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The topics and opinions expressed on the
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W four WN Radio. Hi,
welcome to Fearless Fabulous. You. I

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am your host, Melanie Young,
and you were listening to my show on

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the Women for Men Network, which
could be heard All my shows could be

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heard on more than forty channels,
including iHeart and Spotify. I love my

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story and my thoughts on living life
on your terms with you, my listeners,

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particularly if you're over fifty or fifty
five and looking at your life from

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the rear view, mira and the
road ahead. We all face choices in

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life, and I certainly have faced
many, particularly in the past ten years,

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that have impacted my life and my
husband's life, and have been very

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open about sharing them all with you
with the goal of helping you face choices

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in your life. Today's show is
a sensitive one for me because it deals

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with an emotion that I actually don't
like but I feel and I'm trying to

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deal with right now, and I
think that being open with you about it

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may help me, but also help
will help you. And it's living with

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regret. I don't like living with
regret. Always say regret is regress.

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When you live with regret, you
regrets in your life. You don't move

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forward. Regret to me, the
definition is feeling sad or disappointed over something

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that has happened or been done,
especially a lost or missed opportunity, as

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in, she immediately regretted her words, she regretted her decision, she regretted

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her choice, you regretted her action. Usually when you regret something, it

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goes back to I wish I had
never done that. I regret having done

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that. I could have done better, I should have done better, I

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wish I would have done better.
They're all notes of sorrow over choices that

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you made that you wish you had
not, And it's not I don't think

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there's anything healthy about regret. But
we're gonna digging it to go a little

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deeper, because it's a common feeling, particularly as you progress in life.

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You know life, and we all
don't make the best ones for ourselves or

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family, and often we do As
a result, many people feel regret over

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decisions they made or did not make, actions they made and took or did

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not take, and regret is very
painful. It is hard to deal with

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because you actually get into a cycle
of inertia. You can't move forward,

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you can't book meckward And as I
said to someone recently, I want my

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life to stop looking into the rear
view, Mira. I want to look

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in my rear view mirror less and
look at the road ahead more. Now,

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why do I say that? Because
I sold my house in twenty twenty

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something. I do. I regret, No because I was underwater, but

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yes, because I regret that I
couldn't do enough to keep the house and

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living it the rest of my life. It was a beautiful house and I

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miss it terribly, But I don't
regret my decision to sell it because it

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freed me up from a lot of
debt. So I worked through that regret

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fairly easily. But then when I
moved back into take care of my mother.

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I developed levels of regret that I'm
still trying to peel away at.

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I regret that I fought with my
mother instead of had solid conversations with her

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in the last year of her life
because she was difficult and I was angry.

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Do I regret that? Yes?
But was it inevitable? Well,

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it was coping with something that was
a difficult situation he put on when she

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died, I put the house on
the market. Do I regret putting in

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too soon? Or do I regret
putting it in? You know, I

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don't know. At the end of
the day. Sorry, that's a buzzer

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I can't control. At the end
of the day, I don't regret selling

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the house because I got money in
the bank and the house was falling apart.

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But the point of the matter is
every decision I've made, I've always

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had the second guess myself, and
I guess. The question is what point

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in your life do you stop second
guessing yourself? At what point can you

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just say I'm going to weigh my
decisions carefully, make a confident one and

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not look back in the rear Breumeira
and say I regret making that decision.

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I throw that out at you because
I bet you're feeling that sometimes, particularly

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as your life progresses. In fact, this is a very interesting So a

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hospice company in Massachusetts listed the top
regrets points of regrets. It's called Old

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Colony Hospice in Randolph, Massachusetts.
I have no relationship with them, but

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I'm crediting them because the nurses.
The hospice nurses did a list of the

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top regrets emotion of regret that patients
felt at the end of their life.

