Latest / 🎙️ Rebuild & Fulfill Real conversations on burnout, rebuilding, and becoming stronger than before. / The Weight of "If Only": Letting Go of the Regret That Keeps You Stuck
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- Kelsey Dunbar Co-Founder S2T: What if I told you that one of the heaviest burdens people could carry isn't grief? It's regret. Not because regret changes the past, but because it convinces us that the past should have turned out differently. Maybe you've caught yourself saying, if only I had made that phone call. If only I had said something different. What if I had seen the signs? Those thoughts can become incredibly heavy. And over time, they begin to shape how we see ourselves. Today's guest knows that feeling firsthand. After experiencing unimaginable loss, she found herself replaying every moment, questioning every decision, and putting herself on trial for an outcome she could never fully control. But somewhere along that journey, she discovered something powerful. Healing isn't about finding your way back. It's about finding your way forward. Today we're talking about regret, resilience, and how to stop carrying what was never yours to carry. Welcome back to Rebuild and Fulfill, where we have real conversations about adversity, resilience, and rebuilding your life after it's been turned upside down. I'm your Stephanie Renner: Yeah. Kelsey Dunbar Co-Founder S2T: host, Kelsey Dunbar. Today's guest is Stephanie Renner. Stephanie is an attorney, keynote speaker, and the creator of the regret to resilience method. After spending nearly 25 years helping CEOs, entrepreneurs, and organizations navigate difficult decisions. Her own life changed forever following the loss of her 18-year-old son, Jordan, to suicide. Rather than allowing that tragedy to define the rest of her life, Stephanie dedicated herself to understanding one question. How do we move forward without feeling like we're leaving behind the people we love? Today she helps individuals, families, leaders, and organizations release regret, let go of the if-onlies, and rediscover purpose. After life's hardest moments. Stephanie, welcome to Rebuild and Fulfill. It's an honor to have you here with me. Stephanie Renner: Thanks, Kelsey. it's an honor to be here. Kelsey Dunbar Co-Founder S2T: Awesome. So Stephanie, I'd love to begin before all of this became your mission. Before the keynote speaking, before the framework, before the books and helping people all over the country. Who is Stephanie Renner? Tell us a little about your life and your career before everything changed. Stephanie Renner: Yeah. well, I grew up here well, I'm in Kentucky. I'm in Louisville, Kentucky now, but I grew up in Somerset, Kentucky, small town. And went to Anderson University in Anderson, Indiana, small school most people have never heard of, and then to Notre Dame Law School and moved to Los Angeles to be a lawyer at a big firm. Was out there about three years. That's where I met my now ex husband. And then we moved back to Lexington in two thousand and four. And then I practiced in big firms for the next several years, probably five to six, had both of my boys. So Jordan was born in two thousand and four, no five, sorry, and Trevor, my other son was born in two thousand and eight. And practicing law in a big firm with two small children is not impossible. Plenty of people do it, but it was not what I was cut out to do was way too much stress for me and not enough time with the kids. So I ended up going in-house at a bank and I spent the next 13 to 14 years practicing lawn within. I mean, I was called a lawyer, but you wear a lot of hats when you're in that role. So I was at two different banks that were community banks, turnaround type situations. I say I always I love cleaning up a mess. So that by far was the most fulfilled I was in my career up until this point. I eventually left there and went on my own for a short time and then back to big firm. And that's where I was when I finally decided a year ago that I just didn't want to do things that I didn't want to do anymore. So, you know, whenever someone asks, who were you before that, it's really hard in that kind of career not to say that being a lawyer really unfortunately it takes over a lot of your personality for better or worse. that was a lot of my personality and being a mom. yeah. Kelsey Dunbar Co-Founder S2T: Yeah. One thing that really stood out to me while preparing for today is that you spent nearly twenty-five years helping people through your career in incredibly difficult situations. So like you advised CEOs, business owners, organizations, people who were facing decisions that probably felt overwhelming at the time, but then life handed you something that no amount of education or professional experience could have possibly prepared you for. So if you're comfortable sharing, can you take us back to that season? Maybe tell us about Jordan and what those first days after losing him were like for you? Stephanie Renner: Absolutely. Jordan was a very unique kid. He was very, very loving, definitely an empath, kinda took on everyone's feelings and emotions. We now know he was likely somewhere on the autism spectrum. We he's never was officially diagnosed, but you know but just lots of traits and sometimes had a hard time socially, was a little bit awkward, even though we had a lot of friends, just Never really felt like he had the place he fit. And when he was he was very, very