Letting Go of Regrets Resources

Find helpful resources for letting go of regret, guilt, and moral injury, including books, blog posts, podcasts, and TED or TEDx Talks.

Books

Blog Posts

• 12 Ways to Practice Self-Forgiveness After Moral Injury
• How to Recognize the Hidden Signs of Moral Injury?
• How to Practice Self-Forgiveness?
• How to Handle Regret as You Get Older?
• How to Deal with Regret After Plastic Surgery?
• How to Cope with Divorce Regrets?

Podcasts About Regret, Guilt & Moral Injury

• Love, Happiness and Success With Dr. Lisa Marie Bobby
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  Includes an excellent discussion specifically about moral injury and stopping chronic self-punishment. The focus is on taking appropriate responsibility without turning one painful event into a permanent judgment about your entire character.
• Speaking of Psychology — American Psychological Association
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  Includes expert discussions about guilt and shame and how these emotions affect behavior and mental health. It is particularly useful for understanding when guilt can motivate constructive change and when shame instead turns into hiding, withdrawal, or self-punishment.

• How to Forgive Yourself — The Gray Area
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  Philosopher Myisha Cherry discusses how to forgive yourself without simply letting yourself off the hook. The conversation separates guilt from shame and explores how regret can either keep someone trapped in self-reproach or motivate genuine repair and change.
• Nonadaptive Guilt and Shame With Carolyn Allard — Psychologists Off the Clock
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  Trauma psychologist Dr. Carolyn Allard explains why some guilt remains long after it has stopped being useful. The episode covers hindsight bias, responsibility, moral injury, shame, and practical methods for questioning beliefs such as “I should have known” or “I should have prevented it.”
• Forgiving Yourself for Past Mistakes — The Psychology of Your 20s
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  Looks at why people replay decisions and continue punishing themselves even after recognizing what went wrong. It discusses regret, guilt, idealized versions of who you think you should have been, accountability, and self-forgiveness.
• Understanding Remorse, Guilt and Shame — Clinically Thinking
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  Psychologist Dr. Michael Proeve discusses how remorse, guilt, and shame differ and how they show up in therapy. It is useful for understanding the difference between acknowledging wrongdoing and deciding that wrongdoing permanently defines your worth.
• Moral Injury and Shame — Psychologists Off the Clock
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  Two psychologists who study moral injury discuss guilt, shame, betrayal, anger, values, and the difficulty of moving forward after a moral transgression. It also explores how moral injury differs from fear-based trauma.
• Guilt, Shame and Moral Injury — Hey Chaplain
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  Psychologist Dr. Jaimie Lusk discusses moral distress, responsibility, shame, betrayal, and recovery after situations that deeply violate someone’s values. Although the conversation is framed around police and military experiences, many of the psychological ideas apply more broadly.
• Moral Injury in First Responders — Beneath the Helmet
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  Explains how moral injury can appear after impossible decisions, witnessing suffering, feeling responsible for an outcome, or losing faith in an institution or profession. It also discusses guilt, shame, identity changes, withdrawal, and recognizing when moral distress has become a larger problem.
• Moral Injury With Shira Maguen — GeriPal
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  Psychologist and moral-injury researcher Dr. Shira Maguen explains what moral injury is and how it differs from PTSD. The discussion also shows that morally painful experiences are not limited to combat and can involve witnessing, failing to prevent, betrayal, or participating in events that conflict with deeply held values.

TED & TEDx Talks About Regret, Guilt & Moral Injury

• 4 Kinds of Regret — and What They Teach You About Yourself — Daniel H. Pink
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  Daniel Pink examines thousands of regrets and explains common patterns behind them. Rather than treating regret as something that must simply disappear, he shows how it can reveal what matters to you and guide better choices in the future.
• Don’t Regret Regret — Kathryn Schulz
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  One of TED’s best-known talks specifically about regret. Schulz challenges the idea that healthy people should live without regret and instead explores how accepting fallibility can stop regret from becoming a permanent source of self-condemnation.
• What’s the Difference Between Guilt and Shame? — June Tangney
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  Clinical psychologist June Tangney explains why guilt and shame can lead to very different outcomes. The distinction is especially important when someone needs to take responsibility for an action without concluding that they themselves are permanently bad.
• It Hurts to Hurt Someone
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  Explores the guilt and shame that can follow when your actions have hurt another person, even when the harm was unintended. It focuses on how people can process responsibility instead of becoming permanently trapped in shame.
• Moral Injury on the Front Lines: Lessons From Healthcare — Alina Bennett
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  Explores moral injury in healthcare, where people may repeatedly face situations in which every available decision feels wrong. It is particularly useful for understanding moral injury caused by systems, impossible choices, institutional constraints, and perceived betrayal rather than personal wrongdoing alone.
• Moral Injury in Combat: Holistic and Community Healing — Steve Gunn
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  Uses a veteran’s experience to explain moral injury, shame, and the difficulty of returning to ordinary life after events that violated deeply held beliefs. It emphasizes the role of honest conversation, community, and rebuilding meaning.