Episode 526: I Want You to Have No Regrets

No need to whine, it's whiny palooza. Have some wine and join us on the whiny palooza podcast with Rebecca Greene. Welcome to the whiny palooza podcast. I'm your host, Rebecca Greene. I'm a wife, mother of 3, and licensed clinical social worker. I also have 3 fur babies at home too. My passion has always been to help children and their families. I always dreamed of being a wife and a mother. Parents are always learning through their struggles, failures, and successes and joys. I am no stranger to this wild ride of parenting, and I know behind every great parent lies a team of supportive friends and family. I want to be part of your support system. I want you to know that you are not alone. We are in this parenting world together. Join me every week for insightful discussions with experts on parenting and marriage, as well as other parents who have found the secret to successes in parenthood. You'll learn tips and tricks to make life with your family better than ever. I hope you will follow along with me while we dive into what it takes to achieve a happy family. You do it.

Happy Winey Palooza Wednesday, everybody. Hello, everyone.

It is not Wednesday.

Happy Wednesday! It's a Thursday! I apologize, my wife and daughter were at a cheer competition last night, so we are doing Winey Blues Thursday. It's Thirsty Thursday.

I had every intention of coming home from the competition last night and doing this. The competition was— they were wonderful. Lily and her team were fantastic. That was not the issue. The issue was it was very long. It was very late. I was sweating.

I couldn't—

I couldn't wait to get home and take a shower. I was like dripping in sweat and I texted Seth and I was like, I am not— I am not going live.

You also got home late.

I got home very— it was almost 10 o'clock. Yeah, I was tired.

Yeah.

So anyways, you're getting us on Thursday instead of when we can do Wednesdays. We will always give you Wednesdays. When we can't do Wednesdays, you're going to get us another night. So thank you for your flexibility. If you didn't read it already, I did write I Want You to Have No Regrets, inspired by my husband, and I will tell you about that. And you can read the whole— I mean, this is a thick one.

This is good stuff. This one, I got emotional reading this.

Did you?

I did.

Did it— was it helpful?

Yes.

Did it help you?

It did.

This one was painful because I was having a lot of trouble focusing this week, as you can probably tell from this vlog. So I had trouble writing. I'm having trouble focusing. It's been a very difficult month for several reasons. We— I personally haven't talked about this with Seth. I can't wait to be done with February. I'm like, hello March, come on, come on, march in with good news. We want lots of good news. March is gonna be great. I'm gonna say a prayer right now. February's been rough, lots and lots of reasons, but my husband inspired this blog. This is for him, I wrote this for him, and I thought it was a really important topic after a conversation Sunday night. You know, most of you who know me know that I'm emotional.

What?

Might have been some emotions before we went live. No, my husband might have upset me. Anyways, never, never upset me. You're so wonderful all the time, every second. Um, so what was I saying though? Emotional. So I'm emotional. So I, um, when I'm upset, whether it's my cat or my dog or a family member or whatever the situation is or my friends, I cry. I cry to Seth, I cry to my mom, I cry to my friends, I cry. And Seth, it depends with Seth, you know. So someday he finally let some stuff out and, um, told me some of his feelings about Tanner, which were completely inaccurate.

Thank you.

So I'm glad, very helpful. I'm glad that he like got it all out. Like, I've been storing this up and I need to unload and I need I need to tell you all my feelings of what I've been stuffing.

Yes.

And he got it all out, and I said, oh honey, okay, I want to help you have no regrets. So I'm gonna go through my tips, and then I want you guys to report back to me if you think I have helped you have either less or no regrets. Okay, so Seth is going to report back to me, you're all going to report back to me.

Okay, I'm ready for my marching orders. Into march!

So I do want to tell you that I'm not starting from the top because I'm starting with Seth. You have to question if what you're thinking is facts or fiction. And I have learned through all my studies that your brain lies to you. I didn't know that before I studied this. I thought that when my brain told me something, it was the truth. I believed myself. Well, I want you to question yourself. Yourself is lying to you. He was telling me facts that were not factual.