smart. Too smart for his own good sometimes. Loved to talk about politics and like very adult things from the time he was very young. And when he was about eleven, he started expressing that he was having feelings of wanting to hurt himself and suicidal ideations. And so honestly, the next seven years were next seven years. Included a lot of panicked phone calls and come get me from school. We spent a lot of time in therapist office. We had some inpatient visits. We did everything we could. And you're gonna hear me say talk about that particular phrase later, but you know, you you just try everything. It's that's a fear that no parent wants to have to live through. And He was a very good kid though. He's a rule follower, like very strict rule follower, until he was probably about fifteen or sixteen. And he really started acting out. I think largely that had to do with getting involved with some drugs and some other bad behaviors. Really started I hate to say this publicly, sometimes like his his friend group wasn't the best influence on him. Now these friends are all I consider them my kids now and they hang out at my house. So if if any of them ever hear this, I love you, but you know you were not the best influence. you know, and he went down a really bad path and it was pretty chaotic. So there was the drug use, there was a couple of arrests, there was stealing stuff from me and from his dad, taking my car in the middle of the night, you know, just all kinds of things that were not in character for him. So our house was pretty stressful. And honestly though, I thought about a week before he died that we kind of had come to a turning point. And I'd gone with him to a court appearance, and we were leaving. And I expressed to him that I was really concerned about him. Like, you do you need me to take you to the hospital? Do we need to go back to one of the inpatient places? I just he seemed really s kind of rock bottom at that point. And it opened up a really great conversation where he confessed to me that at eighteen he felt like it was too late to know to learn how to be a normal person. And that it was too late to go to school because he had sort of blown it his last couple years of high school and barely graduated. And then di you know, we were in that year after where he didn't go to college like so many of his friends did. And somehow he got in his head that it, you know, because he took that one year off, it was too late to go. He was never gonna go. He couldn't learn how to operate normally with other people. So we had this really good conversation, and I told him, Of course, you can go to school. Of course, we'll support you. You know, we we know people at he wanted to go to the University of Louisville, and we know people there who I knew would help us. And I told him about a counselor I knew who works with people who get late stage, you know, diagnosed with being on the spectrum later in life. And we he really seemed hopeful. And I was feeling really good about that. Now I've heard this story from a lot of people that. There seems to be a really positive turn of events sometimes. And then that's when this happens right after. And I don't really understand the psychology behind that. And I don't honestly know what was going on that day with Jordan. I know a few things, but I had gone out of town to meet someone for dinner on a Saturday night. It was the day before Mother's Day. And I'd come back home that night. And I thought he was at work, so I just hadn't looked for him. I c I came to the basement where there's a room there where he slept sometimes. He had moved out and moved back in, whatever. And then the next morning we were gonna go see my mom in her assisted living facility for Mother's Day. And I couldn't find him at all that morning. I thought I had looked everywhere. And finally I was frustrated. So his brother and I left to go to my mom's. And as we left, I thought to look in a room in the basement and I found him. So yeah. great Mother's Day. and I, you know, I obviously you go down all kinds of rabbit holes of thinking from that, right? That somehow that was some sort of message to you or a sign or whatever. I know now that wasn't the case for a lot of reasons. But also, you know, thinking that an 18-year-old boy was even thinking about Mother's Day is kind of crazy too, right? Like yeah, so the days after that were shock. You just kind of your body is in shock and your mind is in shock and your I had to go into the mode of taking care of my other son and all the people around me, and you know, I had all these kids at my house who were devastated and planning the service and that type of thing. And then You know, one of the things I talk about is unfortunately there's this feeling, it's a very there's complicated feelings, right? You you are devastated. This is the most horrible thing that could possibly happen. But when there's been so much chaos and it's so much stress for years, there's this weird feeling of almost relief. And that doesn't mean I wouldn't that I don't want him back or that I wouldn't have him back exactly the same way everything was in a heartbeat. It's just your your world has come to a stop. This this all this like stress and chaos and fighting and worrying and waking up middle of the night and wondering where he is, all of it, it's just came to a screeching halt. So it's a really weird cycle of feelings that you go through in that time. Kelsey Dunbar Co-Founder S2T: