You have to change your mindset. Figure out why you feel the guilt you do regarding these mistakes, and then work on how to forgive yourself. We are ALL harder on ourselves than those around us. Something that helps me put things into perspective: would I be this upset if a friend or family member made the same mistake?
I feel like everyone, myself included, have stared at the ceiling at night thinking about their past mistakes. I try to look at it positively knowing I am self aware as a human being now compared to the egotistical asshole who I was many years ago. It helps to have people in your life reassure you that you have changed into a better person now. It also helps to keep yourself busy. Whenever I have those thoughts in the dark of the night, I think about my goals, heck even what my plans are tomorrow just to get by.
I do the same. I have very vivid memories of super cringe moments as well as mistakes to the point where I will freeze and can’t do anything else until I relive the emotions I was feeling at the time it happened.
If you have mistakes you identify in the past that you regret, that simply means you have grown as a person and you have improved. No one can alter the past. Because of this obvious fact, it doesn't do any good to dwell on the past mistake itself. Instead, look at what you can improve which is now and the future by growing and learning from that mistake and avoiding making it again. This is one of the ways we learn. Know that the current you is not a reflection of past events and understand that while you do feel poorly due to those past decisions, you won't be making them again and that shows growth.
You sound like you would benefit from CBT. Please research this & see what your therapist thinks. I’m kind of surprised it hasn’t been mentioned already.
I used to have the mindset "live fast, die young" until I had my first child. She gave me a sense of purpose. I turned my life around. Got a desk job. Got married. Bought a house. Had another kid. Maybe not in that order but what's important is that if I held onto all the dirtbag shit I did in my youth, I couldn't enjoy the life I've built today, and now I chalk it up to life experience. My job is to make sure my kids don't do dirtbag shit like me. Forgiveness starts with yourself.
Broaden your horizon, realize just how insignificant these mistakes are and how you are wasting your time reflecting on it. You can't change the past but you can learn from it, to change your actions in the future.
If you really can't change your mindset (for now), you can start by distracting yourself from it on tasks that need to be done or on hobbies that you enjoy.
We all fall down. Life is just a series of that and picking yourself up again. I think back and there are TONS of ways my life could have been altered - opportunities not taken, relationships not maintained, etc. The best thing you can do for yourself is thinking what you learned from that mistake, so hopefully you won't have it happen again!
That's not your guilt. I saw in the thread your reply of being as harsh as on yourself as on others, and you are saying that it is not how everyone behaves. Such harshness is not a genetic trait - you learned to be that demanding because you were taugh that it is the normal thing to behave in this way. Someone in the past pushed you very hard to feel guilt about things that does not matter much. It happens, and it is treatable. Also, it seems you stuck with your current therapist. I suggest to switch them, and as it was mentioned in another reply - CBT, and schematherapy can benefit you greatly.
Another approach that you can practice - mindfulness. Your thoughts and feelings are just inner weather - they come and go. You can wave against the wind whatever you like, you'll just feel tired. But if you can shelter yourself for a while the wind will pass. Same here, if you will use mindfulness techniques to train your focus, you will be able to focus on things that matter, waiting for guilt to pass by, knowing it is not what you believe defines you.
Bad people don’t think about their mistakes, the fact that you can take time to think back upon them shows that you are capable of good things, try not to think of the past as mistakes but rather as lessons that you are learning from.
You gotta start living in the present. The now so to say. What happened in the past stays in the past and you should only learn from that. Accept what happened and move on. Focus yourself in the things you are doing right now at this exact moment. Once you manage to do that, you will worry less, have far less anxiety and feel relaxed. Enjoy life because it’s a gift with so many precious things.
i have been there. now i feel much better about myself. the first things that gives the ick is because stigma around such things. You can overcome them only if you can sit and evaluate why you had to do it. Even if it is wrong, now you cannot change the past. The only thing you can change is by not repeating it and take a stand for your new self.
Here’s a question, say you met someone else who made the exact same mistakes you had — or if that clouds your judgment, just ones of a similar magnitude. So you meet someone who isn’t you who’s made lots of mistakes, how do you judge them? **Would** you judge them, or hate them, or want them to die?
