Hey, it's Luca and welcome to The Luca Savazzi Podcast. As we move through life, we all pick up things along the way. Some of those things help us grow. They shape us. They teach us. They become part of who we are. Others quietly become weight. Maybe it's a belief, a story you've been telling yourself for years, an old identity you've outgrown but somehow still hold on to. Maybe it's regret, self-doubt, loss, grief, the end of a relationship, a missed opportunity, or simply a mistake you wish you could undo. Over time, these experiences can keep us from moving forward because letting go can feel like forgetting. And so, we hold on to guilt because it feels like proof that we care. We keep replaying the past, asking ourselves, "What if I done something differently?" But what if moving forward doesn't mean betraying the past or the things that shaped you into becoming the person that you are today? My guest today is Stephanie Rener. Stephanie is a keynote speaker, a writer, an attorney, a nonprofit founder, and the creator of the regret to resilience method. She helps people release regret, guilt, and shame so they can step forward with a renewed sense of purpose after moments in life that leave us asking, "What if?" Her work isn't just based on theory. In a span of 6 years, Stephanie lost her father, her mother, and her oldest son, Jordan. She also navigated divorce and the particular regret that comes with relationships ending before they're ready. She knows what it means to love deeply, to make impossible decisions, and to wonder afterwards whether you did enough. While Stephanie's story begins with the unimaginable loss of her son Jordan, this conversation reaches into something that many of us will face. regret, self-lame, and the question of how to move forward without feeling as though we're leaving the past behind. Today, we'll explore the invisible weight we carry, why we become trapped in whatifs, and how the past can quietly stand between who we are today and who we can become. Please help me welcome to the Lucas Salarazzi podcast, Stephanie Rener. Hey, Stephanie. Hi. Welcome. Thank you. Thank you, Luka. I'm excited to be here. I'm excited about our conversation because I'm looking forward to hearing more about your story, um, your journey, and what inspired you to do the work that you do today. And so before we dive in, if the person listening takes to heart everything that we are going to talk about today, what becomes possible in their lives? It's a great question. I think the freedom to move forward and to discover what's next for you in life, to live out your purpose while carrying with you either the memory of a person you lost or the lesson from an experience you had. Instead of leaving it behind, I really believe we move forward and we carry the good on with us. And what I talk about is the freedom to do that. And so if we would have met like years before you started doing this work, like who were you? I was a lawyer and I know that's not really the answer to who were you, but uh like so many of us that's the kind of career that can really it becomes your personality kind of defines who you are in a lot of ways. So, I would say I I don't I wouldn't call myself a worrier, but I definitely was someone who lived out of fear, okay, a lot. Uh, fear of failure, fear what someone was going to think of me, fear of what was going to happen in the future. I think my most recent life experiences have taught me that I I really don't have anything to be afraid of anymore, honestly. I've lost, you know, the most important thing. Um, I have another son, so that would be the worst, I guess. But, you know, when when you know what you've survived, you think, well, I don't what could happen now. Really, how did that fear influence your life at that time? I think it just caused me mostly to play it safe. I mean, I've taken some risk in life and I've, you know, not been afraid to change jobs or move states or do whatever it is, but I've done what was dependable. So, as a lawyer, I I I wasn't happy as a lawyer. I had periods in my career where I was happy, but it wasn't my purpose. I knew that that wasn't what I was supposed to do forever, and I stayed because it was safe. And did you have like a relationship already? Did you have a family by that time? When I first became a lawyer, I did not. But uh I met my now ex-husband when I lived in California. I went to LA right after law school. I met him probably a year in into being there. We married pretty fast. We had Jordan about a year later and then uh Trevor, my other son, three years later. So I was in a big firm with by this time we move back to Kentucky, but I was in a large firm with two very small children at the time, which is kind of a pretty stressful situation to be in. How did you handle that? Like um not not well. It's it's really hard. I think any lawyer will tell you that this especially who's worked in a big firm you there's this billable hour requirement that you have and that sort of drives your life. So anything you do that's not billable to a client is time taken away from that. So I was always making it up after the kids went to bed and it just was really hard to juggle. I actually left a big firm about I think Trevor was probably a year old when I left there and went in-house at a bank and that was um much better for my lifestyle. So I spent probably the next 13 14 years working as a lawyer inside of a couple of different banks and I that was definitely the happiest I was in my career. It was much more manageable and it was both of those were sort of turnaround situations. I like cleaning up a mess. So, getting