They were telling you beliefs, things I believed I was worried were true.

Okay, I'm sorry. You were telling me thoughts that were not facts. They were fiction. Yes, that's what I'm trying to say. And if you talk to people, people will tell you if your thoughts are fiction. And if people tell you that what you're thinking is right, That's okay. We're not going to beat ourselves up. We're going to take it, we're going to learn from it, and we're going to move forward. And you know what else helps? Teaching other people. So I had this experience. From this experience, I would love for you to have a better experience, so I'm going to share this with you. That's helpful too. That helps you heal. So anyways, Seth was lying to himself, and I'm very, very happy that I could tell him how wrong he was.

Thank you, honey. Not sure if that's one way to phrase it.

Well, I wanted to tell you that you were— I wanted to give you proof that you were wrong so that you would feel better.

Okay.

Did I give you the proof?

I don't know that fact— we— there is no way to know if my beliefs were true or not. I think there's no way to actually— we can't go back in time. I don't think there's any way to know for sure whether what I was thinking was true or not, but it was not serving me. It was making me feel terrible, and you pointed that out and reframed it and made me feel much better about it.

Well, and you— what you— are you serious right now? Are you serious?

Sounds like—

just leave it. Just leave it.

That sounded like broken glass.

There's broken glass waiting for me. This is live. This is live for you. Yeah, picture frame just went tumbling down the stairs in my house.

Someone slammed the door.

That's totally what happened.

Yeah, I heard the door slam and then a picture fell off the wall. That's one hell of a door slam.

Stop the what-if game. So I'm just using, you know, situations in our house You know, like our dog just died, so I'm using that as an example. Yes, but the dog died and I was like, what if I had done this?

Oh my God, what if we're doing that? I was trying to help you. You were doing this like crazy to yourself.

Um, I spent days in the what if phase.

I've done this differently, would it have helped?

Are you laughing at the picture frame falling? That was a big loud crash in our house. We're like During our live, like, we're live like once a week. There's never crashing glass in our house, and for some reason it just happened.

Yes, so because it's Wednesday, it's not Thursday. She only slams the doors on Thursday.

I spent days playing the what-if game with myself. It's the worst game that you could play with yourself because it's over. We can't go back. We can't— Molly is laughing in our glass. Breaking.

You can't go back in time.

So it's like, it's like that expression that hindsight is 20/20, but I have to take whatever I learned from the whole situation. I did my best. I did my best with what I knew at the time.

Yeah.

I don't know if I did anything different, if any different outcome would have happened, because I don't have any evidence of that. I know that I worked my ass off. I know that I did my best. I know that I did my best with all the information presented to me, with everybody that I— all the experts that I spoke to. I did my best, and I don't like the outcome. I don't like what happened, but I can't go back. So I just have to take whatever I learned from this and use it in life with another animal, my kids, whatever. We can't play the what-if game because we'll drive ourselves crazy. So stop the game, move forward, take it and move forward. And we don't know— here's the thing with the what-if game— we don't know if we did anything different if we would have had any, any different outcomes. So, so we're like just playing a game.

Yes, and torturing ourselves. Yeah, it's what I was doing too.

It's just pure torture. I, I literally was like, well, what if I would have done the MRI, you know, at this month So it's interesting because my friend just did an X-ray of her dog, and Seth— I haven't had a chance to talk to Seth— and the X-ray showed the tumor. My friend showed me the X-ray and it showed the big tumor. And I said to my friend, when we did Tanner's X-rays in June, it showed nothing. It showed— the, the vets were all perplexed. It showed nothing. So it's like you play the game with, well, what if I would have done the X-rays again in September? Like you play games with yourself. I'm tortured. I have chills. Like, I can feel like I'm torturing myself. So we're gonna move on from the what-if game, and we're not going to let ourselves play that stupid game. We're going to decide what no regrets means to us. What is most important to you? When Max was born, I literally begged my husband to not go back to work, and I loved my job. I loved my job. I was gonna interview for another promotion I loved the company. I loved the people I worked with. I didn't want to go back. I saw Max and I was like, please don't make me go back. I didn't want to regret missing, missing that. And I freaked Seth out. You did. We needed my paycheck.

