The necessity for talking about "regrets" can be summarized as that regrets are

Interviewer(W)Reverend Sherri Hausser(M)
W: We brought in a person to help us understand what regrets are all about. Reverend Sherri Hausser is an associate pastor at the Bryn Mawr Presbyterian Church in Pennsylvania. Nice to have you here.
M: Thank you.
W: We talked about this, I guess in the meeting, that everybody on the staff said we should do a segment about regrets. Why? Why is it something we need to talk about?
M:(1)Regrets are amongst the most human things we have: these amazing invitation and opportunity to grow. So if you don’t have regrets, I mean I wouldn’t want to deal with someone who didn’t have regrets.
W: But immediately you say regrets are positive, and most people don’t think that way. Most people think that regrets are negative.
M: I think they have a negative attitude on regrets because we’ve been taught that regrets are a bad thing, so we repress them and have a certain amount of shame about them. But I think they are absolutely an opportunity if we acknowledge them.
W: Basically two kinds of regrets. Wouldn’t that be fair to say most people have regrets about a personal relationship or about an opportunity and sometimes obviously those things that cross over? When is the amount of time you spend worrying about something you think about normal? And when does it become something that negatively impacts your life?
M: I think if it makes you stop functioning, then it becomes abnormal as long as the regret stays as an energy. Sometimes you have to sit with it a long time. You sit with the regret and you try to understand. It’s never about the past. It’s a present emotion. And what it really is—it’s a yearning about something in the future, it’s something popping up and saying " wow, I could be more, I could do something different". It’s really about focusing on the future, even though it seems to be about the past.
W: Sometimes it’s about the past: a woman in the pizzaria said I regret not listening to my mom and getting married too young. Clearly she set some problems in the past.
M: Yeah, that’s true.(3- 1)I think that the important thing about regret is not to repress it. I think it starts to bother us, and it inhibits us from acting if we don’t acknowledge it. I think if we articulate it, look at what the regret is, then it frees us up in order to do something about it.
W: So you say, "Ok, I’ve got a regret. All right. Here is what I did in a personal relationship. Here is what I said to a person that I wished I hadn’t said it. " Now, get off your butt, and change it. So, if you made someone upset, you go and apologize. Is it as simple as that?
M:(2)Well, sometimes it is as simple as that. I mean, it depends again on what the regret is about. But for example, regretting that you married too young—it’s not about marry too young. That is over. You can’t do anything about the past. But the regret is really about right now. What do I want different about this relationship that I’m in? And sometimes that means I don’t want to be in this relationship anymore, and I have to act that way, and that’s a very serious thing, but it is not about the past. A regret is a yearning about the future, and a yearning to be more.
W: What’s the difference between regret and guilt?
M:(3-2)I would say that guilt is something that we used to beat ourselves up with. It’s something that actually stalls us and keeps us from acting. Regret on the other hand, is really an opportunity toward action. If we articulate it, then we’re compelled to do something different about it. And it really is an opportunity.
W: What do you say to those who are out there living with regrets for years?
M: I would say:(4 - 1)you have to have a shift in perspective. The second you feel that regret, you may think " Oh my God, an amazing opportunity right now, to grow, to develop, to discover something new about myself ".(4 - 2)To be specific, I would say that the first thing you do is to identify it. The second thing is that if it is something that is past, that you can’t reclaim in a certain way, you have to grieve it. The third thing is by grieving,you free yourself up to say: what can I do now? If it’s that I didn’t have a child, maybe I can adopt one. If I can’t adopt, maybe I can engage the children in my life, my niece’s, my nephew’s, other people’s children, volunteer with children. It’s a way to really manifest part of ourselves that’s been repressed and that we’ve wanted to inform.
W: I’m going to make that one the last word. I regret we’re out of time, so thanks very much.
M: Glad to be here.