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And I thought this was kind of
interesting because it made me think about my

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own life while I live in good
health, and I want you to think

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about your life while you are in
good health, to see if you can

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make sure that as you progress in
life and go to the end of it,

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you don't feel these feelings. Here
are the top five that patience toward

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the end of the life felt in
regret. Number one, I wish I'd

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had the courage to live a life
true to myself and not the life others

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expected of me. This was the
most common regret of all. When you

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realize and you look back and that
rear view mirrah, because the one ahead

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is getting shorter on that road to
life, and you realize that you didn't

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live the life that was true to
yourself, that you didn't honor your dreams

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or pursue them, that you just
accept it as is or what people expected

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of you or what people told you
to do, and you didn't stand up

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for yourself and you didn't say I
want to do it my way, which

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we'll get into. Thank you,
Frank Sinatra. So message number one is

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today and moving forward, work harder
to say, this is the life I

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want and I envision. Look at
your life in every season, in every

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situation, when it rains, when
it's sunny, when it's cold, when

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it's hot, when you're alone,
when you have money, when you don't

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have money, when when you're loved, when you're hurting, and say how

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do I want my life to feel? How do I want to feel,

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and how do I want to be? What is it I want to be

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doing in every situation? Because as
you know, life is going to throw

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you curve. How are you going
to be prepared to deal with them?

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My husband and I are house hunting
right now because we don't have a home

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once again, and I'm looking at
a home in New Orleans and I'm thinking,

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what do I want my life to
look like when it's cold, when

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it's wet, when it's hurricane season, when it's hotter than hell? How

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do I want to live my life? So again, I wish I'd had

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the courage to live a life true
to myself and not the life others expected

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of me. That means maybe you
choose a career you want and not what

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your parents wanted. Maybe you choose
a life you want not what your spouse

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wants. Maybe you go into your
boss if you're employed, and say I

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want to make a change, or
maybe you just say I no longer want

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to work for anybody else. One
of the best decisions I did make in

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my life, and I'm so proud
of it, is I walked away from

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being an employee and became self employed
and started a company. Now, I

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had a wonderful father who guided me
along the way. Because I had no

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business sense, I just knew how
to sell. But that was the best

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decision I made, because I called
my shots and I will never regret that.

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Even though it was a tough business
to be in public relations, but

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I loved every minute of it and
it was a great choice and I'm so

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proud of it. So again,
think about your life and think about what

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you have achieved and what you love
about it, and then think about what

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you don't love so much, and
what you wish you were still could do,

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or maybe what you regret you haven't
done yet, And now today,

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put on paper, create a vision
board, write in your journal, do

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something, Do one thing toward those
goals, one step at a time.

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But do it, just one thing
today, and you'll feel better. The

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next regret that patients made elderly people
made toward the end of the life was

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I wish I didn't work so hard. This came from every male patient.

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They missed their children's youth and their
partner's companionship. Women spoke of regret as

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well, but they were at a
different generation where they were not the breadwinner.

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Well, having come from a generation
where I felt compelled to work and

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needed to work and was programmed to
work. I had parents that brought me

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up to be successful and expected me
to be success. I was like a

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racehorse that had to win every race. Do I regret that? No?

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Do I regret working as hard as
I did? No? Do I now

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not want to work as hard?
Yes? I want to work less and

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enjoy life more. But I'm learning
to and you need to learn too too.

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If you've been a success focused on
success all your life, is how

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do you reprogram your brain to focus
less on success and more on just finding

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peace? And you got to find
your own piece. Maybe being successful and

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working hard is your piece. I
don't know. I have a friend who

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is working really hard right now,
but would also like to spend more time

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with her husband, who has found
his piece, doing recreational activities that he

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truly enjoys while she works. I
don't know. I don't have advice for

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you on that, other than you
need to decide when the work you're doing

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and the work as hard as you're
working, as creating diminishing returns on your

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health mentally and physically. If the
work you're doing is creating diminishing returns,

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and why are you doing it,
find something else to do that maybe is

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less challenging or upsetting or gives you
more fulfillment, and that's okay. It

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may be in a different profession,
it may be doing something else. Yesterday

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I was talking to someone in New
Orleans and he said, I think you'll

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probably be overqualified for anything I would
want you to do. And I said,

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test me. You don't even know
who I am. You don't know

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what my you don't know what my
qualifications are, nor do you know what

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I really want to be doing right
now. And frankly, it's okay to

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say I want to work less.
It's perfectly okay. Hey, if you

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can do it. So regret too, I wish I didn't work so hard.

