April 25, 2025

When Flashbacks Make You Cringe... And Smile (Ep. 25)

Ever find yourself looking at an old photo or hearing a throwback song and suddenly you're smiling... then cringing? One minute it's nostalgia, and the next you're thinking, “Why did I do that?” Been there.

In this episode, we're diving into what I like to call the “midlife memory seesaw”—that mental tipping point between warm, fuzzy memories and the sting of regret. I’m sharing some of my own stories (yes, including questionable 90s haircuts), along with brain science and practical tools that will help you shift how you think about your past. The goal? More joy, less guilt, and a lot more grace for the person you used to be.

BY THE TIME YOU FINISH LISTENING, YOU’LL DISCOVER:

✔ Why our brains tend to cling to the negative—and how to gently train them to do otherwise
✔ My go-to “regret reframe” that shifts self-criticism into appreciation
✔ How writing a thank-you note to your younger self can change your perspective
✔ What positive nostalgia can do for your self-esteem and emotional well-being

🎯 OMG Moment: Looking back with joy and appreciation is power. Looking back with self-criticism is a trap—and it’s one you don’t have to fall into.

Take Action
Next time you catch yourself slipping into regret, try asking, “What good came from that moment?” or “How far have I come since then?” That one simple reframe can change everything. You deserve to look back with kindness.

Grab your free Story Cycle resource to help you recognize these emotions and the thoughts behind them at www.cherylpfischer.com/storycycle.

Why This Episode Matters
Midlife naturally brings a lot of reflection—but how we relate to our past directly shapes our peace and happiness now. I want you to see how much gold is in your story, even the messy chapters. You’ve lived a lot of life. Let’s honor that—together.

🎧 Hit follow now and join me next week as I sit down with a guest to talk about the alcohol-free movement and what it means to redefine your relationship with habits in midlife.

Find all podcast and coaching resources at cherylpfischer.com.

Send Mind Your Midlife a note.

00:00 - Nostalgia vs. Regret Introduction

03:19 - Easter Memories and Empty Nest Sadness

08:20 - Avoiding the Slippery Slope to Bitterness

12:08 - Why We Dwell on Regrets

17:38 - Powerful Tools for Reframing Memories

24:01 - Finding Gold in Your Past

WEBVTT

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Back in maybe 1990, 91, I had one of those haircuts where you cut really one side short and the other side is a bit longer, and I loved it and my hair is curly if you haven't seen me before and so it was all curly on one side and it was shorter on the other side.

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And I look back at pictures of myself now and I wonder about that haircut.

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Or maybe what you're doing is you're thinking back to that time when you had no idea what to say and you really wish you did that was mine usually or you said totally the wrong thing at the worst time it happens right.

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So sometimes when we look back we get hit with this wave of regret.

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It's kind of a.

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It's a heavy feeling.

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We should have done it differently.

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Here, the should, the should.

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We're shooting on ourselves.

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It's like smacking your forehead face palm.

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That's what I mean.

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It's missed out on something.

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It's did something wrong.

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It's awkward and we think back.

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But sometimes it feels really good to look back and that's nostalgia.

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It's like a warm, fuzzy, happy feeling.

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And for me it's all about music and pictures.

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So your favorite 80s song comes on 90s song, or you look at a picture and it reminds you of doing something just in your house or on a trip, and you just feel just warm fuzzy, that's the best way to say it.

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So what if we could lean into that positive side a bit more when we're thinking back and we're feeling kind of like sitting in our memories a bit?

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What if we could go to the positive nostalgia side, have a bit of gratitude versus the should have, would have, could have part?

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We're going to dive into that today and see if we can help each other to stop with the regrets, stop the path toward bitterness as we get more seasoned which is how I like to say as we get older and create little moments of joy when we think about our memories, because, believe it or not, this could even be healing for you, and that is amazing and maybe even funny, because laughter is good.

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So let's talk about it.

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Welcome to Mind your Midlife, your go-to resource for confidence and success, one thought at a time.

