Quit Kicking Yourself

I’ll start this off by saying, “Yes, you are a BAD person and you deserve to have your face chewed off by a three-headed dog!” There, feel better now? Good, some folks just have to be guilt-tripped before they’ll listen.  Now that we got that line of lies out of the way, listen up. It’s probably true that you’ve been less than wonderful at times, maybe you’ve even been flat out evil, but you need to stop the cycle of beating up on yourself. Let me give you a bit of unsolicited advice on how to get through from today on.

You cannot change the past. All the remorse in the world won’t alter that fact.  So, just accept it and move toward the future.

Suffering from a disease or illness isn’t grounds for being barred from paradise and the hereafter (or whatever after-life you choose to believe or not believe in).

Also, illness (in my case, bipolar) is NOT a sin. You are different mentally, but you aren’t a sinner or any such nonsense.

No matter how horrible the thing you think you comitted is; trust me, there’s some huge portion of the human population who does the same thing daily and thinks it just dandy and perfectly ok to do so. (adultery etc.)

You aren’t a child anymore! So, tell your mom and dad’s nagging, disapproving voices to take a hike. You know the ones I mean: they run around your mind saying you should not do this and you should have done that, and why can’t you be more like so and so? From this day forward, make up your mind to do your own thinking. Make your own decisions, and take your lumps for your mess ups without whining or blaming others. But for the goodness sake, Don’t waste time and precious energy on feeling guilty!

Last, but certainly not least, be kind to yourself. Forgive yourself for being human. Forgive youself for making human mistakes. You’re not perfect, and never will be, so don’t bother beating up on yourself trying to be what no human ever is. Just accept yourself for who you are! Besides, people who aspire to be perfect are often extremely boring, terribly judgmental, intolerant jerks. Faults make people interesting and approachable, and that’s not a bad way to be now is it?