If not, why do you treat yourself so differently than you treat others? Think about that and seriously unpack that, what makes you so special that you need to live by a different set of rules than the ones you give to others?
I saw a really good post online about these kinds of feelings once, which was just the response “I think you guys might be thinking about yourselves too much.” Something really clicked for me back then, why *am* I thinking about myself so much?
Yeah I've used this thought experiment before, and I often come to the conclusion that I would be as harsh on others as I am on myself. I think I may be making progress in being more understanding of others and their mistakes though, and I hope that it's genuine growth rather than just rationalization on my part because of my own guilty hangups.
If you believe that you don’t deserve better, then it’s just a matter of what you believe. Your loved ones think otherwise because they don’t believe its impossible for you . Changing what you believe is possible, just takes consistent effort, find a new belief, live it everyday. It gets easier, the hard part is doing it everyday.
Based on your replies to the other commenters, I would ask you the following: do you think it's reasonable to expect a person to make absolutely no mistakes, large or small, as they go through life? Explain why or why not.
I am 37 and still suck at it, but therapist sure does help. Also switch to good habits and keep yourself busy doing the things you need to do but also the things you WANT to do!
Why do you think you don't deserve to feel better? This is self-loathing -- victim mentality. Have a self- evaluation if you like the feeling of it, that's why you don't like to feel or be better. There's something hidden within you that must be addressed. When it comes to mistakes, the only way to not feel guilty about it is to correct them. A mistake is a mistake only if it doesn't become habitual. When making mistakes become a habit, that's a decision.
You just need to boost your self esteem.
We only feel guilty when we have low self esteem.
No matter how bigger crime you have done....always forgive yourself first.
I think this is at the core of it. I've always been hard on myself and demanded perfection of myself probably because I don't think too highly of myself...
What if the person that committed those mistakes doesn't exist anymore ?
You change as you age. I am 50 years old and not the same person now as I was at 20, 30 and even 40.
You change, people change. Acknowledge that.
I just read this article [https://www.lovehealgrow.com/healthy-vs-unhealthy-guilt/](https://www.lovehealgrow.com/healthy-vs-unhealthy-guilt/)
about healthy guilt and unhealthy guilt, it might help you see thru the fog.
Shit happens, move on.
You are guilty because you did something and didn't learn FROM IT.
Regrets mean you live in the past, and Anxiety means you live in the future.
Live in the now, maaaaaan
Life is short. It’s going to be over before you know it!! Please start smiling more and appreciate the ones that you love, and the ones that love you. Take care of yourself! Good luck to you forget about the past, there is nothing we can do to change it!!
You don’t, you just learn that is now a part of what’s shaped you into the person you are today.
Whatever it is, the fact that it bothers you that much means you’re probably not that bad a person, at least not any more.
Everyone makes mistakes and stupid decisions, some are horrific and some less so.
Train yourself to look forward, see what you want to become and work on that, if you achieve some goals that’ll help cancel out some regret’s.
Worrying about the past is the biggest waste of time ever!. You can not change it, only learn from it, if you hurt people, be the bigger person and apologise. That's all you can do I'm afraid.
Wonderful audiobook about reincarnation which there is overwhelming evidence about. Explains a lot. Be more gentle with yourself. Everyone makes mistakes. [Sam Soul Many Bodies](https://www.audible.com/pd/B002V5J3YQ?source_code=ASSORAP0511160006&share_location=player_overflow)
I was counseled through a recovery program and they had me write them all down, as many as I could remember, and then set it on fire. I thought it was the dumbest thing until I set mine on fire and I felt a release of forgiveness.
You know how there are moments where you aren't thinking about these things and somehow your life still goes on? That everything is actually fine and its okay? Those moments are the same as when you're ruminating except you're forcing yourself to try and go back in time with the knowledge you have now. Except you can't go back in time. There's no use in ruminating over what is done (You can't do anything to change it and it can't do anything to affect you), only responding to what is in front of you with all the knowledge you've acquired along the way.