in and figuring how that all worked was a lot of fun, actually. You have two kids. They're very young. You have your job, your responsibilities. Mhm. How did you manage all that? My, uh, husband at the time was pretty hands-on, too. So, we both managed the kids. Uh, and we had a nanny for part of the time where they went to daycare, then they were in school. Honestly, I always say the hardest time for kids is when they're a little older, like you know, middle school, high school years, cuz they've got so much going on and you have to drive them everywhere and get to all the sports and all the activities and those sorts of things. And unfortunately, my oldest, Jordan, when he was in middle school and high school, was going through some pretty severe mental health issues. So I had a lot of phone calls come get me at school, that type of thing. So about the time he was 11, um he started talking about having suicidal ideiations and it continued obviously until he was 18 when he eventually unfortunately did end his life. I mean I I definitely lived in fear. I always had my ringer on my phone and I, you know, never felt like I could have it away from me and I panicked if it was and I woke up in the middle of the night and would go check on him because I would dream or fear or have a vision or whatever that, you know, the worst happened. Um, it just sort of is a cloud over you kind of all the time. So in 2019 um I was actually getting ready to go on a trip. I went to law school at the University of Notre Dame and you know I know what you know about American football but Notre Dame not much. Okay. So uh Notre Dame is like a legendary football school. So it's a big deal to go to their football games. And I my youngest son Trevor was super excited. I was taking him and two friends to an football game. We had been planning this for a long time. My dad actually was super excited about it too for Trevor. My dad and I were not we had a complicated relationship. Um we weren't particularly close and we had just sort of kind of thankfully resolved some things a little bit frankly like a month before that. But we're preparing to go. Oh, I literally was about to walk out the door to go get Trevor from school and pick up his friend and my sister called me um and said that my dad had a heart attack and passed. So, I had to make a decision obviously whether I was going to take these kids to this football game. Um I did cuz I knew that's what he would want and I wasn't going to like, you know, crush Trevor's weekend or whatever. One of the things that I loved the most after he passed is that I got to hear about him from other people through their eyes and he was a really good person to a lot of people and I got to hear these stories about what a good man he was. I think my sister and I both happened to be at a place where we felt like it was a gift for us to be able to see him in a different light and to see him through other people's eyes. So I I have a lot of his attributes a lot actually. Um not the selfishness I hope but um some personality traits that I I think maybe I didn't realize until I listened to other people. Jordan, who had always been really a rule follower and a good really good kid. Uh about the time as 15 or 16, he started really acting out in ways that were very out of character, like drugs and stealing from us and taking my car in the middle of the night when I didn't know it and hanging out with people he probably shouldn't have. Um, and then the threats and the depression and anxiety and all those things got more severe. So, my house was just really stressful. Mhm. Really stressful. Yeah. And then I'm watching my mother who's so um has always been this just force in my life decline, you know. So then in May of 2024, honestly, I thought I had turned a little bit of a corner with Jordan. We had been to um a court appearance of his uh cuz he had gotten in some trouble. and we were leaving and I I expressed that I was concerned about him and he started to open up to me a little bit and he told me this was really honestly like I guess about a week before he died. Um he told me that he thought it was too late to learn how to be a normal person. So he struggled. He was always a little awkward and struggled to make friends in some ways. Um, and we think I know now I know in retrospect and by this time we knew this that he likely was on the autism spectrum. Like he had kind of figured that out himself. by that age it didn't really make I mean he was functional like very I would say high functioning for someone on that spectrum but um you know it didn't really make a lot of sense at the time to try to get some sort of official diagnosis because we kind of knew what we knew and um so I I talked to him about that because I mean he's 18 right like too late to learn anything is just in our minds crazy I didn't say that to him but it It really struck me and made me sad and but we had a great conversation about um I knew a therapist who helped people who had late diagnosis of, you know, being on the spectrum. And I told him that I would get him in to see her. And he told me that he thought it was too late to go to college at 18. Right. Why do you think he he thought like it was too late? dramatic is not the right word. But he had that personality of like absolutes, right? Like I didn't do it yet, like everybody else did. I mean, he he went to a private school for a long time with a lot of very smart kids who all were doing like, you know, one of his good friends was at a at UVA on a full scholarship and it all these people had gone to all these places and he had really kind of given up on