hundreds of times. There comes a point, however, when I can no longer hold onto the regret (although I had learned to love the unforgiveness of myself and sat on that pity-potty we all know so well). Is this your position today?

No one knows when the forgiveness of self will finally take hold. For some lucky folks, it will be right now. For others, like myself, it can take longer—as much as a lifetime. There is no need for it to take a lifetime for you. You just decide to say, “I’m done beating myself up over this” and let it go. Instantly, you can be released from the burden of guilt and shame when you have a relationship with Jesus Christ. He is not going to accuse you to death (Romans 8:1). You become free. Give it to God. It is all up to you.

Conclusion

Charlene, from steps one and two, had taken every possible avenue to make sure she made the perfect decision about joining the army. She talked to all the right people; she wrote down her pros and cons; she even prayed, yet still she felt regret. What Charlene had to do was to offer forgiveness to herself and recognize that no matter how hard she tried, she wasn’t perfect; Charlene could never have made the right choice in her situation. 

Charlene did forgive herself. She realized that she was supposed to join the army. After working through the No Regret Method, she recognized her decision wasn’t wrong. Once she accepted it and forgave herself, she moved forward in her life. She became a dominant mediator between disabled veterans and the U.S. government by helping hundreds of veterans receive the medical benefits they deserved.  

By using Charlene’s example, do you recognize your need to let go? Now, can you give your regret over to God and forgive yourself? Suppose you believe you have worked through the three steps of permanently removing regret by standing at the crossroads, gathering information, and forgiving. In that case, you may be regretting something that doesn’t belong to you. You may be feeling false guilt. If you’re unsure, please check out this blog about false regret.

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For a more in-depth discussion of "It's all about forgiveness" from Go Forth and Regret No More, please enjoy the video below.