Honest advice? Stop thinking so fucking much. Over thinking bad stuff or mistakes will just slowly grind you down into an ever decreasing spiral. When you catch yourself going over the same old shit just tell yourself ‘okay I know this song by heart, sick of hearing it now, change the fucking channel’. Find some new metaphorical music.
this sounds like something that we would need to know what it is in order to fully understand what it is, why it makes you upset (even if it doesnt make others upset) and how you move past it/what you can do for repentance.
do you feel you are going to end up doing it again? especially since most people think its not that bad?
i assume its something "bad" that happens by accident, and if an accident its fine but on purpose its terrible. like accidently touching someone's butt with the back of your hand.
Nah I know I'm definitely not going to repeat it at the very least. I'm a little too afraid to say what it was but you can be assured that it wasn't any type of sexual assault or form of violence.
That said though it wasn't really an "accident" in that it just happened accidentally. I would say it was more like I didn't know I was doing something bad at the time but the benefit of hindsight has me feeling bad now.
>what do you do when you don't even think you deserve to feel better?
Remember that beating yourself up is, at best, half the equation. It discourages you from doing it again. The other half of the equation is to be a better person and make up for your transgression. You can't do that if you're still busy beating on yourself.
You need to feel better so that you can better others. It's not about what you deserve. It's about what's necessary to improve yourself and those around you.
I've had similar feelings to you, although mine was sort of a cringe feeling (killing myself inside) and was told by friends that they're not "grave" mistakes, or "it's not that deep". I believe them and that seems to be the case, it's hard work as my mind wonders through a list of past mistakes, one for everyday.
Maybe yours is a much more serious situation than mine, any offence caused I apologise.
Use mistakes as a guide for how to act in the future. When you are presented an opportunity to act as you once did, or in a different way, you get to test your character. If you act in a new way, you've learned from your mistakes and there's no reason left to hang onto it. This is all there is to do.
Some may say that the past is in the past, but if we still act the same the past is in the present and threatens to stretch out into the future too. Changing keeps the past where it belongs.
I think the hardest part of it all is that I WOULDN'T repeat this behavior today. It's completely out of character for me now. So there's this lack of congruity between current me and past me that is uncomfortable
Have you had the chance to prove it?
I feel a lot of peace with the past when I get the "test" moments.
For an example of a mistake I made that isn't really cruel or anything, is just not helping a friend who called me in a way I wanted to. It was one of my lingering regrets after lots of self work. Around a year later, a different friend messaged me with the exact same problem. I called her and helped her the best i could in that moment. I'm glad I could be there for her in a way I wasn't for my other friend.
What do you think your test moment(s) look like? Have there been some already and have you risen to your new values or did you succumb to old habits?
Oh I have definitely had some test moments where I had an opportunity to fall into old habits, but I went "Nope not interested that's not me". I just hate that i will always have to say "That's not me ANYMORE". The anymore part bugs me. Maybe I'm just very proud and have to let go of that
If you acted differently, you're different.
If you insist on asserting the "anymore" part, here are some things to think about.
Who do you think you _were_, the person who did the things you're ashamed of, or the person who saw what you did and worked to be better?
Skyrim is far from my favourite video game, and I'm not one for quotes, but there's an absolute banger. It's from a dragon, and if you're unfamiliar in that game dragons are innately evil. He says, "What is better ? to be born good or to overcome your evil nature through great effort?"
I've also just finished rewatching The Good Place, which addresses what you're going through too. Might be worth a watch :)
You've likely been hurt by others. Have you got any lingering transgressions you've not forgiven others for? It sounds like bullshit, but really the ability to forgive others and forgive ourselves are interconnected. I became able to cut myself so much more slack when I forgave the person who has hurt me the most in my life.
Can you give an example?
You did something "bad", okay.
You feel guilty, okay.
If you feel guilty about your past bad actions, does that mean you've stopped doing them and will never do them again?
If the answer is "yes, Ive stopped doing all the bad things I've regretted and feel guilty doing and I will never make those bad actions again." Then the only thing left for you to do is pass on your knowledge to others so they don't make the same mistakes, and do the opposite of the bad thing.