We did.

Which would have gone to daycare anyway. Sorry, but it would have. That was one of my arguments.

You still remember your arguments. Okay. I did not know that.

It's only been 19 years.

Right? So anyways, thank you for your arguments and convincing me.

I didn't want to have regrets, and you have to determine what's important to you. There's a lot of women who don't want to regret losing that promotion. They don't want to— they don't want to regret not, not pursuing their job that they love. I just wanted to be with my babies, and I know myself, and that's what I wanted. So, so just know what your priorities are and know like, what are you going to regret? And I'm just using this example, but there's so many examples. Like, are you going to regret not taking the trip? Are you going to regret not— give me something.

I don't know, writing the novel.

Yeah. What is— just what do you want to look back on? Make the list of like, this is what's most important to me. I really want to travel. I don't want to spend all of our money because we need it for college.

That's right, we do. Thank you.

Well, so, okay, hold on. It relates to—

that's a different item.

No, it relates to stop delaying joy until you earn it. So parents are really good at this one. So like, I will, um, relax after I clean the house. I remember I'll take the trip when the kids are older. Like, this is just— yep, right?

You just asked me that an hour ago.

So this is what Seth said. I said to Seth, 'Can we, like, when the kids are all in college, can we do things like go to New York to see a Broadway show together?' And his response was perfect. He said, 'I got one right.' Honey, you get so many right. You might have gotten one wrong right before this, but you get so many right. So here's the thing, I'm gonna tell you more often how right you are when you're right.

Well, that would be fantastic. As you saw, the intensity of which you communicated that I was wrong is more than the intensity you communicate than when I'm right.

I don't know about that, but I will fix that if that's accurate. I get very excited sometimes when you say—

That is true.

I get really excited when you say really good things.

Like, do you want to go to Vegas to see J.Lo?

Yes! Okay, so we say things—

Oh, you didn't tell them my perfect response. When you said, can we go to New York when the kids are out in school? Can we go to New York and just see a show, just the two of us? And what did I say?

Let's do that now.

Yes, don't delay.

So stop, like, stop delaying your joy because it's like we put things off, like, we'll get to it. Like, do it. Like, make the plan now.

Yeah, I have financial planning clients who are like, this is what we're going to do when we're retired. And then sometimes they get to retirement and their health isn't there, and now they can't go walk the pyramids or whatever they wanted to do. And I'm like, we should have taken the trip before you got You shouldn't have delayed all your gratification until you were 70.

Don't delay. You don't want regrets. There's something that you want to do. I want to go to Europe. Here's the problem. I don't want to delay the trips, but some children are very expensive.

Yes, when it comes to college, they're not picking very cheap colleges.

Oh my God, my friends are like 'Oh my God, UB is $35,000 a year!' And I'm like, 'Yeah, that is like—' And they're stressing about that. 'Yeah, that, that's a lot of money, but sure it is not compared to these other schools.' Silly Ivy League kids. 'Oh my God, how about if they pick a SUNY school?' You know what, there are so many parents who say they don't have a choice, you have to go to a SUNY school, you are so much smarter than us. So much smarter. Don't wait for motivation, build tiny momentum. We don't do things because we think we're not motivated enough, but all the reading that I do is teaching me that ridiculously small steps get you going.

You build positive momentum, right?

Yes. So momentum is not built by doing a big thing. Momentum is built by doing something tiny. So I said to my friend, I said, what is something small that you can do today?

Please go do it, right? Like someone says, oh man, I wish I could do 100 push-ups, but I, I get— I don't get motivated, I quit, whatever. I'm like, don't do that. Don't try and do 100 push-ups tomorrow. Do 1 tomorrow, and then I say do 2, and then 3, and then 4.