Wow. Yeah. So first of all, I just wanna thank you. I know it's not an easy thing to talk about. Obviously, it's something that you want to talk about because you want talking about it to benefit other people. And and I'm sure to a a degree there's a benefit to yourself Stephanie Renner: Mm-hmm. Kelsey Dunbar Co-Founder S2T: by being able to kind of just walk through that, right? But I so I just wanna say that. But as I was reading through your story, there was one sentence that completely stopped me in my tracks. You said that after everything you'd experienced in your career, nothing prepared you for the trial you would be putting yourself through. I mean, obviously the the play on words, right, as an attorney. But that is just such a powerful way to describe your grief. So what what did you mean by that? And can you explain that that statement? you know, you put yourself on trial. So what did that actually look like? Stephanie Renner: Well, I appreciate you saying that first of all, 'cause I I have thought with myself about whether that's too cheesy, the whole trial, you know, whatever analogy. But it makes sense to me and to other people. You know, I talk about being the like the prosecutor, or defender and the judge and jury all at the same time, right? I mean, that's kind of what you're doing in that situation. You've just decided that that you are going to cast the judgment for everyone. It's just a rabbit hole you go down of I you know, I believe it happened that night while I was gone on Saturday night. Well I mean, I know it did. There's like no other possibility. So to be honest, I had gone on a date. I had gone to meet someone. like halfway between Louisville and Indianapolis for a first time dinner date. And I and my gut knew I didn't want to go and I wasn't going anywhere. I just didn't want to cancel at the last minute. And I was like, okay, well, I'll just go have dinner and come back. So just that feeling in my head that I had of I don't I don't want to do this and maybe I feel like I shouldn't do this. I don't know. Something was unsettled. And I, of course, was just thinking about my safety, not about an anybody else and what was happening. But of course, then For the weeks after I kept thinking, if I had only been home, if I'd only been there, right? Yeah, I know. But there's a million other things. If if we had taken him to the right therapist, if I had intervened in these behaviors in a different way. There was a you know, he started smoking weed when he was like fourteen or fifteen, and I don't judge Inbe for smoking weed. He was an adult, but fourteen, fifteen year olds obviously shouldn't be doing it. And you know, we this was a fight for years and finally I kinda gave up on that. And you know, if I sometimes I think, I don't know, if I try to put in some sort of treatment or if I done that there's just the list is exhaustive of the ways you can beat yourself up about those types of things. So I spent a lot of time in that mode. Kelsey Dunbar Co-Founder S2T: Yeah, I mean I I can't help but think how many people listening have probably done the same thing to themselves, maybe not after the losing of a child, but after losing a relationship, a marriage, a career, or or simply replaying a one decision over and over in their minds. So w why do you think it's so easy for us to accept responsibility for outcomes that were never fully ours to control? Why why is it that you think people do that? Stephanie Renner: Well, one, I don't think we think about it that way. I had never really thought about really thought about what I had control over and what I didn't. I I do in all kinds of other areas in my life. I mean, I have a mentor, my boss, when I was in banking, who always talked about the only thing you control is yourself, right? But you particularly think differently when it's your kids, number one. which is crazy because That child was so strong willed and no one was ever telling him what to do or making him do anything, trust me. but you also have to put blame somewhere. Like we think we do anyway. That's how that's how we're wired. And I also think for some people that there's some kind of comfort, even in the misery, of blaming yourself and letting yourself go. It's like we think we deserve. punishment because we've lost this and how can we be happy or let ourselves be free or let ourselves move forward because someone has to suffer for it, right? Kelsey Dunbar Co-Founder S2T: Yeah. I mean I I think that's something every one of us can relate to 'cause whether it's grief or failure or regret, most of us have carried something far longer than we ever should have, much less what you've dealt with. I I don't know how we really fully move forward from those feelings. And so that's why I really appreciate you're talking about this and you're encouraging other people to, be able to bear the weight of that because grief has weight, you know, regret has weight, guilt has weight, and over time those things can become so familiar that we almost stop questioning whether we were ever meant to carry them in the first place. So one one of the phrases you use is the weight of if only's. So I think almost everyone listening has probably said those words at some point in their life. So when you talk about the if only's, what do you mean by that? Why why do they why do they become so powerful and so difficult for us to let go? Stephanie Renner: So I'm talking about the list of all the, you know, all those things