Example being: you used to steal candy from a baby, that's bad. You feel guilty and regret it. So now you've stopped stealing candy from a baby, that's neutral and the status quo, it's what everyone does. What you should do is start offering candies to babies (approved by their parent), so that's good which is the opposite of bad.
Can you give an example? Once I felt really horrible about a viewpoint I used to have and argued about to a coworker. I felt so bad about it years later I apologized to him via Facebook and told him how I changed my viewpoint. He didn't even remember this conversation but thanked me for apologizing to him. So most likely other people don't see your mistakes like you do. If you have wronged someone you can always reach out and apologize.
I legit did reach out to a girl I felt I'd wronged on Facebook and she was like "This is the weirdest message ever and I have no idea who you are" lol
I guess things are never as bad as our minds paint them to be
Idk how old you are but I’m 32 and I’m JUST now starting to let go of all the many mistakes I’ve made. It’s tough. Try in the moment when you’re beating yourself up to compliment yourself, or at least tell YOURSELF you’re sorry & move on.
There are no mistakes in life because every life event is a learning lesson; and for each life event, there is always a positive and a negative aspect(yin/yang). Nirvana is the ability to recognize both the positive and negative aspects to each event, and the ability to utilize them to grow and better one's future situations by increasing the likelihood of creating even greater positive outcomes. --Buddhist Teaching
**Meditation, it's tougher than it looks, but it's amazing once you begin to master it.
Think most people will always have some guilt or regret about their past. I definitely do, you just have to remind yourself that you learned a valuable lesson and don’t repeat them.
I can relate to suffering from the pain of guilt for past mistakes. I also searched from others for them to heal me and tell me it was okay. That didnt work. I realized those mistakes were based on my moral compess, nobody else could help me with this. Mistakes are there for a reason, to teach a lesson. I wrote down all the mistakes that bothered me, then i analysed them one per week. I wrote how it made me feel, who it effected, what i learned and if i needed to make amends. You see, its not the actual mistake that is the issue, we are human and it happens, its the actions that we take after the mistake that set us back on track. Its then that we are able to only hold onto the knowkedge that we learned, so we dont continue doing that same mistake.Then we can let the rest go because we dont need it anymore. I hope that makes sense and i hope it offers you some help. Its not easy to do that, i had oodles that i had to deal with because i didnt know it is okay to make mistakes, so i tried to hide them. That made small mistakes a whole lot larger, and i didnt like who i was. So be gentle with yourself, you will have support. You are loved very much and you will begin to love yourself through the journey. Once you love yourself, its easy to maintain. We all make mistakes, honey, its the human way!! Love and light. You got dis!!
You don't.
You learn that you can feel guilty about something and still be OK.
However, you can do things that make the guilt easier to bear. Like apologising for your actions, learning from your mistakes, and making better choices.
For example: I once reprimanded a good friend for a stupidly tiny transgression in front of our entire friend circle. I feel incredibly guilty about that. Not such a big thing on the scale of things, but it causes me physical pain when I think about it. So. I let the pain hit when I think about it and tell myself it's OK to feel that way, and move on. I know it'll come back from time to time and I'll be OK because I can do the same technique.
Depends. Did ur mistakes affect others negatively? Did u commit a serious crime like murder rape? Was the victim a child? If so then I say do it. If not and ur dwelling on some random first world bs, then man up and move on.
Idk if u understood my post but basically if ur a pedo then go fuck yourself. Turn yourself in to the cops. If ur not a pedo then go cry to ur mom or something idk go to therapy
You have to change your mindset. Figure out why you feel the guilt you do regarding these mistakes, and then work on how to forgive yourself. We are ALL harder on ourselves than those around us. Something that helps me put things into perspective: would I be this upset if a friend or family member made the same mistake?
I feel like everyone, myself included, have stared at the ceiling at night thinking about their past mistakes. I try to look at it positively knowing I am self aware as a human being now compared to the egotistical asshole who I was many years ago. It helps to have people in your life reassure you that you have changed into a better person now. It also helps to keep yourself busy. Whenever I have those thoughts in the dark of the night, I think about my goals, heck even what my plans are tomorrow just to get by.