school in the two years before. He's brilliant. absolutely brilliant kid. There's he should have graduated and had scholarships and all those kinds of things. And we barely got him through high school. I mean, his name wasn't even in the graduation program because he finished everything at such the last minute. They didn't think he was born to. He convinced himself that like if he didn't do it the way everybody else did it, then it's too late now. And so, of course, I told him, "No, it's not too late. and I will help you and you know we can whatever you want to go he said I want to go to UVL University of Louisville which is here and I said that let's let's start working on it right so and he seemed encouraged by that and I felt like okay we have a plan and he's expressing interest in wanting to do this because for a long time he had just sort of given up and he wanted no part of any of that so to me it was a great sign that he was you know yeah wanting to move forward I uh it was I found him on and it was Mother's Day. Um we were getting ready to go visit my mom and where she lived in the assisted living facility and um I I I'd been looking for him all morning and couldn't find him and uh eventually did as we were getting ready to leave and it had happened the night before. I know that. But um so first of all, how do you feel? You know, there's this whole like this is Mother's Day. Is this some sort of message to me kind of thing? And I know now that's not the case for lots of reasons. But um it's complicated. I mean, this is a uh a scene that I had imagined in my head numerous times. Uh, I'd had that that feeling numerous times when I couldn't find him or couldn't get a hold of him or whatever that this was what I was going to find and and it had never happened. So, I kind of had gotten used to this like, okay, I'm super scared, but it's all going to be okay. And, you know, it finally happened. It wasn't. Um, there's a I don't I've said this other places and I don't know if you've not experienced it. I think some people could judge this, but there's a mixture of just horrifying, um, upset, whatever. But then there's also this kind of feeling of relief because this chaos and tornado of just stress and anxiety and always he he kind of dictated everyone's mood, everyone's ability to do anything all the time, right? That's that's the personality he was and it was the things he was going through and it just all came to a screeching halt. So there's relief in some sense in your own life and that is like to be very clear that's not mean I was happy or glad it happened or any of this stuff I would take I' like do anything in the world to happen back. Um but then there's a little bit of relief for him. Yeah. Because he his mind was so tortured. Did you feel guilty in having that relief? Yeah, you do. I mean, I knew I'm a very I'm in my head a lot. Like I I very much have that lawyer like logical brain and so I always say you intellectually I intellectually knew that this was okay but you can't help but feel that. How did you get yourself to move forward from that point? So first you're in shock like I said so you got to kick into like number one I got to take care of my other child. uh make sure he's okay. I got to make sure everybody else's okay. Then I got to start planning, you know, a memorial and all those things. And he had this I always say Jordan collected strays. He had all these friends that um he he just wanted to take care of everyone. So there were lots of friends whose parents maybe had kicked them out or their foster kids who were kind of like in limbo or whatever. And lots of them slept in my basement and hung out at my house all the time. And some of which I knew about, some of which I didn't. I some of them tell me now that they snuck out of my house in the morning before I would go to work uh many times. Um so first it was I had to get myself together, take care of everybody else, right? And you you do that for as long as you can and then you start having to deal with your feelings and reality. Mhm. And um I I don't know how to say like what what exact time this happened or how it happened, but for me I I had to let go of all of the what I call ifonies. If I'd only done this, if I'd only done that, or you know whatifs. And the only way I could do that is I had this kind of epiphany that I didn't control this. I didn't control the outcome. That must have been so much. I didn't feel like I had any other choice but to keep going. And I and I do think having, you know, my other son is was a large part of that. Um, I also had an incredibly supportive group of friends and my sister and I were very close and she was like my rock through all of it with and to her credit because she was very close to Jordan too. But um I eventually had to get really honest with myself and realized that not a single one of those things that I wish I had done. I don't I don't have any guarantee that any of those could have changed this, right? Like cuz it wasn't I did not control it. Like you can't love someone enough to save them. They have to want to save themselves. and and especially a very strong willed I mean he was still to my mind he's still a child even at 18 but very strong willed very smart there was no no one was ever going to control him or force him to do anything what was the thing that got you to understand that you had no control over the outcome I always talk about this you know people say all kinds of things to you when someone dies Um, some of them are helpful, some of them aren't. I think they're all generally well-intentioned. And I, so when I say this, what I'm about to