We continue with Ilene’s answers to specific questions:

What would you have done differently in your life that would have made it better?  What do you regret not doing during your life?

What I would have done differently, always throws me into a tailspin, because I really think I did the best I could with who I was at any given moment.  To think differently is so deflating and undermining.  I spent years as a therapist helping others not beat themselves up for what did or didn’t happen.

But if I must go here: I wish I had been kinder to my sisters as a child and teen. I wish I had had more confidence in myself and not shied away from chances to be more.  I wish I had had a coach, someone to help me believe in myself and find what I was capable of sooner.  Someone to encourage and champion me into my bigger self and purpose.  It seems I spent many years spinning around in my own head with my own confined views of what was possible for me.  I wish I had thought bigger sooner.  I wish I had known that a lot of people "fake it til they make it."  I could have done that rather than put off a dream with, "after I have this degree, after I land that job, after this many years of experience, then. . ."

These things aside, I truly think my path and my life was a gentle unfolding into who I was to become.

As for what I regret not doing in my life. . . I wish I had gone to the funerals of all my aunts and uncles.  Or better yet, seen them before they died.  I wish I had taken more vacations and trips to Europe, Greece, Australia and New Zealand.  I wish I had found my life’s work sooner.  I wish I had spent more time playing, creating and being silly.  (Although I’ve done good amounts of these!)  I wish I had been complete with every person I lost before I lost them.  Especially the first ones, before I knew what it was like to lose someone I love and not have them know what they’ve truly meant to me.