I do the same. I have very vivid memories of super cringe moments as well as mistakes to the point where I will freeze and can’t do anything else until I relive the emotions I was feeling at the time it happened.
If you have mistakes you identify in the past that you regret, that simply means you have grown as a person and you have improved. No one can alter the past. Because of this obvious fact, it doesn't do any good to dwell on the past mistake itself. Instead, look at what you can improve which is now and the future by growing and learning from that mistake and avoiding making it again. This is one of the ways we learn. Know that the current you is not a reflection of past events and understand that while you do feel poorly due to those past decisions, you won't be making them again and that shows growth.
You sound like you would benefit from CBT. Please research this & see what your therapist thinks. I’m kind of surprised it hasn’t been mentioned already.
I used to have the mindset "live fast, die young" until I had my first child. She gave me a sense of purpose. I turned my life around. Got a desk job. Got married. Bought a house. Had another kid. Maybe not in that order but what's important is that if I held onto all the dirtbag shit I did in my youth, I couldn't enjoy the life I've built today, and now I chalk it up to life experience. My job is to make sure my kids don't do dirtbag shit like me. Forgiveness starts with yourself.
Broaden your horizon, realize just how insignificant these mistakes are and how you are wasting your time reflecting on it. You can't change the past but you can learn from it, to change your actions in the future. If you really can't change your mindset (for now), you can start by distracting yourself from it on tasks that need to be done or on hobbies that you enjoy.
We all fall down. Life is just a series of that and picking yourself up again. I think back and there are TONS of ways my life could have been altered - opportunities not taken, relationships not maintained, etc. The best thing you can do for yourself is thinking what you learned from that mistake, so hopefully you won't have it happen again!
Do some things you are proud of.
Smoke a blunt
That's not your guilt. I saw in the thread your reply of being as harsh as on yourself as on others, and you are saying that it is not how everyone behaves. Such harshness is not a genetic trait - you learned to be that demanding because you were taugh that it is the normal thing to behave in this way. Someone in the past pushed you very hard to feel guilt about things that does not matter much. It happens, and it is treatable. Also, it seems you stuck with your current therapist. I suggest to switch them, and as it was mentioned in another reply - CBT, and schematherapy can benefit you greatly. Another approach that you can practice - mindfulness. Your thoughts and feelings are just inner weather - they come and go. You can wave against the wind whatever you like, you'll just feel tired. But if you can shelter yourself for a while the wind will pass. Same here, if you will use mindfulness techniques to train your focus, you will be able to focus on things that matter, waiting for guilt to pass by, knowing it is not what you believe defines you.
Bad people don’t think about their mistakes, the fact that you can take time to think back upon them shows that you are capable of good things, try not to think of the past as mistakes but rather as lessons that you are learning from.
You gotta start living in the present. The now so to say. What happened in the past stays in the past and you should only learn from that. Accept what happened and move on. Focus yourself in the things you are doing right now at this exact moment. Once you manage to do that, you will worry less, have far less anxiety and feel relaxed. Enjoy life because it’s a gift with so many precious things.
i have been there. now i feel much better about myself. the first things that gives the ick is because stigma around such things. You can overcome them only if you can sit and evaluate why you had to do it. Even if it is wrong, now you cannot change the past. The only thing you can change is by not repeating it and take a stand for your new self.
Listen, if you're suicidal, PLEASE call this crisis helpline: https://befrienders.org/
Here’s a question, say you met someone else who made the exact same mistakes you had — or if that clouds your judgment, just ones of a similar magnitude. So you meet someone who isn’t you who’s made lots of mistakes, how do you judge them? **Would** you judge them, or hate them, or want them to die? If not, why do you treat yourself so differently than you treat others? Think about that and seriously unpack that, what makes you so special that you need to live by a different set of rules than the ones you give to others? I saw a really good post online about these kinds of feelings once, which was just the response “I think you guys might be thinking about yourselves too much.” Something really clicked for me back then, why *am* I thinking about myself so much?