I was just saying, plus the million other things you could say, right? And I talk about them as if like think of each of those if only's as a brick. And you basically fill this backpack with all of those bricks and you carry it around. And that serves I mean, if you and I were walking around with a backpack full of full of bricks, that would serve Zero purpose, right? I mean, I guess unless you're one those people who, you know, puts the weights on and walks through my neighborhood, but like it's just weighing you down. There is no reason for it. So I had to learn how to let, you know, like empty that backpack. So I always say if you think of each of those if only's as a brick and you look at it and you actually ask yourself, could this Is there any guarantee this would have changed the outcome? Right? So if I had not gone to Columbus, Indiana for dinner that night, do I know for sure that I would have been there and I could have stopped what happened? No. I don't. And that's almost always the answer. If I had taken him to a different therapist, do I know that would have changed it? No. If we had done inpatient again, do I know that would have changed it? No. That's almost always the answer. And even when you think it's not the answer, you're probably not totally being honest with yourself. If you can internalize that and really believe it, you can take that brick out of your backpack. And you got to do it one by one. It lightens the load. And then there's this freedom that allows you to move forward. But to be clear, I still put those bricks back in the backpack sometimes, right? Like this isn't this isn't a like magic formula that says you're never going to go down that path again. It's just a way to recognize what's happening and be honest with yourself. This is not serving you or anyone else. You're not honoring the person you lost. You're not honoring, you know, your marriage if that's what fell apart and you're trying to move on from that. You're not honoring what that experience was. You're not honoring the blessings you gained from a job that you got fired from or a friendship that you lost or whatever. If you just let those If only it's continuing to weigh you down. There's no there's no reason. Kelsey Dunbar Co-Founder S2T: love the the brick and backpack scenario because you can apply that to just about anything in life. I think of my 30 years as a fitness coach and where I I hardly ever miss workouts, but occasionally I'll miss one. So I'll put that's that's me putting a brick brick back in. You know, I I normally eat the right things, but occasionally I'll put the brick back in. So we're we're not beyond making mistakes, even those that are coaching other people to learn from their mistakes or learn how not to make so many mistakes or learn how to cope from their mistakes. I think part of being a coach is accepting that we too make those mistakes and that nobody's infallible, right? Stephanie Renner: Right. Right. I I was telling someone the other day, I'm there now. Like I quit my job a year ago and I had a certain amount of money set aside to try to make it through I knew I could probably get through about a year before I needed to really be self-sustaining and make this business work. And here I am. I'm at that year and it's not where it needs to be yet. And I get in my head and think, I shouldn't have taken that trip, or I shouldn't have spent money on this, or I should have, you know, not let myself sit around and wallow in my grief. My mom died a year ago. So like I shouldn't have set mys let myself sit around and wallow in that for a couple months. Whatever it is, right? So I've had to play this game with myself recently, almost every day, and remind myself this is not serving any purpose. Number one, I can't go back and change it. So Kelsey Dunbar Co-Founder S2T: main one right there is there's nothing you can do about it. It it can only continue to take away from you. Stephanie Renner: So yeah, you no matter what you're doing or where you are, you're you're always gonna end up back there at some point, like in that mindset, but it's just learning how to get yourself out of it is the, you know, and I don't know, maybe if I try to practice this long enough, there'll come a day when I don't do that to myself anymore. That would be really wonderful, but that doesn't seem very human. Yeah. Kelsey Dunbar Co-Founder S2T: W th you took the words out of my mouth. I was just about to say, I think it's human nature. I I think it's here to stay. Some of us can just learn how to deal with it a little bit better than others, or or more importantly, a little bit better than we used to and look at the progress and be happy that we can see some noticeable progress in that department, right? Stephanie Renner: I agree, I agree. Kelsey Dunbar Co-Founder S2T: so one of the distinctions that you make that really resonates with me is the difference between moving on and moving forward. And I think a lot of people are afraid to heal because somewhere deep down they believe healing means letting go of the person that they loved or forgetting what happened or forgetting them. So can you talk about that distinction and what that means to you? What is You know, what is moving forward without moving on? Stephanie Renner: So I think you're right. I think that a lot of people are afraid of the idea of moving on because it sounds like we're leaving the thing or the experience or the person behind, right? And I I'm never going