The moment something happens, we are looking to assign some blame.
Forgiveness is essential, and the first step towards forgiveness is communicating our pain and hurt, both to the offended and to ourselves.
If we don’t, we begin to resent them.
Even worse, the resentment stays around, even if we don’t tell them.
Don’t hold an anchor in your soul if you don’t have to.
There is no growth in self-criticism.
We conflate it with self-improvement. We do that because most of our growth comes from executing, and no one is successful all the time.
So, inevitably, we fail. And when that happens, it’s easy to self-criticize.
Self-criticism doesn’t help us grow. We satisfy a superficial urge to “punish,” which only feeds itself.
What I am saying is that punishment simply reinforces punishment. It doesn’t help anything, or anyone else.
If you fail, quit, or stop, it’s ok. Just understand where you are, and move forward.
There is no penance in beating yourself up, just more pain.
Who else knows where all the buried bodies are? You are the only person that knows every secret you’ve held, every person you’ve wronged, and all the mistakes you’ve made. All those phony apologies, well, you know those too.
When it comes to all the mistakes you’ve made you are a bona fide expert. It holds you back, because you can’t get better without giving yourself permission first.
That is where it starts. Punishment comes from all sides, even from our own head. We have to decide to turn off the valve of self-destruction and decide to stop adding on to the pain. Only then can the process of healing begin.
There is a concept in money management where when you get your paycheck you stop and pay yourself first. You do this because often with money, we forget to take the time to think about ourselves. You take the time to worry about the urgent and not the future.
We treat ourselves that way. In self management, you have to start with forgiving yourself first, because we don’t think about the future, we think about the urgent.
So, give yourself the chance to get better.
When the unexpected happens, we scramble for a story. The human brain is complex, but one of the things that it is good at is creating story. Not only is it good at creation, it also deems story creation important. Some have even pointed out that it is the last part of your brain to go. (Cue the light at the end of the tunnel people seem to constantly remember…especially after the steam engine.) I recognize how fast story creation happens, and it scares me. I often feel foolish when I find out just how wrong I usually am.
So, when we create a story, what do we do? Our brain find the easiest path. Think about how you go to work, or how you eat your lunch, or how you get any habit to stick? All these things, more than likely, came from the easiest path. I can’t get anything to stick unless I make it easy. I often have these grandiose images of being an ultra marathon athlete, but unless I make it as easy as possible, I won’t run around the block.
So what is the easiest path for a story to go? For me, I often find blaming someone rather easy. It allows me to kick off the story making process. If there is a villain, it is a lot easier to make myself the hero. I recognize it now as a matter of ego and convenience. When you blame, it allows the shifting of responsibility to a non-factor. “I couldn’t possibly be wrong, if (insert villain here) didn’t do (blame shifting thing) I would be able to (insert heroic thing here).” It leads to anguish because I have noticed shifting responsibility leaves room for doubt. Doubt sucks. Understanding is better.
So am I saying that villains don’t exist? Not at all. That person could impede your progress. That person could be a villain. That person could be responsible for everything that happens bad to you. Still, instead of playing the blame game, I think learning to understand would be helpful. Even if the person is absolute evil, it will become easier to forgive. To forgive is to move on.
Note: When it comes to anguish, the only person that suffers is you.
You have to learn how to forgive yourself.
If you take away your understanding that you are human, well, that is how you end up truely lost.
Make mistakes.
From the desk of Adam Thomas 