In 100 days you'll be doing 100. It'll build. Exactly. Um, I Started a book.

You're working on it, you didn't just start it.

It's in progress.

We're going to rephrase the word started because that—

I'm in progress.

There you go. You're writing a book, and another book, your first novel.

And I did some work on it today. Awesome. Without any expectations. There's not a I have to do a page a day. There's not a, I have to do 10 pages a day. It's work. It's like, do ridiculously small steps and it will get done. And eventually I'll get to, I'm gonna throw this out there, 400 pages. I don't know how long it's gonna be. I'll let you know. Yes.

Let's see how this goes, but—

Super excited for your book. Yeah, let's, I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna do it.

You are doing it. You didn't come today. You are doing it. I am doing it.

Okay, so I want to tell you a success. So you're gonna see that my book lists are hopefully going to decrease because instead of— I was really exhausted today, it's been a week. So instead of sitting on the couch with my book and reading because I was tired, I sat and at the table and I wrote. Wow. So I'm trying— that's impressive. So I'm trying to, like, at first I wanted to start reading during the day because I was only reading at night, which I was squeezing in here and there a little bit. Now I want to, as much as I love to read, I want to decrease my reading. I want to increase my writing. I love that. So that is a huge success for me that I wanted to sit down with my book and I didn't, and I went and wrote. So that's huge.

What's better than reading someone else's book?

Writing your own. Yes, yes. I don't know which one I like better yet, but I like them both.

Wait till you see yours in print and you see other people reading it and putting it on their Goodreads list.

You know what I'm hoping when I was writing it today? I'm hoping that people— okay, so my goal is that it's like really entertaining but learning. It's edutainment. So people don't like, um, personal development. I have so many— you do, you do—

a million people would disagree with you.

There are so many friends, okay, so many friends who are like, I don't read personal development. I don't even want you to know that this is personal development. It's like so hidden. Like, this is like an entertaining book that's gonna—

some broccoli and tiny bit of broccoli in the M&M.

Yes, surrounded by chocolate. My book is Broccoli in the M&M.

So that's not the title. Oh, it could be a good title for a personal development book that no one will read, apparently.

Oh my God. Okay, say the thing before it's too late. If you are holding on to something that you have not said to someone, if you are fighting with someone, if you are not speaking with someone, don't say, "Oh, eventually I'll talk to them. Eventually we'll make up." Or, you know, "Eventually I'll tell them that I'm sorry." Like, just go do it now. Just get it done so that you don't have regrets. The goal is no regrets. Amen. Okay, be brave enough to disappoint people sometimes. A lot of regrets are made by people pleasing. I don't want to do this, but I'm gonna go do it to make someone happy. That leads to regrets, okay? So you're gonna say, that doesn't work for us, I can't commit to that, I need a little time, we're keeping it simple this year. It's okay to say no, and boundaries will lead to no regrets. So we're gonna have better boundaries. Amen. Right? Yes. Do the uncomfortable conversation before it comes— becomes a crisis. Um, regret tends to love avoidance. Uh, we tend to have regrets when we're avoiding things. You're avoiding the exercise, you're avoiding the conversation, you're avoiding the doctor's appointment, you're avoiding the stressful conversation with your husband. About finances. You're avoiding, um, a symptom. You're having a symptom and you're just avoiding it, not dealing with it. Um, so get it done. Have the hard conversation. Talk to your doctor about your shoulder that still hurts. Like, talk to people. Yes, take the picture and get in the pictures, women. So Women all the time, I don't want my picture taken. I fight with women about this all the time. I don't want to be in the picture, I hate pictures. Your kids are not picking you apart. I will look in the mirror and be like, ah, and my daughters are like, Mom, you're so beautiful. My daughters are always, um, Lily, what's the word when you're glazing? You're glazing. My daughters are always glazing me. They're always like, Mom, you're You look beautiful. You're so snatched. Like, I—

okay, then that's gonna be a separate conversation.