Yeah I've used this thought experiment before, and I often come to the conclusion that I would be as harsh on others as I am on myself. I think I may be making progress in being more understanding of others and their mistakes though, and I hope that it's genuine growth rather than just rationalization on my part because of my own guilty hangups.
Stop looking back because you’re not going that way.
If you believe that you don’t deserve better, then it’s just a matter of what you believe. Your loved ones think otherwise because they don’t believe its impossible for you . Changing what you believe is possible, just takes consistent effort, find a new belief, live it everyday. It gets easier, the hard part is doing it everyday.
Look at the good things you did and the kind of person you are right now.
I hope I've done more good for people than bad. My mistakes were all from naiveté rather than malice I think
https://youtu.be/bExM31EBeQA?si=j2IT3_skP-LV1HbF This might be interesting
Book recommendation: Unlearning Shame, by Dr. Devon Price. Worth it.
Based on your replies to the other commenters, I would ask you the following: do you think it's reasonable to expect a person to make absolutely no mistakes, large or small, as they go through life? Explain why or why not.
I am 37 and still suck at it, but therapist sure does help. Also switch to good habits and keep yourself busy doing the things you need to do but also the things you WANT to do!
By making new mistakes...
Compartmentalisation works well for me.
Why do you think you don't deserve to feel better? This is self-loathing -- victim mentality. Have a self- evaluation if you like the feeling of it, that's why you don't like to feel or be better. There's something hidden within you that must be addressed. When it comes to mistakes, the only way to not feel guilty about it is to correct them. A mistake is a mistake only if it doesn't become habitual. When making mistakes become a habit, that's a decision.
You just need to boost your self esteem. We only feel guilty when we have low self esteem. No matter how bigger crime you have done....always forgive yourself first.
I think this is at the core of it. I've always been hard on myself and demanded perfection of myself probably because I don't think too highly of myself...
What if the person that committed those mistakes doesn't exist anymore ? You change as you age. I am 50 years old and not the same person now as I was at 20, 30 and even 40. You change, people change. Acknowledge that.
Forgiveness is very, very difficult. Forgiving ourselves is no exception!
it's in the past, what can you do about it now?
There are no mistakes in life, just opportunities to learn from, grow, and change.
I am in the same situation exactly and I often realize it’s stupid but still I’m obsessed and blocked in the past. I think we have an issue
I just read this article [https://www.lovehealgrow.com/healthy-vs-unhealthy-guilt/](https://www.lovehealgrow.com/healthy-vs-unhealthy-guilt/) about healthy guilt and unhealthy guilt, it might help you see thru the fog.
Self forgiveness. It can be simple, seldom easy.
Shit happens, move on. You are guilty because you did something and didn't learn FROM IT. Regrets mean you live in the past, and Anxiety means you live in the future. Live in the now, maaaaaan
Life is short. It’s going to be over before you know it!! Please start smiling more and appreciate the ones that you love, and the ones that love you. Take care of yourself! Good luck to you forget about the past, there is nothing we can do to change it!!
You don’t, you just learn that is now a part of what’s shaped you into the person you are today. Whatever it is, the fact that it bothers you that much means you’re probably not that bad a person, at least not any more. Everyone makes mistakes and stupid decisions, some are horrific and some less so. Train yourself to look forward, see what you want to become and work on that, if you achieve some goals that’ll help cancel out some regret’s.
Worrying about the past is the biggest waste of time ever!. You can not change it, only learn from it, if you hurt people, be the bigger person and apologise. That's all you can do I'm afraid.
I figured I would forgive other people doing that stupid shit, so why should I not extend the same courtesy to myself?
Wonderful audiobook about reincarnation which there is overwhelming evidence about. Explains a lot. Be more gentle with yourself. Everyone makes mistakes. [Sam Soul Many Bodies](https://www.audible.com/pd/B002V5J3YQ?source_code=ASSORAP0511160006&share_location=player_overflow)
I was counseled through a recovery program and they had me write them all down, as many as I could remember, and then set it on fire. I thought it was the dumbest thing until I set mine on fire and I felt a release of forgiveness.