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Unlike most advice out there, we believe that simply telling you to believe in yourself or change your habits isn't enough to wake up excited about life or feel truly confident in your body.

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Each week, you'll gain actionable strategies and oh my goodness, powerful insights to stop feeling stuck and start loving your midlife.

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This is the Mind your Midlife podcast.

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It's the end of April when this episode is coming out, as you know if you're listening to it right now, and Easter was this past weekend and I love celebrating Easter and I always remember, of course, the candy what can I say?

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That was part of our tradition and maybe being with family at the very least, being with our immediate family and having this fun morning with candy and then going to church and then having a nice meal, and this past weekend I did treat myself to a little bit of candy.

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We did do most of that tradition.

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However, the kids weren't here.

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My kids are grown up, they live elsewhere, they're doing great with their lives and this is not a holiday in terms of long weekend for us.

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So they couldn't come home, and that has happened before.

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I have been an empty nester for a number of years and my husband and I are doing just fine, yet this year, for some reason, it was.

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It was harder than I thought.

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It was like I didn't see it coming and I just kind of felt sad, and it's a little hard for me to even admit that, but, being fully transparent with you.

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I felt sad, I wanted my kids.

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I wondered how often am I going to get to see them and that may not be often sometimes and I just really, I was just realizing that I need to take my own advice, and I did once.

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I realized, you know, I always say coaches need coaches, and my own advice is to pause in a moment like that and ask well, I was asking myself you can ask yourself, okay, how am I feeling right now?

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And I recognized sad.

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I was feeling really down, and it wasn't a mad sad or an embarrassed sad or a, it was just just sad.

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And the next question is what's going on in my head right now?

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That's creating that, because it's the thoughts we have that create our emotions, not in a judgmental way.

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It's okay to feel sad.

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In fact, please feel your feelings.

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And so I I found in my head I was telling myself that.

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I was telling myself that you know it used to be better and maybe did I appreciate it enough.

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And are my kids going to be around?

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Am I always going to miss them?

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And just these kind of big sweeping things in my head that you know it's always going to be sad.

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This is what we do to ourselves.

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Sometimes we we kind of catastrophize, I guess, with these always and never and how could it ever?

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Type of statements.

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And so when I recognize that, the next thing is, can I make a shift?

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Can I change anything about what I'm telling myself in my head?

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And that is not necessarily an easy thing, nor is it something that you just flip a coin and go oh, now suddenly I'm grateful that my kids are doing well and they have places to live and they are happy.

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It might not be that easy that's the goal, but it might take time.

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And so I was able to shift a little bit and be grateful that I got to see my friend and her parents and we had fun and my husband and I had a nice day and everybody's healthy and happy, and I found some things and that's the key.

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So, no matter whether you're kind of feeling like I was describing, you're feeling sad about something, or you are missing someone or people or something you used to have in terms of status or the way your life was sometimes in midlife and continuing forward and becoming more seasoned we can slide along this kind of slippery slope I'm going to call it from being nostalgic and thinking about our memories, to regret and bitterness and wow, it was good back then and now everything is crap.

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And this period of life, I think, is sort of the what do you call it in the middle of a seesaw.

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It's like the if only I knew the word.

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It's the thing in the middle of the seesaw we're tipping.

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We're tipping side to side and I want you to tip towards the happy, nostalgic, gratitude side instead of the regret and bitterness side.

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And I'll give you another kind of little story for me.

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I was a teacher in high school.

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I taught math and economics for 12 years actually, while my kids were going through school, and I love teaching and I still do training outside of doing this podcast.

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I love explaining and speaking.

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Maybe you're shocked listening to me now.

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So as I was going past my I don't know seven, eight, nine years, I started to see.

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I started to see bitterness on the horizon, and what I mean by that is I started to wonder if I stayed for 20 more years or whatever it would have been to hit my full retirement age.

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Was I going to be one of those teachers and you're going to know what I'm talking about going to be one of those teachers and you're going to know what I'm talking about who just seemed always upset and just kind of as if she was being forced to be there and sort of a tiny bit angry at everyone.

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I kind of saw myself going on that path.