They're not picking you apart. They just want memories.

Yeah, be in. Don't always be the one taking the picture. Get in there.

Yes, and don't worry about what you're wearing. Don't worry about if you have makeup on or if you— how you look in the swimsuit. Just get in the damn picture.

There you go.

That's a bumper sticker. Make memories on ordinary days. Don't wait for the big trip. Don't wait for the cruise. Don't wait for the big family reunion. Make Tuesday memorable. Have pancakes for dinner. Have ice cream before dinner. Um, or Taco Tuesday. Have a dance party. Have a yes day. Tell them they can only spend X amount on your yes day.

Yeah, otherwise somebody gets expensive real fast.

Um, create like little traditions. Kids love little traditions. It doesn't have to be big. It could be hot chocolate and a movie. They just love things that you do as a family. Trying to think of something, like Lily would get so excited when Mench would come out. Your kids love your elves. St. Patrick's Day is coming, and I love seeing all the traps that you make with your kids. Just like little things, it doesn't have to be these big huge elaborate traps. I mean, little things. Apologize faster and forgive yourself sooner. When you do something wrong, forgive your husband sooner. I let it go pretty quick. It took me a few minutes to rebound.

Yep, I appreciate that.

Sometimes I don't rebound in a second. I need a few minutes.

I know, however long you need is what's right.

Give me a few minutes and I'll rebound. Reset. I'm gonna reset on March 1st. On March 1st.

Why are you waiting?

Okay, so why don't you just reset now? It's still February.

Why are you making up a calendar association? The day of the month— the month has nothing to do with it.

Oh, okay, okay. Really?

There's a law somewhere that says February has bad things? I don't think there's a law.

Um, I wonder if we could travel for the month.

Yes, dear.

Okay, so anyways, um Yes, reset button. Hit the reset button. When you do something wrong, just quickly apologize. Race your partner to apologize, race your kid to apologize, teach your kid to apologize. And then after you say you're sorry, then forgive yourself. Because we're quick to— well, I'm sure some people hold grudges. We're quick to forgive others, we're not as quick to forgive ourselves. So don't hold things and, uh, regret that you didn't say you're sorry. Spend time like it matters because it does. I wish I hadn't wasted so much time. I think that goes back to like, notice what is draining you, notice what is filling you, and realize that you are sitting on the couch for 20 minutes watching TikTok. What? Probably not the best spent time. So I'm just—

never get that TikTok time back.

I get a lot of good ideas from TikTok. That's a separate conversation. Okay, so anyways, I want you to notice what drains you. I want you to notice what fills your cup. Do more of what fills your cup. You'll have less regrets. Amen, right, right. Okay, treat your health like your family depends on it, because it does. The sleep, the vitamins, the food, the exercise, the checkups— do all of it. Take care of yourself so that you don't have regrets about it. I was thinking about it today, um, it's kind of like prevention was the word that came to me, like the vitamins that I took today, the exercise, whatever we're doing, the stretching, the sauna, the new vibration plate. Like, it's all like, it's all health preventative maintenance type stuff, right? 100%. So, um, make a regret prevention list. Should we do that? I think that's a great idea. I think things that we hear the most is that they didn't— people didn't spend enough time with loved ones. I think that we're not going to regret that we didn't watch TV or that we didn't read enough or that— I mean, think of something silly. What's something silly? I don't know. We're going to regret things like not going to the cheer competition. We're going to regret— I want to see the competitions. I want to see the games. I want to see her play football. I want to see Ella perform. Those are things that I feel like we would regret.

Yes, so it's like being present for your kid's life, right?

So I think like not being present is a huge— like if work gets in the way too much, those are regrets that people end up having. It's like they say that you don't— you're not on your deathbed saying, I wish I worked more. Like you want to spend time with your loved ones. I think that's the biggest, right? Yes, it's the biggest thing that people want. So let your kids see you live life the way that you want them to live it. Try the new things, have joy in your life, have exercise in your life, take breaks, apologize, do all the things that we want our kids to do. And hopefully— was I successful with you? Because this was for you.