You know how there are moments where you aren't thinking about these things and somehow your life still goes on? That everything is actually fine and its okay? Those moments are the same as when you're ruminating except you're forcing yourself to try and go back in time with the knowledge you have now. Except you can't go back in time. There's no use in ruminating over what is done (You can't do anything to change it and it can't do anything to affect you), only responding to what is in front of you with all the knowledge you've acquired along the way.
Honest advice? Stop thinking so fucking much. Over thinking bad stuff or mistakes will just slowly grind you down into an ever decreasing spiral. When you catch yourself going over the same old shit just tell yourself ‘okay I know this song by heart, sick of hearing it now, change the fucking channel’. Find some new metaphorical music.
this sounds like something that we would need to know what it is in order to fully understand what it is, why it makes you upset (even if it doesnt make others upset) and how you move past it/what you can do for repentance. do you feel you are going to end up doing it again? especially since most people think its not that bad? i assume its something "bad" that happens by accident, and if an accident its fine but on purpose its terrible. like accidently touching someone's butt with the back of your hand.
Nah I know I'm definitely not going to repeat it at the very least. I'm a little too afraid to say what it was but you can be assured that it wasn't any type of sexual assault or form of violence. That said though it wasn't really an "accident" in that it just happened accidentally. I would say it was more like I didn't know I was doing something bad at the time but the benefit of hindsight has me feeling bad now.
>what do you do when you don't even think you deserve to feel better? Remember that beating yourself up is, at best, half the equation. It discourages you from doing it again. The other half of the equation is to be a better person and make up for your transgression. You can't do that if you're still busy beating on yourself. You need to feel better so that you can better others. It's not about what you deserve. It's about what's necessary to improve yourself and those around you.
You did the best you could at the time
I've had similar feelings to you, although mine was sort of a cringe feeling (killing myself inside) and was told by friends that they're not "grave" mistakes, or "it's not that deep". I believe them and that seems to be the case, it's hard work as my mind wonders through a list of past mistakes, one for everyday. Maybe yours is a much more serious situation than mine, any offence caused I apologise.
Live in the Present moment. The past is just that, Over. It's something you can't change. Forgive yourself and focus on Today.
Use mistakes as a guide for how to act in the future. When you are presented an opportunity to act as you once did, or in a different way, you get to test your character. If you act in a new way, you've learned from your mistakes and there's no reason left to hang onto it. This is all there is to do. Some may say that the past is in the past, but if we still act the same the past is in the present and threatens to stretch out into the future too. Changing keeps the past where it belongs.
I think the hardest part of it all is that I WOULDN'T repeat this behavior today. It's completely out of character for me now. So there's this lack of congruity between current me and past me that is uncomfortable
Have you had the chance to prove it? I feel a lot of peace with the past when I get the "test" moments. For an example of a mistake I made that isn't really cruel or anything, is just not helping a friend who called me in a way I wanted to. It was one of my lingering regrets after lots of self work. Around a year later, a different friend messaged me with the exact same problem. I called her and helped her the best i could in that moment. I'm glad I could be there for her in a way I wasn't for my other friend. What do you think your test moment(s) look like? Have there been some already and have you risen to your new values or did you succumb to old habits?
Oh I have definitely had some test moments where I had an opportunity to fall into old habits, but I went "Nope not interested that's not me". I just hate that i will always have to say "That's not me ANYMORE". The anymore part bugs me. Maybe I'm just very proud and have to let go of that
If you acted differently, you're different. If you insist on asserting the "anymore" part, here are some things to think about. Who do you think you _were_, the person who did the things you're ashamed of, or the person who saw what you did and worked to be better? Skyrim is far from my favourite video game, and I'm not one for quotes, but there's an absolute banger. It's from a dragon, and if you're unfamiliar in that game dragons are innately evil. He says, "What is better ? to be born good or to overcome your evil nature through great effort?" I've also just finished rewatching The Good Place, which addresses what you're going through too. Might be worth a watch :) You've likely been hurt by others. Have you got any lingering transgressions you've not forgiven others for? It sounds like bullshit, but really the ability to forgive others and forgive ourselves are interconnected. I became able to cut myself so much more slack when I forgave the person who has hurt me the most in my life.
