It's been a while since blogging and 6 months since moving back home. I guess I felt I was making some really good choices and by not looking back felt they were the right ones. I haven't been happier in a very long time, feeling alive, loved and needed and owe it to being honest with myself and going after what was best for me.
Lately, though, I crossed my own boundaries wanting to fulfill a need to give myself something I hadn't had in a very long time. I made a mistake and because of that I also hurt someone else I truly cared for and respected and wanted to have in my life for a long time. I second guessed myself and made a choice that ended up hurting us both. My intentions were never to hurt anyone but I went after something that wasn't for me to have. I did all this by not being being present and listening to my truest self ~ the result, I'm filled with guilt, shame and disappointment and left someone I wanted to be a trusting, loyal friend to feeling the same.
I know emotions, even the powerful negative ones, are meant to be felt and moved. Without guilt, feelings like fear or anger can flow smoothly and move through us. We feel the feeling - and then it's gone, leaving a space that can later be filled with joy, excitement, power or other emotions.
Guilt is not a feeling, it's a choice and the easiest way to deal with feelings infected with guilt is to deny the feelings. For many of us this has been crucial to maintaining self-esteem and keeping our optimism high enough to go on with life. The problem with this is that denied feelings don't go away, they eventually surface again showing up in a different form. This creates an opening for the parts of us that didn't deal with feelings in the first place to repeat destructive or unwanted patterns of behavior.
Denial is only a coping mechanism. Real healing can come only when the feelings are felt and the guilt is confronted and removed. The truth is that you and I, everyone... we are all innocent. A good conscience does not depend on guilt, but rather on a self-assured sense of what is right and wrong.
Without honest feelings to inform us, it is difficult to achieve that self-assured sense of right and wrong that makes a good conscience. The healing of guilt is in releasing the judgments that hold guilt in place.
It is important to remember that we are here to learn. Learning is a trial and error enterprise. Sometimes we make mistakes, we do things we don't wish to repeat. So we learn. If, however, in the learning process we get infected with guilt - we then feel bad, sometimes really bad. And for me this past couple days the learning experience has turned into an internal crime and courtroom scene with the feeling of guilt as the primary punishment!!!
Guilt is not a feeling, it's a choice and the easiest way to deal with feelings infected with guilt is to deny the feelings. For many of us this has been crucial to maintaining self-esteem and keeping our optimism high enough to go on with life. The problem with this is that denied feelings don't go away, they eventually surface again showing up in a different form. This creates an opening for the parts of us that didn't deal with feelings in the first place to repeat destructive or unwanted patterns of behavior.
Denial is only a coping mechanism. Real healing can come only when the feelings are felt and the guilt is confronted and removed. The truth is that you and I, everyone... we are all innocent. A good conscience does not depend on guilt, but rather on a self-assured sense of what is right and wrong.
Without honest feelings to inform us, it is difficult to achieve that self-assured sense of right and wrong that makes a good conscience. The healing of guilt is in releasing the judgments that hold guilt in place.
It is important to remember that we are here to learn. Learning is a trial and error enterprise. Sometimes we make mistakes, we do things we don't wish to repeat. So we learn. If, however, in the learning process we get infected with guilt - we then feel bad, sometimes really bad. And for me this past couple days the learning experience has turned into an internal crime and courtroom scene with the feeling of guilt as the primary punishment!!!
Learning is part of growing and evolving, and mistakes are excellent feedback in the learning process, if they are used as such. Our culture has taught us that making mistakes is bad, but this is not true. Mistakes are the norm in trial and error learning, and in fact they are necessary for learning. Learning is already hard enough without being punished for the mistakes that are a necessary part of the process.
I understand that what has caused me to judge against myself, it's not wrong, it's a choice. I have free will and every choice I make is valid, and particularly valid when it's used as a learning experience. I'm sick about what I have done but need to release the negative judgment until it's no longer there.
When the judgments upon myself are released I'll be free to decide about how I will feel, will have learned a valuable lesson and not be a repeat offender.
