Yes I know that is a slightly religiously themed photo, but bear with me. Do you forgive yourself? It took me a long time to understand this idea?
?of self forgiveness. With no obvious outside pressure, no one on my back, in fact a lack of anyone telling me what I should do or how I should live my life, I got to a point where I beat myself up mentally a lot. I saw myself as a failure, as stupid, as useless. I don’t anymore I hasten to add.
I had inherited a set of ideas that I had to do things perfectly. By perfect I understood faultless. Of course I was full of faults,every human being is. In fact faults, mistakes, are the stuff of learning and growth. How boring life would be if we were perfect and had nothing to know or learn. So every time one of these damn faults popped up, I gave myself a really hard time. It took years of self torture, self doubt, and eventually a big kick in the ass from the universe to get me into a program where I could look at my life as it truly was, not as I thought it was. Many of the things I had struggled with were just too stupid to put down here. Some of them were serious. I haven’t managed to make a relationship work for longer than 7 years. I had a lot of bad self image about that. I realised today that my exes, my children, and I are much happier now than when we were together. I had to get past the idea of being a failure and flip it into an idea of self care. I also had to look at the consequences of my actions and see that often a) no real harm had been done to anyone, ever, and b) if I looked carefully enough a lot of good had come from it. Sure it wasn’t intentional but it came anyway.
You see in this life we are living, we have the moment, the now. We also have the yesterday in our mind and the tomorrow in the same place. The only one of those three worth thinking about is the now. What’s done is done. What will be will be. The only thing I can influence is the now. So now, I forgive myself for all those times I felt awkward. I forgive myself for all the times I felt insecure, under confident, lacking faith in myself and my abilities. I congratulate myself for doing my inner work, for the people I have approached in my life and fessed up to. I am grateful I am still here and my life is as beautiful as it is. Yes I want more, more of the joy and gratitude and loving that I have already experienced. More abundance and security too but that doesn’t mean to say I am not happy. My life is pretty much perfect. It’s been a huge adventure. So I leave you with my musings, and I ask the question of you, have you forgiven yourself just for being who you are? Don’t let the small stuff hold you back any more. You are perfect as you are.?I have different idea of perfect these days. I hope you will too.