GAZ@SIMPLYMEGA.COM

Now this is NOT going to be one of those preachy, born again, redemption posts.

In fact it’s not religious at all, it more personal than that.

Today I have learned something that I wanted to share. Many of us carry around past experiences that have a negative effect upon our lives, some of those things may be things we have done or things that have happened to us. In a lot of cases we (rightly or wrongly) carry around an amount of guilt/responsibility for these things occuring and as a result it fuels a degree of self loathing.

The key to getting around this is to forgive yourself.
Easy to say that, I know, but think of it this way. At that time and place, you did what you did for reasons that made sense at the time and with what you had at the time (experience, tools, information). There is no point in beating yourself up in hindsight (be it 10minutes of hindsight or 10 years) because you’re not that person anymore and what is done is done and no amount of feeling crap is going to change that.

I’m not condoning acting without remorse, or even a careless attitude, but what I am saying is that if you are doing the best you can then really what have you to feel bad about?

It occured to me the other day that you can only regret things that you have not forgiven yourself for. My reasoning? In my experience the only things to be regretted are thos where we feel that we could/should have acted differently. Now this involves using the power of hindsight to deem the event regretable, and therefore to dispel the feeling of regret it requires nothing more than forgiveness of the self, for ones actions at that time and place.

This is, as I said before, sometimes easier said than done. But well worth atleast giving some thought to imho.

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I have made a massive breakthrough with my scrupoulosity.

Gone is the driving obsession to bury myself in religious writings and dogma, to conform to a set of beliefs that are not my own and life by rules I do not agree with.

A sudden and unexpected calm decended upon me yesterday, following some CBT work I have been undertaking for a while now but seemingly not getting anywhere.

I’ve not finished, I don’t think I’ll ever be able to say I’m finished, but it’s a major victory for sanity and I’m going forward from this point with renewed self belief.

For all those out there with OCD and other similar conditions, never give up hope and, as a friend of mine likes to say, if you are walking through hell – don’t stop! We can beat this thing.

\m/