say, like I just want to be very clear. I'm never criticizing what people say in general because we all just do what we can in the moment, right? But in this situation, people would say to me, "You did everything you could." I I heard that all the time because all of these people had watched how much we did and how hard we tried and they knew how much we loved him. And I always say, you know, that's basically someone telling you we're a good parent. Like I'm certainly not upset about that. But I I didn't find it really helpful. And it took me a while to understand why, but eventually I realized it was because that that's kind of trying to like absolve you of your guilt, right? They people say that to basically tell you it's not your fault. And my in my mind, I was like, but I didn't do everything I could. I could have done this and I could have done this and I could have done this. And you know, then a therapist tells you, well, you did everything you could with the resources you had and then you knew the be the best you knew, blah blah blah at the time. That's all fine and well, but what even if I didn't even if I didn't do everything I could, why are we talking about fault at all? Right? Mhm. So this was where I had the epiphany and I began to let go of those things of why are we trying to figure out who's to blame or whose fault it is when that it doesn't serve any purpose. It doesn't change the outcome. Right. Right. That's just not the point. So, if I can stop focusing on all of these things that I don't have any guarantee could have changed things. Mhm. Then I can set those aside and focus on how I honor him and move forward. Right. N so and that's not a it's not a magic you can't wave a magic wand and make that happen you know it's a it's a a discipline to remind yourself of it all the time and I still get I go go there in my head a lot still but it just doesn't serve a purpose and now I'm curious because a lot of people listening to this podcast they haven't experienced events like this but still they might recognize regret and whatifs in other areas of their lives, right? How is this shaped how you see things outside of grief and loss significantly? Because we can we can let this happen to us in all areas, right? I mean, I'm I'm there right now. So, I left my job a year ago because I just couldn't I didn't want to do it anymore. my because my mom passed a year ago um last month and that was sort of my like breaking point of like I just not going to do what I don't want to do anymore and that job was not fulfilling me and I'd had a desire for a very long time to do public speaking and writing and I'd been putting some stuff out there that people felt like that I was getting good feedback on and people seem to be connecting that kind of So, I had this sort of um when my mom passed, I had, you know, a little bit of money to that allowed me to do that, that allowed me to just quit and plan for the next thing, but it wasn't some major windfall that was going to set me for life in any way. And um you know I it took me a long time to sort of get going and to start really putting the effort into what I'm doing now and I'm a year out now and it's it's not exactly where I need it to be and I'm not quite making the money I need to make. And so in my head I'm doing I've been doing the the if only like you should have done this and you should have planned better at the beginning and you should have not spent this money on X and whatever. So I'm having to practice my own method and my own teaching in my own head right now to say I okay but that is what it is and you don't know that if you'd done this better or this better or if I found Brand builder group before you know whatever it is if I had that it would all be magically different right and it doesn't serve any purpose to sit here and beat yourself up about that so I sat down and thought about, okay, how did you get here? Like what what what are the steps? If you want to try to explain this to someone, what how would you take them through this process? And it's I came up with seven steps. Number one is understanding that you never had control. So control was always an illusion. The next part is then being honest about what you did and didn't do, right? So yes, there are things that if I was a perfect parent, I would have done differently, but I'm also not going to take responsibility for like everybody else's actions and all the things I couldn't. Like you you can only own what you can what you have and you shouldn't try to take on more than that. Like you can't put everybody else's stuff on yourself. The whole world's problems are not like you're not you're not that powerful, right? So it's own your part and nothing else. And then the next step would be to let go of the if only. So I talk about ifonies are like hauling around like you when you carry around all these if only it's like carrying around a backpack full of bricks. Okay. Can you explain that? So it just weighs you down. Like, so if you think of every So all those things I listed that I feel like I could have done different, like there's and there's hundreds more. If each one of those was a brick and I put them in a backpack and I had them on my back there, it's just a gigantic weight. It does it serves literally no purpose. So you're just carrying around a big gigantic weight that does nothing for you. and letting go of them. To me, the analogy I use is taking them out one at a time and looking at it and saying, "Can is there any guarantee that this would have changed the outcome? Can I know that?" And it's the answer that is almost always no. And even if you think