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Believe it or not, I saw it.

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I saw like little tiny signs of bitterness coming and that, at its most basic level, is the reason that I made a change.

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At its most basic level, is the reason that I made a change.

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I've also seen, and I bet you've seen, a lot of more seasoned, older people who seem to just really always be bitter for lack of a better word or were annoyed.

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They're always this.

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I thought of this word when I was thinking about this episode.

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They're always kind of grousing about something.

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Isn't that a great word?

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I don't think we use that anymore much, but it's a great word.

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They're just always kind of complaining, a bit grousing.

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Just in my day.

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You know what's wrong with kids these days?

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I mean, I do say some of that stuff.

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I have started to sound like my parents, I think, and maybe you have too.

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I think maybe that's normal, but I don't want to be in my 70s or in my 80s and just be bitter and just regretful and complaining.

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I don't know how that happens for some people and maybe they've had really tough lives and maybe I'm oversimplifying, and that's, that's fair, I'll take it.

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And yet time marches on and I think when we hit this point in our lives where maybe we're at or beyond the halfway point, we have so many past experiences and we have so many memories and the power of those is letting them be a positive thing and not allowing them to be a thing where we're telling ourselves today is not good because it was so amazing before or we made a stupid mistake before and now today is not good.

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Regret in one way or the other is really important that we don't kind of slide into that as a habit, slide into that as a habit.

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So is it okay to sit in some old memories or sit and look at old pictures and think back?

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Of course it's okay.

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Of course it's okay, and maybe sometimes we do that to soothe ourselves.

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Maybe it's when we've had a bad day and we want to remember a happy moment.

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That's a great reason to do it, but I think sometimes we get stuck on, should have in that situation and what would life be like now, it wouldn't be this Regret, regret, regret, okay, so why do we even dwell on something that we regret, or kind of dwell on something negative, or dwell on this feeling of well, there's brain science there, right?

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And if you've heard other episodes of mine, you probably already know what I'm going to say.

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Our brains tend to find the negative really easily and they do that for one of two reasons.

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One, to keep us safe.

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So, for example, I'm trying to decide whether I'm going to do something and my brain is like, well, you could fall and hurt yourself or whatever the risk is.

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It's trying to keep me safe.

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That's how our brains work.

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So, besides safe, also maybe our brains are trying to help us learn, and I almost want to like put that in air quotes.

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They're trying to help us learn from a past mistake.

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Or your brain remembers that you felt a bit uncomfortable in a certain situation and it's trying to keep you away from that situation again, so you don't have to feel like that again.

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It's learning, but our memories tend to kind of distort a little bit.

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Some things really stick with us and some things we might minimize.

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So if some really really strong or kind of shocking, immediate emotion was attached, we're going to really distort that bigger if there was some sort of negative shock or something.

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If it was.

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This is why, by the way, sidebar, this is why we don't celebrate the small steps when we make small steps forward, because if there was something happening in our past that was positive but it wasn't attached to some big emotional thing or, you know, a big milestone, your brain might distort that kind of and make it more mild and not remember it as much.

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Anyway, so reflecting back on our past is really common in midlife, as we've been saying, and I say even healthy.

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I say appreciate the fact that you have this much life experience and appreciate what it has been, but framing it in a way that is healthy and constructive for ourselves is really important.

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So if you're dwelling on something and that could be, as I was saying, a regret from the past, maybe you're remembering an incident where you did something embarrassing.

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Or you're remembering an incident where you made a decision and now you're like, man, I wish I had made a different decision.

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Or maybe you're remembering how good it was and you're comparing that with now and you're thinking I'm never going to have something that good.

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Whatever these regrets that come from kind of sitting and dwelling in the past are and see if you can get yourself to reframe it, to look how far I've come or look at what difference I made.

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And even if the scenario is that you are wishing that things used to be as good as they used to be, there's probably still something you could come up with when you ask yourself or maybe not ask yourself when you tell yourself look how far I've come.

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I bet you're stronger, Maybe you're more independent, maybe you're proud of what you've done, as you've raised your kids or influenced people in your life or made some other change.

