Episode 168: What to do about guilt and regret
6/17/26
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You are listening to the Life Reconstructed podcast with me, Teresa Amaral Beshwate, grief
expert, best-selling author and widow. I’m so glad you’re here because in this and every
episode, I shine a light on the widowed way forward.
Hello and welcome to episode 168. Many widowed people replay the past, convinced they should
have done more, known more, or somehow changed the outcome. In this episode, I’ll help you look
more closely at guilt and regret, where they come from and how they shape your life, so you can
begin loosening their grip.
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Hello and welcome back to the podcast.
If you’re listening to this episode as it is released, then tomorrow, June 18th, 2026, I’m
offering a free live training called Guilt and Regret: A Practical Way Forward, and today’s
episode is designed to help you begin that work.
In episode 167, we talked about the difference between guilt and regret. Guilt usually says, I
did something wrong. Regret often says, I wish something had been different. And while both can
feel heavy, sticky, and painful, I want to focus today on what you can actually do with them.
Because guilt and regret are incredibly common after the loss of a spouse.
And they are also incredibly under-discussed.
So many widowed people carry thoughts like:
I should have known.
I should have done more.
I should have seen the signs.
I should have made him go to the doctor.
I should have gone to every appointment.
I should have been able to save him.
And because these thoughts can feel so awful, many people don’t say them out loud. They carry
them quietly. Sometimes for years.
So first, please hear this: if guilt or regret is part of your grief, nothing has gone wrong
with you. You are not broken. You are not the only one. You are having a very human response to
an unimaginably painful reality.
But normal does not mean useful.
Normal does not mean you have to keep carrying it in the same way forever.
So the first practical step is this: get to the source.
Ask yourself, Why do I feel guilty? Why do I feel regret?
And the answer is a thought.
Not the circumstance itself. Not just the facts. But what your brain is making those facts mean.
For example, the fact might be: he went to the doctor on Tuesday.
The thought might be: I should have pushed harder for more testing.
The fact might be: I wasn’t home when it happened.
The thought might be: I should have been there.
The fact might be: I didn’t know how serious it was.
The thought might be: I should have known.
This matters because once you can see the thought, you can examine it.
You can hold it up to the light.
You can ask whether it deserves to keep running your life.
And I want to give you three questions to help with that.
Question one: Is it factually true?
And by factually true, I mean provable in a court of law. All people on earth would agree it is
true.
Not: it feels true.
Not: my grief says it is true.
Not: I have repeated it so many times that it now sounds true.
But actually, objectively, factually true.
Is it factually true that you should have known?
Is it factually true that you could have saved them?
Is it factually true that one different choice from you would have changed the outcome?
Often, the answer is no.
And that doesn’t mean your brain will instantly let it go. But it does mean you have found an
opening.
Question two: Is it useful?
Notice what happens when you believe the thought.
When you think, I should have saved him, what happens next?
Maybe you spiral into shame.
Maybe you criticize yourself.
Maybe you decide you don’t deserve joy.
Maybe you opt out of fully living your one precious life because some part of you believes you
did it wrong.
Maybe you overeat, overdrink, overspend, overscroll, overwork, stay overly busy, or find some
other form of overing just to escape the pain for a few minutes.
That chain of events matters.
Because if a thought creates suffering and leads you away from the life you want to rebuild, you
get to question whether it is useful.
Question three: Is it kind?
Would you say this sentence to someone you love?
Would you say to your best friend, You should have saved him?
Would you say, This is your fault?
Would you say, You don’t deserve to live fully now?
If not, consider that it may need to be off limits for how you speak to yourself, too.
There are an infinite number of thoughts available to you.
Shopping around for different thoughts is free.
So why not choose, on purpose, thoughts that are true, useful, and kind?
That does not mean pretending.
It does not mean forcing yourself into positivity.
It means becoming more flexible with your mind.
Aristotle said, “It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without
accepting it.”
I would add that it is also the mark of a flexible mind.
You can entertain the thought, I should have saved him, without accepting it as truth.
You can notice it.
You can examine it.
You can question it.
And then you can consider another possibility.
What if your person wasn’t able to be saved?
What if you were not capable of saving them?
What if you did the best you could with the information, capacity, energy, and understanding you
had at the time?
What if they were never yours to save?
I know that one may feel hard to hear.
It was hard for me to consider, too.
I was filled with regret after Ted died. And for years, I locked myself in a prison of my own
creation.
It was solitary confinement.
I allowed myself only a metered, mediocre existence because I believed I had not saved him.
And it took years for me to consider the possibility that he wasn’t mine to save.
That he wasn’t save-able.
And only then was I able to begin setting myself free.
So today, I hope you’ll take some time with the free downloadable journal prompt I prepared for
you. Use it to get to the root of regret. To see the thoughts creating it. To hold them up to
the light and examine them carefully.
Not so you can shame yourself more.
So you can decide your next steps with intention.
And I hope you’ll join me tomorrow for my free live training called Guilt and Regret: A
Practical Way Forward.
We’ll go deeper into this topic. I’ll answer your questions. And I’ll help you begin moving
forward with more compassion and more clarity.
Please join me live.
You’ll only see my face. Your camera will be off. You can listen quietly, or you can type
questions if you’d like.
And there will be hundreds of widowed people in the virtual room with you, which means you won’t
have to explain why this is so hard. You’ll be with people who get it.
I hope you’ll join me.
And I hope this episode was helpful. If it was, please share it with someone who needs to hear
it.
And remember: I believe in you, and I’m here for you.
Take care.
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If you’ve found this podcast helpful, sign up for my free live presentation called Guilt and
Regret: A Practical Way Forward. You’ll gain simple tools to help you give yourself permission to fully live again. The link to save your spot is in the show notes.
