How do you not dwell on mistakes you have made in your life?

I have huge problems in letting mistakes i've made in my life, particularly inexplicable mistakes that I can find no good reason for having made, start me off on a whole I'm pathetic, I'm useless, I'm stupid, what's the point, blah, blah, blah....well you know how it goes cycle of cogitation and rumination that really leaves me unable to do anything and basically ruins my day. Not all the time just occasionally particularly if I am triggered. Today was quite bad. Sometimes it's about money, sometimes it's about career choices, sometimes what happened at school . Todays was about something I threw out years ago that has real sentimental and quite high monetary value. I can't think of any good reason that I threw it out. I've lost quite a lot of money over the years but I'm still financially quite well off so I can't be that bad. What are your stories?

I am not yet comfortable talking about my mistakes on the site but I do
understand what you are saying and I can relate.
Made some mistakes that still keep me up at night if I think about them.
I also feel that I can't think of reasons that I made these mistakes but I
guess it is common with bipolar. I also feel like I have had times in my life
that I have very little memory of. Bipolar sucks.

I have learned not to dwell. I don't dwell on things. I laugh at myself and at everything else around me so that helps.

I was scammed due to my own stupidity. Lost all my money. Thousands and thousands. All of it. Previously was robbed three times in my life all due to my negligence ( left things open unlocked not hidden etc), stayed for too many years with alcoholic. I have a lot of debt partially due to bad shopping habits. Had way way too many sexual partners. Some unprotected sex. Stayed in useless relationships. I could go on....

What's the point? I fall down and get back up. Life goes on.

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LOL....63 years of living....lots of mistakes....too many for me to dwell on or that's all I would be able to do.

Lets see, the first mistake was marrying the guy I married even when I saw the red flags & allowed myself to be talked out of them & then I rationalized them away myself thinking an educated person couldn't possibly be like that......the other mistake is related to that....I spent 33 years in that bad marriage that was bad even before it began.

Lots of stuff happened during my depression/black hole period of my life between 1994 & 2007 when I finally left the marriage.

Lots of mistakes after I left but leaving was sooooo good that the good has covered the bad memories.....but they are:

There was a voice inside my head that told me when I was packing to drive from KY back to Calif the last time, to put my sterling silver flute under the back seat & take it out of the bottom of the bag I had thrown it is so I could do some practicing when I got back to Calif to load more things to bring back with me to my new farm. Again, I talked myself out of listening to that voice with the no one is going to get into my truck anyway.....it's at the bottom of the bag, no one can see it there anyway.....I'm already running several days late in leaving & I just don't want to take the time to mess with it. Second night I pulled in late to a motel 6 in Albuquerque New Mexico. The guy took my debit card to pay for the room, told me I could drive my truck around back closer to my room. The next morning when I went out to my truck, I found it had been broken into. Window to the back door on the quad cab had been broken (my dog Leo hadn't barked that night at any strange noises....guess he was as tired as I was). Turned out that the only bag that was stolen was the one that had been piled up with receipts & the one that my flute was at the bottom of. My laptop & my GPS weren't even touched. Found out later that they stole the information off that card & were using it. That made my traveling the other 1/2 of the way back to California (2100 miles total) very difficult. Late night & that guy was the only one in the motel that night, but the police wouldn't do anything. That whole trip was a nightmare & I was doing it alone with my dog.

I got scammed into an at home business that sounded good after moving here & before realizing that financially that whole thing wouldn't have worked, but the training was a scam & then I never could get my huge amount of money back (money I really could use now for some other really important needs my farm has)

I had met a person who was rebuilding a farm & he was getting a heat pump system put into that farm at the same time I needed a new one on my house. Someone gave him a name of this guy who would do both of them for a reasonable price & he would make sure the work was done right before the guy was paid.....turned out the outside system on my unit never worked. Bad compressor & bad switching unit (AC/Heater). That winter all I had to heat my house was the emergency heat strips. Ended up with a $1600+ electric bill for less than 4 months of heating. The guy stalled in getting the compressor....always an excuse (I learned that when someone gives you excuses, they usually are crooked). He got some other company to come & put in the compressor but there was still a problem. He had told me that the company that made the unit would stand behind the electric bill....they wouldn't. I went after him & the check he gave to the electric company to pay MY BILL bounced higher than the moon. I was doing business with my lawyer setting up my farm as an LLC & commented to my lawyer about this guy & if there was a way to go after him.....he knew the guy & he was a crook & he was judgment proof (meaning that his income from disability couldn't be touched & he didn't own a house)....so I was SOL with no money to fix the problem I now had. The guy that got this person in the first place did give me a check toward the electric bill, but it didn't help the rest of the problem. (I was blessed when my mental health group I was going to found out, they had funds that were specially allocated for emergency situations like that & they paid for a new outside unit to be installed.....LOL...found out that the original outside unit wasn't even a matching unit for the inside one & wouldn't have worked even if it was functional.