to move on. I don't I'm never leaving Jordan behind. I'm never leaving his memory behind. And the grief and the sorrow and all those things, those aren't ever leaving either, nor do I want them to. I don't know if you listen to Anderson Cooper's podcast called All There Is. So he has a podcast about grief. It's really beautiful. You I mean, you should do it sometime, but he had Stephen Colbert on and Stephen Colbert co talks about grief as the gift you never asked for. And I that's that's how I feel about it too. And I but it's not just creep, it's all of these experiences and things and the things we The things that happen to us are always a part of us. So we we're not moving on from them. We're moving forward. And we're we always are going to take with us the good, the memory, the lesson we learned, all of those things. But we have to set aside the guilt and the regret because those don't allow us to move forward. Kelsey Dunbar Co-Founder S2T: Yeah, I I also noticed something else while learning about your work and I found it interesting because it sounds a lot like chapter one of one of our books and this Stephanie Renner: Mm. Kelsey Dunbar Co-Founder S2T: is the book, the children's book, You're Not Broken, where you tell people not to just think positive or you don't tell people to just get over it. Instead, you actually created an actual framework. Stephanie Renner: Right. Yeah. Kelsey Dunbar Co-Founder S2T: And and I have to imagine that framework was not created overnight. It came from actually living it. So tell us about your framework that you call the regret to resilience method. So what inspired you to create it? I mean, other than the obvious, right? But for someone hearing about it for the first time, what is the heart of that message? Stephanie Renner: Well, the heart is everything we've been talking about. It's it's that you get to define what comes next in your life, right? You can let yourself be stuck in the regret, or you can figure out how to move forward. And this is a way to figure out how to move forward. So when I decided I wanted to pursue speaking and writing and coaching, it's something I've wanted to do for many, many years. And obviously these life experiences gave me a story and a platform. And I sat down to try to think about like, okay, how do I talk to people about how I got here? How I sort of freed myself in my mind. And I tried to go through those steps and write them down. And I think it's funny that, you know, regret to resilience, I you're suffer suffered a tougher that's those aren't those aren't all that different, right? So it's a seven-step framework and we've talked about a lot of it. It's number one is just understanding that control was always an illusion. You don't control what other people do. You don't control the outcome of really almost anything. I mean, this we all believe that if we love hard enough and we care enough and we work hard enough and all those things that there's like a exact result. that comes from that. And there isn't always. Even for more formulaic things like working out or cooking or whatever it is, right? You can do all the steps and still have a different outcome that you don't control. That's just too many other factors at play. So there's that. And then the second is to own your part, but not anything more. Right? I can think about the things. I was not a perfect parent and I can think about the things that I could have done differently and maybe I apply them differently for my other son or maybe I help other people understand what I wish I had done that might help them. But number one, I can't go back and change it. But I'm also I can't take responsibility for all the things that were at that weren't mine. Right. That's honestly when you stop and think about it, it's a very self-centered I ideology. We we convince ours we We think high more highly of ourselves than we should. If we think we control so many things that happen in the world, everything's gotta come back on us, right? So that's number two. Number three is to let go of the if-onlies. So we just talked about the backpack analogy. And then it's stop prosecuting yourself. So if we go back and think of these things, even the things that we maybe believe we could have controlled, or even the decisions that we made that weren't the best. Forgive yourself. Admit it and forgive yourself. Like you can't if you continue to prosecute yourself for these things, if you continue to beat yourself up, who is it helping? It's certainly not helping you. And it's not helping whatever it is you lost because that's gone. Right? It gets you don't deserve to be punished for whatever it is you're regretting. The next one is really important to me because it's your worth is not determined by the outcome. And so I said we're going to get back to the you did everything you could. I, you know, first of all, I want to just want to say like people say all kinds of things to you when you lose someone. And some of them are helpful, some of them aren't. I believe almost all of them come from a good place. And so when I say that I didn't find this phrase helpful, I'm not saying that I'm mad anybody said it to me or that I don't think people meant well with it. But one of the things people say in this situation is you did everything you could. And they're telling me I was a good parent. I mean, I'm not mad about that. And they're also trying to absolve you of guilt. Like, you know, you can't blame yourself for