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Well, maybe that's okay. You
know. I know a lot of

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people that have been diagnosed with cancer
and they don't want to work as hard

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anymore. They want to just chill
and enjoy the life they have and the

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help they have while they have it. Number Three regret, I wish I'd

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had the courage to express my feelings
and not suppress them. Many people suppress

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their feelings as they don't want to
be criticized or thought of negatively, or

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maybe they're afraid to express their feelings. Maybe they're afraid that someone will judge

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them as being weak or selfish or
anything other than acceptable. But that's not

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good either. You need to be
open about how you feel about things and

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speak your truth. I think about
the recent revelation that the Princess of Wales,

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Catherine Mendleton went out and publicly announced
that she had cancer. And I

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know how hard that was to speak
that truth publicly, much less to your

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family, and I respect her decision
to speak it publicly. She almost was

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forced to because people were judging her
for so many things, going into a

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hospital thinking she had a tummy tak, judging her for photoshopping her kids.

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She was getting criticized for so many
things that were so frankly nobody's business that

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I'm sure she felt she had to
speak out about having cancer because otherwise people

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are just constantly going to be second
guessing everything she was doing. And I

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feel for her for that. I
mean, gosh, she's a public figure,

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and I know it's important to acknowledge
the public figures have to be more

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public about everything than others, But
sometimes don't I just wish you could just

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also be private And why can't people
respect privacy? And I think it's okay

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to say that too, Like if
you don't want people to pry, say,

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I really want to keep things to
myself, it's none of your business.

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I mean, I can't even agin
to tell you when I sold my

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house, how many people asked me
how much I sold it for like it's

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none of their business. And you
know what I've learned to say to people,

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I appreciate your interest in my life, but there are some things I

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would like to keep personal in private, So let's talk about you instead.

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That's how I spin it around.
You know, you don't have to talk

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about anything you don't want to,
or you could say, I'm not happy

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with the situation. You're making me
uncomfortable. This situation is making me uncomfortable.

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I'm not comfortable, and that's important
too, because if you suppress those

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feelings, it will only make you
angry and it will go back to that

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feeling we started with, which is
regret. And you don't want that,

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so express yourself. Thank you,
Madonna. Just say I need to get

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let this off my chest, as
in my book Getting Things Off my Chest.

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That's what I did. I let
it out. And even now when

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I say I think I need to
get something off my chest, I think

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the people who know me well know
she's about to lay it out there.

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And you know, it feels really
good when you do. And I've had

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to do that a lot recently.
When I was going through my state sell

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and selling my mother sayings. People
were like, can you get better?

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Can you go lower? Can you
do better? I want to pay less

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And I finally let people say it's
worth more. I'm worth more at this

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place is worth more. I'm better
and I will not accept anything less than

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this. And I had to say
that very firmly to people, and I

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felt good about it and I have
no regrets about it. So speaking your

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truth, expressing your feelings, making
choices that are your choices, not choices

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made for you are always not to
have regrets. Number four and they are

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five points. Again. Elderly people
on their deathbed said I wish I had

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stayed in touch with my friends.
Many became so caught up in their own

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lives that they let golden friendships slip
by over the years, and there were

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deep regrets about giving friend not giving
friendships the attention they deserve. Well,

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I can tell you I have no
regrets over that, because I love staying

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in touch with my friends and I'm
a big believer in picking up the telephone

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and saying I just called to say
hello and see how you are. You

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can take texts all you want,
but I'm not a texter. I like

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to pick up the phone and say
I'm thinking of you. One of the

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things I loved about my mother and
I inherited this is we love to give

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and write notes. I love to
take cards, funny cards and send them

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and handwritten notes. My handwriting is
so good now, but I sure love

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to send notes just to say I'm
thinking about you, or sending a little

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poem. And one of the things
I did is we were moving out of

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the house the very last day.
We were in an empty house, and

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what I had left on the dining
room table were these greeting cards. I

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couldn't bear to throw them all away. There were bags of them, boxes

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of them, funny ones, serious
ones, pretty ones, and I did

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not want to throw them away as
much as my husband wanted me to one.