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So leave alone the why did I do that?

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And I can't believe, and so annoyed about that from 20 years ago.

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Because I mean, you and I both know there is nothing we can do about what we're annoyed about from 20 years ago.

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I'm sorry to tell you we can do about what we're annoyed about from 20 years ago.

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I'm sorry to tell you, shift, if you can, from that.

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Maybe we call it the regret reframe to look how far I've come and just let yourself appreciate that.

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Look how far I've come or look how far we've come.

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So there's my first idea for you.

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Now here's another one, and I got this from the internet.

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I did not come up with this by myself, but I love it.

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So nostalgia to me is very powerful, and in the first version of this podcast, I used to ask listeners to give me a song that inspired nostalgia and good memories for them, because they would always say a song that I was like oh my gosh, I love that song.

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It boosts your mood when you think back in this happy way.

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It actually boosts your self-esteem because deep down in your brain and in your body, you are remembering times that were happy and you are teaching your body ooh, yes, it feels good to be happy.

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That's something your body always needs a reminder of, and it also gives you this kind of sense of longevity, continuity.

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Wow, look, I'm still here and I remember that cool thing.

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Okay, so here's the exercise that I did not come up with by myself, but I love when you are in a situation where you're feeling a bit nostalgic, and it could go either way.

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It could go to the sad and regret or to the happy.

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On that seesaw, when you look at an old picture or whatever it is that's pulling out that memory.

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What if you can think of good things that came from that moment.

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So I look, for some reason it's sticking in my head when I was in high school I think I was a junior, maybe senior, doesn't matter they had this program.

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I was in high school in Charlotte, north Carolina, and they had this program for foreign language students who were at a certain level, where we would go I don't remember how many times a couple times a week or something to a local elementary school during the school day and we would teach them Spanish in my case, and I have pictures of myself in the classroom with these little second graders and it was two or three of us at a time.

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We didn't go all by ourselves as high school students and try to teach something, but we planned a lesson and then we would go to the elementary school and we would teach the lesson.

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And I am just remembering this picture I have of me in the classroom that somebody I don't know took with their camera and then developed and gave me their double prints and this really resonated with me.

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That wasn't a negative moment.

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But what if I focus on what good came from that moment?

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Maybe that was my first taste of speaking to a group and they happened to be eight years old, but it was my first taste and it's a positive memory.

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What if that affected me?

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I mean, isn't that cool?

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That's a good thing that came from that moment and, even if the moment was a little bit of a hard or a messy one, if you can ask yourself what good thing or good things have come from that moment, I think this is a cool way to look at memories and I want you to try it and I want you to tell me if you tried it.

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Find me on social it's Cheryl P Fisher most of the time on most socials.

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Find me and send me a message.

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I would love to know.

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Okay, your third tool.

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I want you to see if you can find a way to thank your younger self and those of you who are journalers and like to write.

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I would say sit down with your paper or your document and actually write yourself a thank you note for what your younger self did or said or thought or learned.

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If you, like me probably, are never going to sit down and actually write it, you can just take a minute and think about it.

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I'm not going to give you new tasks to do.

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We don't have time for that, but you do have a minute, maybe when you're taking a walk, or when you're commuting, or when you're taking a walk, or when you're commuting, or when you're taking a shower.

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If you're thinking about memories and maybe you're dwelling on a mistake and honestly, this doesn't even have to be too far back Maybe it was last week Is there anything you can thank yourself for from that moment?

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Anything, just a little bit of gratitude.

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You never know what you might come up with.

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The brain is a pretty cool place because if we ask it questions, it really wants to give us an answer.

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That is why, if you go around asking yourself, why does this always happen to me?

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Why am I always late?

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How does this always happen?

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Your brain is going to find you an answer, and it's probably not an answer you want.

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But if you ask yourself, gosh, what could I be grateful for about this?

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And back to the previous one, what good things came from that moment, it's switching the way you ask the question and your brain is going to try to find you an answer, and it's going to be probably a cool answer.

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It's just switching the angle.