Yes, I greatly appreciate it.

It was very helpful. So any specific line or anything that was the most helpful?

And you could say Yeah, absolutely. Um, I was playing the what-if game a lot.

Oh my God, me too.

So that was very helpful. Thank you for the cognitive— solving my cognitive distortion. Yes, yes.

I think one of the games that I've played the most is the timing of the x-rays and MRIs, and how the heck are you supposed to time everything perfectly? It's like It's too small, it's too big. Like, what was happening in between, right?

And even if you had won the lottery, would you have— and would you have taken them in every other week to keep checking when they said there was nothing there and they didn't suspect anything yet? Um, I mean, even they would— even in humans, you got health insurance and they don't say, well, it's been a week, you should go get another MRI just to be sure. Well, it's been enough. The insurance wouldn't cover you going in every couple weeks just to check.

It's a game. It's a really bad game. Don't play it. Okay. Okay. So anyways, hopefully I can help you have no regrets in life. I hope that you have no regrets in life, and I hope that if you do have regrets in life, you sit down and you think about it and you just move forward in a way where you can reduce your regrets. That was It's hard to say. So, I am very excited to tell you that this Friday on the podcast, tomorrow, is Iris Weichler, Weichler, and it's Navigating the Sandwich Generation. And this was a topic request by multiple people. We are at the age where our parents are getting older, we have kids We have parents, we have ourselves, and it's called the sandwich generation, right?

Because at the same time as you're taking— still taking care of your kids, now you're starting to take care of your parents.

It's, it's an interesting time. And, um, I did have some women tell me that they were really struggling with it. So Iris will help you, and I loved talking to her and I learned from her and What else do I need to tell them?

I would like to tell them that Rebecca's podcast on iTunes has been consistently in the top 10 parenting podcasts for over a month now. That's crazy! So thank you everybody, thank you to the tens of thousands of people listening every single week. Oh my God! You're filling, you're talking to a whole stadium full of people. It's amazing! So keep sharing it, keep liking it, keep rating it, keep reviewing it. Go to whinybalooza.com and sign up for her free email newsletter. And, um, get all of her free stuff and share it with other parents.

Yes, please share this with someone that you think could, um, find it helpful. And the— some of the podcasts that I listen to, we have not done this, but like most of their listeners, they're saying most of their listeners have not subscribed, so they're asking people to take a minute to subscribe.

Smash that subscribe button.

And they also read— a lot of people read reviews that people are leaving for them. So A, we should probably do that, and B, I would so appreciate it if you would take 2 seconds and go write a review. If you don't know how to, we can teach you how to, um, in your Apple Podcasts. That's where you leave a review. Yes.

And what I would like you to do in Apple Podcasts, at the top right is a plus button. Just click that plus button and that way you will follow the show. And then every week— actually, twice a week— Apple will send you a push notification and say, hey, Rebecca's got a new episode, go check it out. They will remind you.

So thank you for, for, um, listening and sharing. I really appreciate it. And if you're not, um, a member of the Wine Equals a Mom group, come find us on Facebook. It's free supportive community, and I'm having so much fun with it. And is that everything? That is everything. So have a wonderful week, and, um, we will be back next week. It is our daughter's 17th birthday next week. How are our children so old?

I don't know where the time went. Oh my goodness. But we'll talk about it next Wednesday.

Wednesday next Have a wonderful week. Thank you for tuning in to the Winey Palooza podcast. If you like what you heard, please be sure to subscribe so you never miss an episode. While you are there, leave a review. I love to hear your feedback. Thank you so much for listening. Until next time. This show has been produced by Market Domination LLC. To discover how you can have your own show completely done for you and turn it into a real published book and become the authority in your marketplace, go to www.marketdominationllc.com. Dominationllc.com/podcastoffer.