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They were really pretty, and I
thought maybe I could create collages out

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of them too. I thought they're
so great, I want to send them

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to people. So I spent an
afternoon creating little packages for friends who live

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elsewhere. And I took those cards, and I found photos, and I

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found a little just Chatchika's memorabilia about
my mom and me, little things,

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and I created little care packages and
I wrote personal notes and each one saying

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thank you for being my friend.
I miss you, I want this to

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be I want to share this part
of my life with you. And I

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mailed them all to each friend and
they loved it. They were so grateful,

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and I thought, yeah, we
don't really do that very often these

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days. We're so busy sending emails
and texts and talking on social media.

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But that little care package really met
a lot. And these are friends I've

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had for many, many years.
So I have no regrets about that.

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And I hope that you today call
a friend you haven't talked to in a

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long time, or sit down and
write a note and say I'm thinking about

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you. You will never regret that. And then the final one, which

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is Frank, the other one I'm
probably dealing with right now. More than

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anything, I wish that I had
let myself be happier. This is a

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common regret many don't realize, and
this is from this hospice group, that

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happiness is a choice. Now.
I never thought about that, Like I

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didn't think about choosing happiness. I
just thought it's a feeling that they always

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say, it's like a butterfly that
lights on you. That happiness is just

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a feeling, but there are a
lot of things that are impediments to happiness.

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A lot of it is fear,
fear of change, feeling false about

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yourself, not being true to yourself, putting yourself in situations that make you

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uncomfortable, pressuring yourself to do things
that you don't want to do or you're

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too tired to do, and more
importantly, living with regret, which goes

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back to the topic here. You
can't be happy if you live with regret.

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You can't be happy. If you
live with anger, you can't be

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happy. If you live with self
doubt, you can't be happy. If

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you're jealous, you can't be healthy, if you're wishful or wistful, and

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living with again regret, should have, would have, could have? So

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how do you change that into can? How do you change that could into

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can? That should into shall,
and that would into will? Well,

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it starts with will power. You've
got to sit back and reframe your life

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and realize that everybody is human and
we all make mistakes, we all make

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choices that we have to live with, and some of them cannot be reversed,

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some can, some can't. But
you have to learn with acceptance that

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you're not perfect. You have to
learn with acceptance that shit's going to come

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your way that you're going to have
to deal with whether you like it or

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not, and you're going to have
to live with acceptance. The people that

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you love aren't perfect either, and
they're going to make you really mad sometimes,

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whether it's your mother or your father, your brother, your sister,

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or your husband, your wife.
They're gonna make it your kids, but

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they're still part of your family,
and you know you can't divorce most of

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your family. You can talk to
them lass and spend less time with them,

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but then you'll one day to regret
that too. So how do you

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deal with choosing to be happy?
Well, I don't know. I don't

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have a lot of solid I'm not
a psychologist. I'm not a professional psychologist.

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I'm a health coach. But I'm
a human. I'm a human that

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is dealing with her own emotions about
dealing with regret and learning to be happy

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again when you lose a part of
your life, and in my case,

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I've lost my parents. I now
have no home. I didn't you know,

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I choose. I chose to give
it up and sell it. So

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that's not a bad thing. There
are people who lose their home to fire

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or foreclosure. I chose, but
it's still giving up a part of your

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life that you no longer have.
I can't go back to that house.