Oh yes, I needed some fencing done. I hired this other guy that the previous owner of my farm recommended. He did the dog runs, but took my check for the supplies for the wooden field fencing & never did get back with me. I did take him to small claims court & won that judgment BUT, he never paid. The judge had told me that because I wrote the check & got NOTHING for it, that I could file criminal charges against him....so that's what I ended up doing. Nice way to meet our local county DA who really helped me a lot & I did finally get my money back right before they were going to put him in jail though even after I won the criminal case.

Oh yes, another winner was the painter I hired to paint my house. Never hire anyone by the hour. I finally fired him after I caught him painting the same wall over & over again. 9 years later & my house still isn't really finished....also learned never decide to go with fancy ideas. I thought I would make the doorways without doors into arches to make it look old fashioned. Turned out that the painter messed up building the arches on the frames that were built so bad, I will end up having to knock them down to ever make the place finished. There is no way to just sand them down to the point of looking good.

I now have a wonderful support group of great friends around me that I can count on to get good help HOWEVER, my friend did get someone to help with the mowing last year after my major oral surgery when I couldn't & they cut back trees & bushes on a slope next to my driveway & just left them there rather than putting them in my brush pile that I will end up burning one of these days.....so even good help isn't always that good or helpful.

In reality, if I had been wise, I would have come here & rented for awhile & looked for the really perfect farm rather than getting what I could find in my 2 week trip here. I was afraid if I didn't buy something that I would end up still trapped in the bad marriage. I love my farm & it's location but the house is way too big for JUST ME.

There is no point in dwelling on things. What I have learned over the years is that I take the mistakes & analyze what I can learn from them & that is what I hold onto, not the mistake itself.

Thanks for that eskie. I love your attitude. I had to smile (I'm sure you don't mind) when you said 'another wnner is....' Another doozie was ....haha. That painter wasn't called Tom Sawyer was he? It was a wonder he didn't get you to do it as well.

How do you not dwell on mistakes you have made in your life?
HmmmI wish I could say that I don't. Like Eskie, there have been so many that eventually some get lost in the shuffle. And with the passage of time, eventually you just don't care as much. I should beat myself up for becoming apathetic I suppose

I never mind a good smile at my posts. I truly try to see the funny side of things as much as possible now & try to find something to laugh about with the bad things that have happened. Always try to find the humor twist in everything that happens in my life & I try to present it that way most of the time.

LOL....Tom Sawyer....that could very well describe him. Lets see, if you can imagine the worst Kentucky accent possible. I couldn't even understand what he was saying at times & would have to ask him to spell the word.....but then I forgot, education was not his strong point either (maybe why he was a painter?)

LOL...actually I did all the stripping of the wallpaper in the dining room because I was trying to keep the cost down....LOL...so he did get me involved in doing the work our of desperation.

Every once in awhile I run into him around town....even more now that I have an elderly friend from church that I visit every Sunday afternoon at the Extended Care Facility at our local hospital. His mother is also in there so I have run into him visiting his mom when I'm in visiting my friend & some of the other wonderful older people I have met in there. Small town of 8000, you know that running into people is going to happen.

LOL....like I lost my smart phone on my farm in a 2 hour span when I was out mowing the field. I had just texted a friend to let her know I was going to a funeral the next afternoon & then I posted on FB a picture of a rabbit trail I had mowed over so it was really obvious. Thought I stuck the phone in my vest pocket but when I went to get it, it wasn't in my pocket. I looked all over the field, raked the area, even had a friend call when I contacted her using my computer messaging system on FB...NOTHING.....I swear that it fell down a bunny hole & Alice is holding it ransom in Wonderland.

Gah .. so many mistakes and dumb ideas and well..... all things .. I cant make a list as I dont want to write a novel ..... But I will tell you what has helped me alot.

My T had me write down every day what "memory of bad choices and what not" on lil slips of paper for a month.. well needless to say that mason jar was packed .... He told me to bring it in after a month...

He pulled one out and said " can you change that you apparently spent too much money on a vacation 3 years ago? Reality check ! Sure I struggled to get back up to date on my bills ...but hell it was a great trip and loads of memories

Why did I stay with a guy that was abusive for so long??? Well he was so slick and I literally I didnt realize it until I was diagnosed with Cancer and it was a huge wake up call... needless to say his belonging where in my front yard 2 hours later. I really have beat myself over that .. but the reality is because of that assshat I learned that I really deserved better and I would never allow myself to be groomed and brainwashed again.

Anyway..... long story short 30 slips of paper and when we hit bottom I had only 7-8 left.. Those were the ones that we worked on... life is all about learning and growing.

I have forgiven myself for so many things.. I have learned lessons and insight on how I want my life to be and who I have in my life.

Ptang.. Its not easy.. it takes work... Your a wonderful intelligent caring human being

Please remember that when your beating yourself up. For every negative thought turn it around and make some part of it positive ...

Aw gee shucks Christina, thanks. It just so happens that I think the same about you.

So so so many mistakes - two relationships, parenting, and spending a whole lot of money. I have a lot of regrets.

I dwell way too much. Not finishing college, money mistakes, not starting to get in shape sooner, waiting so long to seek help for my mental issues, getting rid of my grandpa's motorcycle, and on and on and on.

