July 13th, 2015
What follows you around like a giant mosquito, always buzzing so you know it’s around and when you think it’s gone the familiar sting tells you it’s not? It’s guilt.
Some people feel guilty about everything regardless of whether or not they are at fault. “I’m sorry the ocean is so salty and it ruined our vacation” “I’m sorry that I didn’t know what you were thinking” .
Some people hide their guilt and walk around with a perpetual hundred pound weight on their chest. It doesn’t matter whether or not they were actually at fault. The only thing that matters in both cases is the perception that somehow it was their fault.
Guilt is a powerful feeling that can help us to change for the better or paralyze us into inaction. How can we see it in a positive light when we believe, right or not, that we did something wrong? Forgetting is an impossibility.
We hear about forgiving yourself but in order to forgive you have to take a higher position and pass an order of forgiveness to yourself. How can you take a higher position, in other words act as a judge, when guilt has laid you so low?
Guilt will weaken you and it can only be tamed one way. You have to become stronger than the guilt. If the guilt is pervasive “I’m sorry for everything!” you must rein it in and see it in the light. Is it really, really, really your fault? If so, take responsibility and apologize ONCE. If it is not your fault, stand your ground FOREVER.
We all make mistakes or we haven’t really lived. We cannot change one iota of the past. If you have done wrong, rectifying it is sometimes possible. Learning from it is always possible. Learn and move on. Get strong, not arrogant. Be the door that only allows love to enter and not the doormat. Be strong, wonderful you.
(c)2015 All Rights Reserved, Patrick McBride
www.PatrickInspires.com
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