Original post by Ashley Berges
Should you say it or not? Sometimes things are better left unsaid. However, sometimes it is just the opposite. There are times when it is important to speak up, such as after a major argument or when ending a long-term relationship or friendship. We need to understand and measure what are the things we need to speak up about and what are the things we can let go of, otherwise known as the regret quotient.
The biggest part of the regret quotient is how much regret will you have if you do not say anything. If you say nothing, how long will you be holding onto the thought process, anger, and resentment feeling? Will holding onto these feelings help you or harm you? The other part of the quotient is thinking about your thoughts and feelings. Do you need to get something off your chest, is it pertinent or is it not?
This can be figured this out in multiple ways. Do we want to get back at someone or do we want to get them back? We must speak to ourselves and think that we want to eliminate regret and speak our truth about this concept. We also want to prevent any further hurt. If we have been hurt in the situation, we do not want to further the pain in the situation. We must look to get some type of closure and get our truth out so that we can move forward.
The concept of the regret quotient involves positively presenting ourselves without causing further harm. We must be explicit with our words to describe the situation that we want to describe. When we have the chance to express our feelings in the right way, we do not want to regret later that what we expressed was not understood, they did not get us, or our words were not used properly. We need to use the proper action to take over the use of what we are saying and what we mean and that we are getting deep about it. We want to eliminate any question that the other person misunderstands what we are trying to say.
When we think about the regret quotient, we are talking about more than a major breakup. Often, we are thinking about an argument with a family member, friend, or even a wedge that has gotten between us and a good friend. Sometimes we feel like things need to be left unsaid or that we have already spoken our truth, and they just do not understand us or are not emotionally capable of understanding us. Sometimes for some of us to move on we must express ourselves, but we need to do this properly.
It’s Time to Ask Ourselves a Couple of Questions.
How far am I willing to go to be heard?
How far am I willing to go to expose my feelings and emotions?
Am i willing to put myself out there and not have any expectation of the outcome?
The reasons why we think about the regret quotient are that we do not want to have regret in our life. One thing in life that we can’t turn around is regret. Regrets are what hold us back, they are what we ponder on, and often talk to our therapists or coaches about. It is very important to be able to eliminate some of our regrets by speaking our truth.
Closure, many of us cannot just deal with closure on our own, although on occasion we do have to deal with it on our own. For example, when we are blocked, we will need to handle closure on our own. We need to understand that the other person is not emotionally equipped or chooses not to deal with the situation. With most emotionally stable individuals there should be a way to get closure.
Often this is a stepping stone to moving on to a clean slate. We get to this point, we have the conversation promptly, it is best not to have this conversation immediately after the situation has happened. Getting some distance is important rather than getting too much into your emotions. Being too much into your emotions will make it more difficult to express yourself clearly and eliminate the anger and resentment in your voice. The last thing we want is to have the conversation and not be in our right frame of mind. We may then end up with more regret about how we handled the end of it.
Another aspect of this is that we get to say our peace. We can say our peace peacefully. We are going to share this peacefully because we want them to remember us in this type of reality. This may be the last conversation with this person or open the doors to further deeper communication. However, if it proceeds, they will remember the conversation and you more peacefully.
Once we can do this, we do not have to play it repeatedly in our heads. When we can execute the plan and have the conversation, we will have said what we needed to say peacefully and refocus our life. We will know that we have done all the necessary things to not regret something we should have said.
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