Choice is not defined by others for you. Choice is defined by you alone. When you allow others to make choices for you, you give up your potential, power and ability to live your most authentic given life. In having said that, when we live our lives by our own choices, we also experience our own trials and tribulations which in effect become our compass that puts us on the course we choose to take based on how we choose to learn, or ignore the lessons that life bestows on us.
On our life journey, hurt and pain will be experience at some stages in our lives. When you are the cause of that pain, whether it is by deceit, betrayal or physical, as humans, there will be impact on your own life. When we are the cause of that pain we have the unique ability to punish ourselves, mind, body and soul. The truth is we allow ourselves to be punished. We make the choice to burden ourselves with guilt. We be-little our self worth and deem ourselves not worthy to be called upstanding human beings. The flip-side is we also have the choice to forgive ourselves, acknowledge our mistakes, take responsibility and then give ourselves a break.
The failure with us is we tend to look outside of us to seek redemption. We look for other means or person to give us the OK and that all is forgiven and alright so we can let go of the past. Unfortunately there are no redemption tickets out there! Even if your victim or entity has expressed forgiveness, the road to your own peace and recovery is up to you and only you to make that choice. As humans there are times when we don’t mean to hurt someone, but we do. When we look back and realize we acted out of character, regretting what we did because maybe we didn’t care what the consequences were or maybe thought it was right in the doing at that time, but feel the total opposite to it now, we experience regret, and we experience guilt. Guilt is just another feeling, emotion that you think you should not have. It’s uncomfortable, painful and has shame cast into the cauldron as well. If you cannot forgive yourself, effectively guilt will keep you locked into your past with no way of moving forward. Once again one can read all the self help books, attend counseling but the ultimate healing comes from one’s self in that you make the decision, the choice and are that you are ready to let it all go and put it behind you.
Remorse is a true reflection of expressing untold guilt. It is about being truly sorry about what it is you have done. It is about ownership, taking responsibility for your life and your deeds. Guilt, pain, remorse are all negative energies. Some people believe that they deserve to suffer guilt for the rest of their lives. They believe that by doing so, they will force themselves to becoming upstanding humans again. Sadly, inflicting pain and guilt onto ourselves and the negative energies created will never transform into anything positive by applying this mentality. All this does is create low self esteems, poor self image and all that is negative that goes with it. Guilt focuses on the person, not on the actual behavior of wrongdoing. To move forward, self forgiveness is the key. Take responsibility and attack the mistake; not yourself who committed the mistake. Focus on the behavior not the person.
We need to realize that forgiving ourselves is not stating that what we did was ok. What we are effectively doing is acknowledging that we are human. Humans make mistakes. Betrayal and deception is a state of mind. We are not born this way. It takes courage and strength to forgive others and yourself. Guilt is also a state of mind and if not attended to positively it can imprison you. Living with guilt and un-forgiveness has negative attributes and has been affiliated to diseases as well as cancer and heart conditions. By forgiving you create positive energy as well as boosting your whole being.
When we have truly forgiven, it allows us to embrace the lessons. You cannot change the past, but you can rewrite the present and the future. Sometimes there is truth in the saying that everything happens for a reason. It also means that as what is written in this article, whatever you have done that caused deception or betrayal, happened for a reason. It happened because we failed to look into ourselves and rather chose to look outside, elsewhere depending on something or someone to entertain our act of deception or betrayal, hence looking “outside”, hoping we will find answers to our issues, problems and life. We are all human. Big or small, we will all be tempted into the “darkness”, one way or another, in either mind, body or spirit.
You must be responsible for your own past, your pain, your happiness, and your life, right or wrong.
To repair any wrongs and live your life, it should start with self forgiveness.
It all starts with you. Own it!
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