this because you did everything you could. I just didn't find it helpful and I couldn't really figure out why. But I have this very logical lawyer brain and words are very important to me. And so I just kept thinking, but I didn't do everything I could. No one does everything they can. There's always something else. There were times I made decisions, I was just tired, or I thought he was being dramatic, or I thought whatever it was, right? Sometimes a lot of people who deal with the regret that comes after losing someone to suicide. know this experience and it's that it's really hard sometimes to distinguish when someone is trying to be manipulative with their threats and when they're serious. And they may be both, frankly, and you have to take them all seriously. But it's really confusing when you're seeing it happening. So and a therapist would say, you did everything you could with with what you knew at the time and the resources you had and all that. And that's all fine. That's good. But for me, I had to let go of this idea altogether because the entire reason we say that is based on this idea that someone is responsible or s or someone is at fault. Like they're telling me I'm not at fault, but what if I didn't do everything I could? Does that make it now my fault? I certainly don't think anybody was trying to say that. Why does it matter? Like There should be no discussion of fault at all, in my mind. Like that's just not that shouldn't come into play. And when that's when you realize that, that's when you can stop prosecuting yourself for one. But the other thing that happens when you finally kind of accept that is this question of, okay, well, if it If I didn't have control and there's no way to know if these combinations of choices or actions could have changed things, then why did like did it matter at all? Why why did I try? Like, does this any of this mean anything? And I had this, I don't know, epiphany, whatever it is. But of course it matters because your love. Is not measured by the outcome. And neither, you know, that that works in this situation, but it's also your worth is not measured by the outcome in your job, in your marriage, in your whatever you're doing, right? In the effort you put in in the gym or whether you eat right or any of those things. Like whatever the outcome is, that that's not the determination of your value as a person or your love. And that's a really powerful concept when you can really internalize it. It's probably it was probably the most powerful for me in this whole process. So after that it's accepting, like I said, that moving forward is not moving on, that there's a distinction. And then you get to define what comes next, right? When you can own all of this and you feel that freedom and you understand that you Have the freedom to move forward and honor these experiences and people and things, then the whole world is open to you. And that regret that weighed you down, like I mean, I say all the time, I've lost the ability to care about the things I don't care about. Because I'm not I'm not afraid of anything anymore. Right? Like, what could happen? I mean I I have another son, obviously that's that would be the worst. But Kelsey Dunbar Co-Founder S2T: Of course. Stephanie Renner: yeah. But I've I've made it this far through this. So if I fail at this attempt to have a different career, if I people don't like what I have to say, if someone criticizes me because I said whatever, you know, I've worried that are people gonna think I'm capitalizing somehow on my son's passing. You know, you get all kinds of crazy things in your head, right? But None of that matters. And so Kelsey Dunbar Co-Founder S2T: One hundred percent. Stephanie Renner: yeah. So you when you get that freedom to move forward, then you just get to you get to decide what the next chapters. Kelsey Dunbar Co-Founder S2T: Yeah. I have to say, I am really glad that you just kind of honed in on number five because obviously that pillar to me stood out. And so I'm I'm glad that was the one that really stands out to you. your worth is not determined by the outcome. that's the one that I actually wrote down. because I think so many of us tie our identity to whatever thing happened, whether it's a as you said, a failed relationship, a business that didn't work, or a parenting decision or the loss of someone that we love. So why do you think so often people confuse worth with outcome and what changes when people finally separate those two things? Stephanie Renner: Well, I think it's the message we get everywhere, right? It's it's grades and winning and all the job titles and all the things, right? We we're constantly inundated by that. And but let me be very clear, I am not a everyone wins person. I didn't even let my kids play those sports. I was like, we're going somewhere else. Like, I believe in grades, I believe in winning, I believe in all of those things. But We put so much emphasis on those things in our world that it's hard not to let that really permeate your entire mindset all the time, right? And we I think we just always feel like we have to ha be able to measure things. We and and again, we also need to place blame or fault or responsibility somewhere all the time when that it's just not helpful most of the time. So I think what happens when you really understand that that's just not reality. That's not what defines who you are is again, It's a freedom in your mind, it's a freedom in your daily life.