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I can't go back to having parents, I can't go back to my home

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in New York. I can't go
back to things I chose to give up,

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or who had life chose to give
up for me. So how do

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you choose to let those things go
in your head so you can stop looking

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in the rear view Mirra and choose
to be happy again. Well, many

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psychologists say, first of all,
one step at a time and tune out

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things that trigger the negative feelings.
So what are things that trigger negative feelings?

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Well, first of all, it's
just about everything on television, just

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about everything in advertising. If you
have ever thought about all the advertising on

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television, it's all about getting sick
and getting well by taking medication and pills.

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It's all about the news. It's
all about things that are not even

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in your control half the time.
So what I'm learning to do is stop

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watching television, stop watching the ads, getting outside more. I'm sleeping more.

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I'm trying to tune out things that
trigger negative emotions. Now that's not

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always good because sometimes you just can't
tune everything out, but you can turn

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off things that you seem to be
listening to, whether it's trolling social media.

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That's a big one. I'm learning
to tune into friends who are really

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fun and are fun to be with, and to stop talking about me,

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but talking about them. Learn more
about your friends, See how they're doing,

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go out for a laugh, go
out for a walk. Think about

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that, and then learn to reframe
everything in a new way. So I

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sold a house. I don't have
a home anymore where I grew up,

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but I'm going to make a new
home somewhere else. I no longer have

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parents, but I have a wonderful
husband, and I have wonderful friends,

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so I'll be able to spend more
time with them. I don't have much

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to do work wise. I'm practically
retired other than this wonderful podcast. But

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that frees me up to explore my
creativity, so I can get back into

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journaling. I can create a new
life. It's like a new chapter.

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So that's exciting, and then you
go, wow, you can choose to

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do that if you're not in a
situation like I am right now, and

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you are still taking care of children, and you still have a home to

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care for in a job you still
could do with some amazing things in your

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spare time. You can take up
a hobby. You could take take piano

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lessons if you have a piano.
You could take an art class. You

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can try a new sport. You
can plan a trip with your husband or

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your family or some girlfriends and go
somewhere you've never been before. It doesn't

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even have to be a lot of
money. We recently. One of the

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things we did when we left Chattanooga, which was my home, and that

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last day was hard. As I
said, I create a care package just

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for friends to mail them, and
that was really fun. I visited my

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parents' grave at the National Cemetery to
say goodbye. That was very hard.

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Then I took a fun gift to
a friend of mine at her house as

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if goodbye, and she loved it
and that made me happy again. And

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then we hit the road and we
decided that we would drive to New Orleans,

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where we were resettling, by making
it an adventure, because here is

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what the best that you can do
when you're feeling low and down and full

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of regrat and little not yourself,
create an adventure for yourself. So we

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had a car, we had two
suitcases each and we hit the road and

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we drove through Alabama and Mississippi one
day at a time, deciding where we

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were going to be each day,
and it ended up being an interesting journey.

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We went to Florence, which is
part of the Four Cities, and

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Muscle Shoals, a very famous music
town, and so I reconnected with an

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old friend from college. And then
we drove to Tupelo, Mississippi, where

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we saw the birthplace of Elvis Presley
and it was really amazing. We never

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had been there and it was really
interesting. My husband, Dave, and

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I are both Elvis fans. And
then we drove to Oxford, Mississippi,

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the home of old myths, Big
State University, and we stated a charming

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hotel called the Graduate, and had
dinner and just tooled the beautiful streets.

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And then we hit the Mississippi Blues
Trail, starting in Clarksdale to go to

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the Blues Museum, and we drove
this very old historic highway sixty one,

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immortalized by Bob Dylan in a song, and we drove the Mississippi Trail down

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to New Orleans, and it was
an interesting round. It was something we'd

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always wanted to do. There were
some high points to it and some low

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points, very poor and very desolate, but we stayed in some neat places.

