You may be familiar with concepts like “the multiverse” or “parallel realities” that center on the idea that there could be many different versions of our lives. The 2022 A24 movie Everything, Everywhere, All At Once brought this idea to the big screen. In the film, the main character jumps between all of the various lives she could be living. This concept can cause friction with our mental health when we think about paths not taken and what ifs, pondering (and perhaps dwelling on) all the different directions our life could have gone in. Sometimes this can manifest in regret, guilt, grief, and nagging unanswerable questions, so let’s explore addressing the complex emotions that can arise when considering the paths and opportunities not taken.
Key Concepts & Emotions
First, let’s scratch the surface on some of the difficult emotions and themes that may arise when we are reflecting on the paths not taken. Grief is usually discussed in response to a death, but the experience of grief extends to other losses as well. The defining characteristic of grief is profound distress resulting from a significant loss, which may manifest in sadness, confusion, fear, anger, and other challenging emotions. Ambiguous loss is a term coined by researcher and therapist Dr. Pauline Boss and refers to loss without a sense of closure or resolution. This can be used in reference to losing a loved one, but the term has been used more expansively to incorporate other losses too. We may experience both of these as we reflect on opportunities missed, choices made, and potential alternate paths.
Grief around paths not taken can arise in response to various circumstances, so here are a few common scenarios that can spark this type of reflection and a lot of “what ifs…”:
- The end of a long-term relationship (romantic or otherwise)
- Career shifts (such as leaving a job, getting fired, changing fields, etc)
- Major lifestyle changes (like moving to a different city or country)
- Family planning choices (like whether or not to get married, have children, etc)
We may also experience that grief in a more abstract or ambiguous sense, such as:
- Have I chosen the “right path” or am I doing the right thing?
- What would my life be like if COVID had not happened?
- Would I be happier if things were different?
A few other intense emotions that may arise are regret, guilt, and shame. Regret refers to sadness and disappointment over a choice we made in the past that we feel could have resulted in a better outcome if we had chosen differently. We can have regret over something we did or did not do. As they say, hindsight is 20/20 and it may feel obvious that we chose “right or wrong” after the fact, and it’s easy to shame ourselves with “should'' statements, such as “I should have done…. instead”. Similar to regret, we may also experience guilt and/or shame. Researcher Dr. Brene Brown makes the distinction between guilt which is feeling psychological discomfort because a choice we’ve made does not align with our values, while shame refers to a more painful feeling that we are not lovable or worthy due to our choices. This is the difference between “I did something bad” versus “I am bad.”
Another major concept that comes into play is agency, or feeling a sense of control over choices and consequences. Some losses or paths feel difficult because we had little or no say in the matter, such as being laid off from a job you love. On the flip side, sometimes the agency we have can make the situation more challenging, as we are intentionally choosing a path. For example, making the difficult decision to break off a long-term romantic relationship with someone you deeply love because it is no longer serving you. The “right choice” may not always feel good, especially in the moment, which can lead to feelings like regret or the classic question “did I make a mistake?”
Strategies for Acknowledgment and Acceptance
Now we’ve identified some of the challenging emotions that may arise when reflecting on choices made and paths not taken, but there are some tools available to us that can help. The first tool we can implement is self-compassion. This simply means directing care, kindness, and understanding towards ourselves. It is often easier to offer compassion to others than to ourselves, so one exercise I recommend to my clients is to imagine how they would react if a close friend or family member were in their shoes. What would they say to them or what comfort would they provide? And then to direct those same sentiments inward. It’s often easier to be harsh and judgmental towards ourselves than it is towards a loved one, so this exercise attempts to harness that kindness we have for others and redirect it back to ourselves.
Another great tool, specifically for addressing regret and guilt for choices we’ve made, is to remind yourself that you made the best possible choice based on the information you had at the time. As we said, hindsight is 20/20, but to extend compassion to yourself at a particular moment in time when you did the best you could with what you had allows you to challenge that notion of “I should’ve known better.” Similarly, it can be helpful to envision our younger selves and extend compassion to that person. For example, let’s say you are reflecting on regrets around choices you made around college (perhaps wishing you’d gone to college, wishing you hadn’t, wishing you’d chosen a different major, etc). Think of, or even pull up a picture of, 17-year-old you who had to make big decisions about your future at a relatively young age. You may still have regrets, but extending empathy to your younger self may help in minimizing shame or self-blame.
Therapy can also be a resource for processing these emotions in a nonjudgmental and compassionate space. It can be easy to feel stuck in regret, shame, guilt, and grief, but having a mental health professional there to bring attention to your thought patterns and gently challenge you can be extremely helpful. The experience of grieving paths not taken can feel isolating, but a therapist can also help normalize this, as many clients experience similar feelings.
I want to leave you with an exercise to try that comes from the field of positive psychology, as referenced in Dr. Daniel Tomasulo’s book Learned Hopefulness. First, bring to mind a time in your life when a door closed: perhaps a plan did not pan out how you hoped, an opportunity was lost, or you felt deeply disappointed about something. Now think of what new door (or doors) opened as a result. There likely was at least one unexpected positive thing that happened in the aftermath of something else not working out. Now try coming up with two more examples of something gained following a loss. This exercise is an example of the cognitive-behavioral therapy tool of reframing, which encourages a perspective shift to fight off negative or irrational thoughts. As you think of your 3 doors, you may also ask yourself the following questions: What did you learn about yourself in each example? How difficult or easy was it for you to recognize that the new door had opened? What positive elements of your current life would you miss out on if you had stayed on the other path? This exercise is not meant to invalidate the pain of losing something, but can serve as a helpful reminder that new possibilities can come out of a loss, sparking more hopefulness and optimism.
Sources:
“About Ambiguous Loss.” Ambiguous Loss, www.ambiguousloss.com/about/.
Brown, Brene. Daring Greatly How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent and Lead. Penguin Books Ltd, 2018.
Tomasulo, Daniel J. Learned Hopefulness. New Harbinger Publications, Inc, 2020.