it's yes, you're lots of times you're fooling yourself, right? Like if you're really honest with yourself, it's almost always no. There's no guarantee that this would have changed the outcome. Yeah. Which is difficult because fe letting go feels like you have to abandon a part of yourself or let go of someone that you cared about. Feelings, thoughts, stories. Like this is really just about this belief that this thing I did or didn't do would have changed things. And I think letting go of that is hard for us too because it's like penance or something, right? Like we feel like we deserve to have to carry this around. Again, that's not serving you any purpose. So the next one is, you know, stop prosecuting yourself. That's my like cheesy lawyer analogy in there. But but that's it. Like stop beating yourself up. You can't like again what what purpose does it serve? And then for me, one of the questions I had to answer is, okay, if I admit that all these things that I think I should have done right or done differently, if I admit that there's no guarantee any of these would have changed things, then did all the other things I did matter? Like if if if there's no guarantee if you don't have any control over and there's no guarantee that you can change it by this action or that action then why why do you try at all? Like does it matter that I did any of these things? Right? The thing I say now is well of course it matters because your love is not measured by the outcome. And there's all kinds of things we do in life that the outcome we want or think we're going to get based on our effort doesn't come and that does not determine our worth. What you said earlier about um it's hard because you feel like you're leaving behind stories and memories and the people that's so that is the next step is understanding that moving forward is not moving on. I say moving forward. I'm never going to move on from Jordan. Never. And I'm never gonna move on from losing him. But I am gonna move forward and I'm gonna take him with me. I'm always going to take that with me. Um and I like I also don't talk about grief as something you get over because I don't think that's true. I think grief is always going to be there and I'm always going to carry it with me. It's just how I let it affect me. And look, it's the same. I really struggled when I divorced with this idea that this commitment I made before God and everybody said, you know, I said certain things. I took certain vows and it was supposed to be forever and now it's not. And I that's that's not okay. like and it's not I I didn't have any like I don't believe divorce is wrong or anything like that. It just was this wasn't the way it was supposed to happen. And it's and I didn't want to negate that our love was real or that our relationship was real or whatever it or that that commitment was real. And I it took me a really long time to get in the headsp space of understanding that I don't I don't regret that. Like I don't regret having gotten married to that person. I don't regret the time we had together. I can I can still see the value in that and take the good parts of that with me. So the next one is the last one which is you get to define what comes next. I bought a house after my dad died in 2020. In 2020, right at the beginning of the pandemic, actually, my sister is a huge DIY person. She loves to do projects and things, right? So, she was so excited. She got to my house and, you know, couldn't wait to get involved. And she says, "Okay, we got to pick the paint colors. We're going to paint. What do you want to paint the walls?" Right? And I said, "We're going to paint all the walls white." She was like, "What? White?" I said, "Yes, all the walls. All of them." You know, like, "Can't we paint an accent wall or can't you pick a neutral or something like that?" I was like, "No, I want all the walls to be white." So, we did. And the reason I wanted them to be white is because I wanted to fill the walls with art. I wanted my color to come from art. And I wanted to have I I had never really bought real art, you know? I just sort of bought whatever I found at the HomeGoods store or whatever. And alhamdulillah, which is fine, too. But, um, so I wanted to be intentional about it. I was so determined. And, um, the time came, we, you know, painted white. It was all clean and fresh. Time came for me to go start buying art. And I froze because I had never bought real art before. And I didn't know what I liked. And more importantly, I didn't know what I was supposed to like. So, it got in my head like, what if I buy like what do I know about her? What if I the wrong thing? And what if people think this is tacky or what whatever, you know? Um, and so I literally just kept my walls white for like two years. And this is in the middle of going through all this chaos and stuff. And finally uh I at the time I had ended a relationship that I needed to end. I I waited too long. Um and I realized that I had not been taking care of myself. I'd not been thinking about the things I wanted and I really hadn't I kind of lost myself, right? So, I started doing things around my house and choosing things. I don't know, rearranging furniture or whatever I did. And it was starting to feel more like myself and like my opinions and my taste. And I bought my first piece of art and it was this giant uh painting of this woman's face and it's really colorful and she has all these flowers and stuff around her. And it was huge and I hung it at the time in the interway of that house and it was really gorgeous. Like it fit perfect and it was really bright. It was just fantastic and