Are guilt and regret the same thing?

Guilt and regret can feel similar and are often used as though they’re entirely the same thing.

Regret is defined as feeling sad, repentant, or disappointed over something that has happened or been done, particularly with a missed opportunity. Guilt is the act of having committed a behavior one is not happy with.

If you take a handicapped parking place but aren’t designated as handicapped, you may feel you did something bad (taking the parking spot). If you come out of a store to find a disabled person getting out of their car in a regular space, you may regret your choice to take the spot.

While feelings of guilt are unpleasant and often associated with depression and other negative experiences, it’s important to distinguish them from shame. Shame is a feeling of “I am bad,” and guilt is the experience of “I did something bad.” It may seem similar, but feeling that one is bad, wrong, or not good enough is a deeper feeling that impacts how you may feel about yourself as a person. A feeling of guilt focuses on behavior, and behavior is something we can address.

Guilt and regret may be helpful emotions. They don’t feel good, but they bring awareness about how we want to be, behaviors we may want to change, and promote the motivation to examine and change behaviors. Guilt helps the internal moral compass kick on to change behavior. It may be underneath our willingness to drive past the parking spot we don’t qualify for or change our behavior in the future. The experience of seeing that person without a parking spot that meets their needs may alter how we proceed in a parking lot in the future.

A famous expression is, “No regrets!” As a therapist, I often wonder about this statement. I think it gets embraced as a means of honoring taking the opportunities that we are presented with. Yet, we can’t take every opportunity, and not every opportunity is right for us. Truly having no regrets means not examining life to the best of our ability or taking every turn in life’s road without much consideration. Perhaps, “No guilt!” would be a better phrase, considering things we might regret and committing to change our future behavior.

Guilt and regret are normal emotions that we all experience from time to time if you’re experiencing intense feelings of guilt or regret, talking with a therapist to unpackage that emotional experience can be very helpful.