Sally was once on a promising path. She had a career she loved, recognition for her hard work, and a life that felt purposeful. Then she met someone and fell in love, believing she had found the person who would share her life. She got married and moved to a new country, leaving everything behind. Her credentials were no longer valid, her achievements disregarded, and she had to start from zero. The marriage she had imagined as full and nourishing often feels hollow. She questions why she embraced a love that never fully embraced her in return. She mourns the professional life she lost and wonders why her choices led her to feel so unfulfilled. Her regrets touch both her career and personal life — domains research shows are most commonly associated with regret (Roese & Summerville, 2005).
In psychology, regret is defined as the emotional response we feel when we realize that a different choice could have led to a better outcome. It is more than mere disappointment — it involves reflecting on our own decisions, imagining alternative paths, and often wishing we had acted differently.
Your Brain on Regret
Regret is not just a feeling; it’s a complex interplay of brain regions that bring the past vividly into the present. When Sally reflects on her choices — “What if I had stayed? What if I had waited for someone who truly matched me?” — her brain engages in counterfactual thinking, the process of imagining alternative outcomes to events that have already happened. This mental simulation is what makes regret so compelling and hard to shake.
Her orbitofrontal cortex plays a central role in this process. It evaluates past decisions, simulates alternative outcomes, and weighs the potential rewards or losses of “roads not taken,” making imagined scenarios carry emotional weight almost as strongly as real experiences. Through this, it helps explain why regret can feel so vivid and influence future choices (Jin, Liu, Li, Liu, & Guo, 2025).
Meanwhile, the amygdala, the brain’s emotional alarm center, amplifies the intensity of regret. Thoughts of the career she abandoned or the love she didn’t receive create a visceral ache — tightness in the chest, heaviness in the limbs — signaling emotional distress. This reaction is especially strong when we feel responsible for the outcomes, as Sally does (Nicolle et al., 2011).
The striatum, responsible for learning from rewards and mistakes, encourages her brain to repeatedly replay these counterfactual scenarios, seeking a perfect correction that could make things right (Varma et al., 2023). Yet no amount of mental rehearsal can change the past. Each imagined path is tantalizingly close but ultimately unreachable, keeping Sally tethered to memories of what might have been.
Living Inside Regret
Sally’s inner dialogue is relentless:
“I should have waited. I shouldn’t have left. I could have had both a career and the love I wanted. Why did I settle?”
Even when she recalls the friendships, resilience, and new experiences she gained from moving, the pull of regret persists. Neuroscience shows that our brains pay the most attention to choices with high stakes, which explains why Sally fixates on career and relationship decisions that define her identity.
These moments often come in the quiet of early morning or late night, when her mind wanders. She notices how each regret connects. Losing her professional identity entwines with an unfulfilling relationship, forming a knot of longing and self-reproach.
Why Regret Hits Hard
Research shows that people most often experience regret in areas central to life satisfaction: career, education, and romantic relationships. For Sally, leaving behind a thriving career and choosing a relationship that falls short of her needs hits the core of her identity (Roese & Summerville, 2005). It is precisely because these choices shaped who she is today that the regret feels so vivid.
Turning Regret into Growth
Even the heaviest regrets can become a source of insight and resilience. Research suggests several strategies:
Reframing: Sally can view past decisions as steps in her personal journey rather than failures. This form of cognitive reappraisal engages neural circuits including the orbitofrontal cortex, shifting the focus from “what went wrong” to “what she learned” (Jin et al., 2025). Moving abroad, though challenging, provided her with adaptability, broader perspective, and new ways to connect with the world, turning past difficulties into opportunities for growth.
Self-compassion: Treating herself with kindness helps calm the amygdala’s heightened emotional responses, reducing the intensity of shame and self-criticism. By practicing self-compassion, she acknowledges that past choices were made with the knowledge and resources available at the time, allowing her to forgive herself rather than punish herself for perceived mistakes (Nicolle et al., 2011; Fisher & Exline, 2010).
Mindfulness: Focusing on the present moment enables Sally to observe feelings of regret without being overwhelmed by them. Through mindful awareness, she can acknowledge thoughts such as, “I wish things had been different,” without ruminating, and use these insights to make more informed choices in the future.
Gradually, Sally realizes that regret is not a verdict on her worth but a compass pointing toward what matters most. Each “what if” holds lessons: about self-trust, about patience, about the kind of love and career she values.
Conclusion
Sally’s story shows that regret is a deeply human experience intertwined with brain activity. The past can feel present, the “roads not taken” vivid, and the pain real. But understanding the science of regret — the brain’s simulations, emotional amplifiers, and learning loops — empowers us to carry regret lightly. It can guide decisions, teach self-compassion, and illuminate paths forward. Sally doesn’t have to erase her regrets; she can carry them consciously, allowing them to inform her choices without defining her life.
Regret, after all, is not just a shadow of loss — it can be a teacher of presence, courage, and self-awareness.
References:
Roese, N. J., & Summerville, A. (2005). What We Regret Most … and Why. Personality & Social Psychology Bulletin, 31(9), 1273–1285. https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167205274693
Jin, S., Liu, S., Li, S., Liu, Z., & Guo, X. (2025). Mechanisms underlying regret and its regulation. Advances in Psychological Science, 33(10), 1567–1577. https://doi.org/10.3724/SP.J.1042.2025.LS.00085
Nicolle, A., Bach, D. R., Frith, C., & Dolan, R. J. (2011). Amygdala involvement in self-blame regret. Social Neuroscience, 6(2), 178–189. https://doi.org/10.1080/17470919.2010.506128
Varma, M. M., Chowdhury, A., & Yu, R. (2023). The road not taken: Common and distinct neural correlates of regret and relief. NeuroImage, 283, 120413–120413. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuroimage.2023.120413
Fisher, M. L., & Exline, J. J. (2010). Moving Toward Self-Forgiveness: Removing Barriers Related to Shame, Guilt, and Regret. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 4(8), 548–558. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1751-9004.2010.00276.x