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We went to some really fun museums
and it was a little discovery and

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it was a great way to take
the blues out of your brain by going

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on the Blues Trail. The point
is we did it very spontaneously, choosing

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a different place every day to stay. And by the time we got to

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New Orleans, our spirits were lifted
because we had a mini adventure and that

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was a lot of fun and we
felt a lot better about our decisions and

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where we were and what we were
doing. So that's a great way to

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chase the way the blues and regret. If you're feeling regret, take a

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piece of paper and write down why
and then figure out how you can turn

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that energy into why not something else
that can take you push you further.

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Figure out how you can take that
regret and rechannel that energy into re energize.

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I'm still learning to do it,
so I'd like to hear from you.

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It's not easy but you know what
I did. I looked up regret.

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I looked up these reasons why elderly
people live with regret, and I

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said, I'm not there yet.
I got a lot of life left,

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so I don't have time for regret. I have time for more opportunities.

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And then I pulled up the famous
song, the song May famous by Frank

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00:29:04.720 --> 00:29:08.759
Sinatra, and I read the lyrics. And you know, if you've never

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really sat down and read the lyrics
of a song, you like, sit

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00:29:12.359 --> 00:29:18.440
down and pull them up and actually
read the lyrics because they're poetry, and

359
00:29:18.480 --> 00:29:22.279
when you really read the lyrics,
you can get inspired. And I'm going

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to end the show with some of
the words the lyrics from the song,

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which is I did it my way. And as I read the lyrics,

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I felt really good about the decisions
I made and I felt less regretful.

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So I'm going to read it for
you, or parts of it, and

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hopefully you'll feel the same way.
And it says it goes like this,

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and now the end is near,
and I faced the final curtain. My

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00:29:47.279 --> 00:29:49.839
friend, I'll say it clear.
I'll state my case, of which I'm

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certain I lived a life that's full. I've traveled each and every highway,

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and more much more than this,
I did it my way. Regrets I've

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had a few, but then again
too few to mension. I did what

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I had to do, and I
saw it through without exemption. I planned

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each charity course, each careful step
along lifeespy way, and more much more

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than this, I did it my
way. Yes, there were times,

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I'm sure you knew when I bid
off more than I could chew. But

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through it all, when there was
doubt, I ate it up and spit

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it out. I faced it all
and I stood tall, and I did

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it my way. I've loved,
I've left, I've cried, I've had

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my fill and my share of losing. And now as tears subside, I

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find it also amusing to think I
did all that, and may I say

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00:31:03.880 --> 00:31:06.880
not in a shy way, Oh
no, not me. I did it

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my way. For what is a
man or woman? What has she got

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00:31:12.039 --> 00:31:18.079
if not herself? That she is
not to say the things she truly feels,

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and not the words of one who
kneels. The record shows I took

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00:31:22.960 --> 00:31:29.240
the blows and I did it my
way to say the things she truly feels,

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00:31:29.839 --> 00:31:33.359
and not the words of one who
kneels the record show, I took

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the blows and I did it my
way. So at the end of this

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I want you to say life is
one of my favorite authors says, don't

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00:31:42.799 --> 00:31:48.440
look back, You're not going that
way. Don't look back, You're not

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00:31:48.559 --> 00:31:51.279
going that way. The road ahead
is what you have to focus on.

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Turned the corner away from regret and
focus on your highway and do it your

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way, Choose it on your terms. I'm Melanie Young. This is Fearless

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Fabulous you. Thank you for listening. Thank you for letting me share my

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feelings and my regrets with you,
and it makes me feel better to talk

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00:32:17.440 --> 00:32:20.839
to you about them, and I
hope I've made you feel better too.

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And just remember there will be paths
and detours along the highway of life,

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but you can choose to navigate it
on your terms if you focus on the

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road ahead and not what you left
behind and do it your way. Thank

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00:32:39.160 --> 00:32:44.359
you for joining me, and please
follow me at Melanie Fabulous on Instagram and

398
00:32:44.400 --> 00:33:00.599
listen to all my shows on your
favorite podcast channel. Thank you