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Now let me give you one last thing because we are so hard on ourselves.

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And when I, when I get into my sort of empty nest sad times, I'm thinking you know why are my kids living farther away?

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And blah, blah, blah.

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And number one would I judge a friend about where her kids were and what they were doing?

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No heavens, would you talk to your friend that way?

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You would not.

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Number two what was the goal in this situation?

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Pretty sure our goal was to raise kids who were happy with their life and independent and could take care of themselves.

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So that's a good thing.

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We gained something from that.

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So just be careful, kind of how you're speaking to yourself.

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See if you can change the filter on that a little bit.

00:23:46.203 --> 00:23:49.356
It might help in that moment.

00:23:50.479 --> 00:23:59.000
So if I were to wrap this up, here's your thing to remember from this episode your oh my goodness moment.

00:23:59.000 --> 00:24:01.747
We have a lot of life behind us.

00:24:01.747 --> 00:24:04.681
We also have a lot of life ahead of us.

00:24:04.681 --> 00:24:07.612
I'm not focusing on that today, but it's true.

00:24:07.612 --> 00:24:11.403
Think about your parents or your aunts and uncles, or maybe even your grandparents.

00:24:11.403 --> 00:24:16.861
They're a lot older than you, which means there's a lot of time still to be lived between you and them.

00:24:17.622 --> 00:24:19.605
But here, sorry, sidetrack again.

00:24:19.605 --> 00:24:20.326
Here it is.

00:24:20.326 --> 00:24:26.962
Looking back with joy and appreciation is power.

00:24:26.962 --> 00:24:31.671
It's healthy, it's happy, it's good for you.

00:24:31.671 --> 00:24:34.175
It teaches your body good things.

00:24:34.175 --> 00:24:42.582
Looking back as a comparison or self-criticism is a trap and it's going to hold you in there.

00:24:42.582 --> 00:24:44.500
That's what I want you to remember.

00:24:44.500 --> 00:24:47.123
Use some of the little tricks I gave you.

00:24:47.123 --> 00:24:51.545
Midlife is not about mourning what's behind us.

00:24:51.545 --> 00:24:56.007
It's about looking for gold from that.

00:24:56.007 --> 00:25:04.516
So dig into the memories, enjoy them and just do it with kindness to yourself and maybe a little humor.

00:25:04.516 --> 00:25:05.657
Laughter is good.

00:25:11.087 --> 00:25:19.624
If you have been enjoying this podcast and you are listening on Apple, please go and leave a rating and a review.

00:25:19.624 --> 00:25:22.148
It makes such a difference.

00:25:22.148 --> 00:25:27.267
I want to share with you a review that came in recently from Society Hill Mom.

00:25:27.267 --> 00:25:31.025
So happy I discovered Mind your Midlife.

00:25:31.025 --> 00:25:33.815
Cheryl and her guests share insight and advice freely.

00:25:33.815 --> 00:25:35.357
That I didn't know I needed.

00:25:35.538 --> 00:25:40.567
I always walk away with gems of inspiration Makes me feel like we're all in this together.

00:25:40.567 --> 00:25:43.740
Thank you, oh my goodness, society Hill mom.

00:25:43.740 --> 00:25:45.727
That makes me so happy.

00:25:45.727 --> 00:25:47.362
Yes, we're all in this together.

00:25:47.362 --> 00:25:51.343
That is entirely the point, and let's make it fun while we're in it.

00:25:51.343 --> 00:26:00.560
Now also make sure that you have hit the follow button, because we're going to have an interesting discussion on the next episode.

00:26:00.560 --> 00:26:10.882
I don't know whether you have tried to dry January or sober October, or you have gone alcohol free, or you always were, or you absolutely are not.

00:26:10.882 --> 00:26:26.147
Either way, it's a big movement right now and my guest next week is going to talk to us about her experience and, even if that is just not the right thing for you, it's a pretty fascinating discussion, so I'll see you then.

00:26:26.147 --> 00:26:37.999
Keep remembering midlife is your time to slow down, to notice your life and what's around you and create something amazing.