everybody would thought so like it it was very me. Mhm. And it changed something like I then started just buying all kinds of art and I painted my living room like this Kelly green color and I started my house became very much a reflection of me at the time. This isn't the house by the way. Unfortunately I sold the house after I see art on the background. Yes. But I still it's very much a part of me like I this is not something all that that's not something I would have done in the past right um and it it really brought out me and my personality and when I went to sell the house because Trevor and I just felt and we couldn't stay there that's where Jordan passed and so when I went to sell it um my neighbor was my realtor and a good friend of mine and he told me he's like, "Sephanie, people are asking if you will help them decorate their house and asking if they can buy some of your art." And the person who eventually bought the house like kept a lot of my furniture. Like I, you know, they wanted some of it wasn't going to fit where I was going. And um they kept things arranged the way I'd had it. And it's just not something you could have ever told me would have happened. I' I'm not an interior decorator. I've never that that's not been something people wanted to emulate of me in the past and I've carried that with me. I mean I rent here and but I've painted walls downstairs these like bold colors and I have a lot of art around the house and when people come in they're just like oh my gosh this is so cool and this is such a reflection of you and I'm telling all of this to say you get to define what comes next. And so I'm curious if if somebody is either dealing with loss or grief or with a relationship ending or a career change or anything else, what is that first practical step that you can do to start moving forward? Well, first I think you have to give yourself grace. It's very easy to look at someone else and say like why are they okay and why are they doing this and whatever. Like we all have to take the time we have to take what from any type of loss or grief or whatever no matter how serious or not whether it's losing a job or losing a person or a friendship or whatever it is, right? Like no one else gets to dictate how you process that. And if you have to lay in your bed for a month, you have to lay in your bed for a month, right? I don't So you got to give yourself grace. Um, but then I would say like it's a small step like go buy a piece of art. Go do like you know go try a thing that you've never tried. Start the hobby you've never done or you've always wanted to do. Take the class. Read the book. Whatever it is like do something small that's you that feels like you. And if you don't know what feels like you then try something. You know you might find it. What is the cost of staying with unresolved regret? Well, I mean, I think there's a physical cost first of all, you know, stress and that that affects your body and it causes ulcers and all kinds of things, right? Um, but the world and you are going to miss out on whatever you could be doing. It's it's holding you back and you're not serving whatever it is you're trying to preserve whoever whoever you miss or don't want to move on from or whatever experience you feel like isn't being validated or whatever that is. Like you're not helping that. You're not you're not honoring the person by staying stuck or by punishing yourself or whatever it is. you're not preserving the experience by beating yourself up or staying stuck in that. Like the best way to honor the person, preserve, you know, honor the experience, validate what you've put into something is to move forward. So if you would talk directly to the person listening that has these invisible beliefs or these feelings, these whatifs, all these doubts, the fear that stands in the way between where they are right now and where they want to be. What would you tell them? I would say first of all it's normal and there's nothing wrong with you that you're not broken in a way that other people that you see thriving or being able to deal with whatever their experiences there's nothing messed up about you that doesn't allow you to do the same thing right that you like it's okay and whatever you've had to do to survive to this point is what you've had to But there is freedom and more for you if you can just take the step to try to forgive yourself and let go of those ifonies and whatifs. There's a lot more out there for you. Where can people find you if they want to know more about your framework, about the steps they can take or at least start moving forward? Yeah. So, you can go to regrettoresilience.com. That will take you actually to Stephanie Renerspeaks.com. So, either of those is fine. Um, I'm also on LinkedIn. I'm on Instagram and Tik Tok and Facebook. You know, if you search Stephanie Rener, you're going to find that. Stephanie, thank you so much for being so open and sharing all your personal stories. Thank you. That's been great. And to you listening, I hope this conversation reminds you that moving forward doesn't mean leaving behind the people, the experiences, or the moments that shaped you. It means carrying the good with you while giving yourself permission to take the next step. You'll find links to Stephanie Rener, her regret to resilience method, and everything we talked about in the show notes. And if this conversation make you think of someone you care about, share it with them. I'm Luca and I look forward to seeing you in our next conversation. You only have one to live. Become who you know you can be. 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