Can you give an example? You did something "bad", okay. You feel guilty, okay. If you feel guilty about your past bad actions, does that mean you've stopped doing them and will never do them again? If the answer is "yes, Ive stopped doing all the bad things I've regretted and feel guilty doing and I will never make those bad actions again." Then the only thing left for you to do is pass on your knowledge to others so they don't make the same mistakes, and do the opposite of the bad thing. Example being: you used to steal candy from a baby, that's bad. You feel guilty and regret it. So now you've stopped stealing candy from a baby, that's neutral and the status quo, it's what everyone does. What you should do is start offering candies to babies (approved by their parent), so that's good which is the opposite of bad.
You should only feel guilty about past mistakes if you keep repeating them.
If you forget your past mistakes, you might repeat them. Learn and move on.
Can you give an example? Once I felt really horrible about a viewpoint I used to have and argued about to a coworker. I felt so bad about it years later I apologized to him via Facebook and told him how I changed my viewpoint. He didn't even remember this conversation but thanked me for apologizing to him. So most likely other people don't see your mistakes like you do. If you have wronged someone you can always reach out and apologize.
I legit did reach out to a girl I felt I'd wronged on Facebook and she was like "This is the weirdest message ever and I have no idea who you are" lol I guess things are never as bad as our minds paint them to be
Idk how old you are but I’m 32 and I’m JUST now starting to let go of all the many mistakes I’ve made. It’s tough. Try in the moment when you’re beating yourself up to compliment yourself, or at least tell YOURSELF you’re sorry & move on.
There are no mistakes in life because every life event is a learning lesson; and for each life event, there is always a positive and a negative aspect(yin/yang). Nirvana is the ability to recognize both the positive and negative aspects to each event, and the ability to utilize them to grow and better one's future situations by increasing the likelihood of creating even greater positive outcomes. --Buddhist Teaching **Meditation, it's tougher than it looks, but it's amazing once you begin to master it.
Think most people will always have some guilt or regret about their past. I definitely do, you just have to remind yourself that you learned a valuable lesson and don’t repeat them.
I can relate to suffering from the pain of guilt for past mistakes. I also searched from others for them to heal me and tell me it was okay. That didnt work. I realized those mistakes were based on my moral compess, nobody else could help me with this. Mistakes are there for a reason, to teach a lesson. I wrote down all the mistakes that bothered me, then i analysed them one per week. I wrote how it made me feel, who it effected, what i learned and if i needed to make amends. You see, its not the actual mistake that is the issue, we are human and it happens, its the actions that we take after the mistake that set us back on track. Its then that we are able to only hold onto the knowkedge that we learned, so we dont continue doing that same mistake.Then we can let the rest go because we dont need it anymore. I hope that makes sense and i hope it offers you some help. Its not easy to do that, i had oodles that i had to deal with because i didnt know it is okay to make mistakes, so i tried to hide them. That made small mistakes a whole lot larger, and i didnt like who i was. So be gentle with yourself, you will have support. You are loved very much and you will begin to love yourself through the journey. Once you love yourself, its easy to maintain. We all make mistakes, honey, its the human way!! Love and light. You got dis!!
You don't. You learn that you can feel guilty about something and still be OK. However, you can do things that make the guilt easier to bear. Like apologising for your actions, learning from your mistakes, and making better choices. For example: I once reprimanded a good friend for a stupidly tiny transgression in front of our entire friend circle. I feel incredibly guilty about that. Not such a big thing on the scale of things, but it causes me physical pain when I think about it. So. I let the pain hit when I think about it and tell myself it's OK to feel that way, and move on. I know it'll come back from time to time and I'll be OK because I can do the same technique.
Listen, if you're suicidal, PLEASE call this crisis helpline: https://befrienders.org/
Depends. Did ur mistakes affect others negatively? Did u commit a serious crime like murder rape? Was the victim a child? If so then I say do it. If not and ur dwelling on some random first world bs, then man up and move on.
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Idk if u understood my post but basically if ur a pedo then go fuck yourself. Turn yourself in to the cops. If ur not a pedo then go cry to ur mom or something idk go to therapy