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To err is to human, or so the saying goes.

I believe we all have times that we drag out old mistakes and ruminate etc. on them. Mine tend to be in the wee hours of the morning when I'm having a raging case of insomnia, when I'm really stressed out or right after I make some major boneheaded mistake.

What helps me is to remember we humans make mistakes. It's part of who and what we are. Then I do something like Christina's T did with her. I admit there's nothing I can do to go back and change what happened so I focus on what I can learn from it and how I can avoid doing it again.

Just my personal opinion, but I believe I had to reach a point of liking myself enough to be able to forgive myself for making mistakes. I grew up with a father who liked to point out my flaws and mistakes. Combine that with a personality that has some perfectionistic and OCD-like tendencies and I had to come to learn it was okay to make mistakes. It also helps me to focus on the magnitude of the mistake. At one point in my life all mistakes felt like catastrophes. Forgetting to put coffee grounds in the coffee maker is inconvenient, but the world will not come to an end. Going off, leaving the range on and burning down the house is a major problem. No, I haven't burned the house down, but I have forgotten to add coffee to the pot in the morning.

In my case it's when I'm feeling bad about myself, it goes in a nasty little cycle, and gets me absolutely nowhere.

Look at it this way, the person who made no mistakes made nothing... I think as long as you haven't hurt anyone it doesn't usually matter.

There's a great movie called Defending Your Life that reminds me of reflecting on your mistakes.

I've made choices that turned out to be bad decisions. Were they mistakes?

My father used to say "If you guess right, you're a genius; guess wrong, you're a goat."

I have a few regrets and will hopefully live for many, many more years during which I can make a whole crapton more mistakes. Mistakes allow for personal growth, and that I'm big on. Still, having said that, I do dwell on my mistakes sometimes. I used to be worse, but I try to focus on what I do right, rather than what I've done wrong.

What have you done right, ptang? Might be worth it to sit down and really think about the good you've done in life.

One thing I've stopped doing was Journaling. I tended to ruminate over past wrongs.

I think we dwell on past mistakes for the following reasons:

* Reminding ourselves not to make the same mistake again. It finally dawned on me that this will just keep me focused on repeating the same errors! Self-fulfilling prophecy. Maybe instead I should focus on what I want to do differently the next time!

* Believing that regret will somehow prevent us from making the same mistakes. In practice, regret alone just makes us feel guilty, vulnerable and stupid! I think regret may be useful IF we also resolve to do something differently the next time ... and then actually remember to do it.

I found this video today. Interesting stuff. The Cognitive Science Behind Repeating Mistakes - The Atlantic - The Atlantic

This is sometimes an issue for me, usually when I screw up something colossally. Things I tend to dwell on, my inability to stay stopped drinking, financial mistakes, and not being able to find a job.

Now when I catch myself beating myself up, I tell myself gently that that won't help and all I can do is change the future. Sometimes it even works.

splitimage

Not marrying my superman / jimmie olsen. I was definitely a budding lois lane and i might have fulfilled my destiny if i had stuck with Clark kent when i found him. But just like lois, i never recognized him. He's dead now. So now i watch johnny carson reruns by myself and know we could have been together watching the originals. So its KINDA like having love and lost, right?

More than ruminating on my mistakes, I tend to beat myself up over things I feel I should have done, actions I did not take.

Although it is different, it can really bring me down and as others have stated, ruin my day. I have to work very hard to overcome this and redeem time back from it.

I try very hard (when I am well enough to do so) to see each day as another chance to do things right. Some things just are too far in the past, or to complex, to simply "fix". So I try to redeem my life by doing as much good as possible, whenever possible.

The past helps me avoid behaving in ways that would completely horrify me, now.

I also happen to have had (fairly recently, especially) an awful lot of exposure to people who are (for lack of more colourful terms!) really toxic and destructive human beings. There is no way I could ever, on my worst day, compare with the destruction, anguish, and sorrow they have caused.

My mistakes in life mostly just harmed myself. The other few have precipitated effects that were out of my control and fairly inevitable, anyway (things I find very hard to take on, as they are out of all proportion with my mis-steps.)

So, morally, ethically, I might not be a saint. But I am nowhere near as base, or reprehensible, or as openly cruel as some I have known (and unfortunately, still have to deal with for the time being). My crimes, my massive errors of judgement PALE in comparison with the deliberate and willfull harm done to me by others. (And yet they also, amazingly, all share the deplorable trait of being fairly certain they were good, upstanding people---which was simply amazing to me. What incredible nerve! What unbelievable levels of self-absorption they have exhibited, and still do!)

Trust me, ptang, there are real rotters out there. And they do not beat themselves up for a moment over the things that would make you and I lose sleep for days, or weeks on end.

(((hugggg)))

The fact that you feel remorse, sadness, and a desire to perhaps set things right, is a sign of a healthy conscience. You must console yourself with that.

Remedy what you can, where you can. The rest is genuinely out of your hands.

So many mistakes...

Major and minor. I cannot forgive myself, nor can I stop myself from remembering them.

They hurt me just as much today (or probably more, even) than when I made them.