It is time to dig a little deeper and get to the root causes of your guilt that’s holding you back. After all, you can’t work on something and start making improvements until you know exactly what it is. Digging deep and examining your feelings can get a little uncomfortable. Don’t let that deter you. Keep pushing through. It is well worth it and you’ll feel much better once you’ve faced your fears and dealt with your feelings of guilt.
Find a quiet place where you can think for a while without being interrupted. If you prefer, you can work through your feelings in writing using a journal or the like. Some people find this helps them focus and stay on track. Otherwise, thinking through it can work just as well. If you find that you have a hard time pinpointing where your feelings of guilt are coming from, it can be helpful to talk it through with a trusted friend. Ideally, this is someone who knows you well and can guide you along the way. Encourage them to ask probing, open-ended questions until you get to the bottom of the matter.
Let’s say you have been thinking of doing a little freelance work as a writer while you’re home raising your young children, but a feeling of guilt stops you from taking the first steps to give it a try. When you sit down and start to examine these feelings you start out with the idea that you will take away time you could spend with your children. As you think more about it this and start to imagine how it could work, you realize that you have time while they are napping or in preschool and that you will have even more time on your hands once they start school.
Digging a little deeper, you realize that you’re worried about how getting back into your old profession could be perceived by those around you. Your spouse may feel like you don’t have enough time for him, and the neighbors may think that you’re a bad wife and mother if you focus on your freelance career. By facing these thoughts, you realize how silly these fears are. In most households, both parents work and you would have the added benefit of a flexible schedule.
You start to feel a little better about the whole idea, but there’s still a knot in your stomach. There is one more feeling that’s holding you back and it’s the thought that’s manifesting as guilt. You realize that what you’re really worried about is that you won’t make it. You’ve been home for a few years and haven’t done much writing, freelance or otherwise. What if no one will give you a project to work on or publish your writing? This right here is the real issue and the one you can now work on.
Forgive Yourself And Start Loving The Real You
It doesn’t matter what’s holding you back from doing what you really want to do. Once you’ve started to figure out what you’re feeling guilty about, the next step is to work towards forgiveness and self-acceptance. Here’s the thing that most people don’t realize. You have to love the real you before you can start to make the small changes that lead to big success. If you’re ready to start crafting and molding the life of your dreams, start by loving yourself first.
We are all human beings. We make mistakes, we mess up, and we don’t do what we set out to do. When we learn to forgive ourselves and love enough to try again, we learn and get better. That’s why this step of forgiveness and love is so important. Start by examining what you feel guilty about. Look at what you’ve done and what you haven’t done to get you closer to your personal goals.
Embrace the good stuff and feel proud of your accomplishments
Acknowledge where you messed up and didn’t follow through. Forgive yourself for it and accept it. Maybe there’s an important lesson you’ve learned from your mistakes. Maybe it was simply some much-needed practice to set you up for future success.
At the end of the day, it’s up to you if you let your failures and missteps derail you and keep you from living the life of your dreams, or if you see them as the learning opportunities they are. It’s a matter of perspective.
Yes, this is easier said than done, but if you can come from a place of love and forgiveness, it is much easier to see things in a positive light. Get in the habit of looking for the best and most positive in each situation.
Be kind to yourself and don’t condemn what you do or have done
Forgive yourself and keep working towards those positive, and possibly life-changing goals. It helps to start small. Find a little something you did today that you aren’t proud of. Forgive yourself and see what you can learn from the experience. Then build on that one positive and forgiving act and use the energy to do it again, and again, and again.
When you actively work on loving yourself and forgiving yourself, amazing things start to happen. Most importantly, you start to build a positive habit that will help propel you forward. As an added bonus, you’ll feel better about yourself, gain a ton of self-confidence, and end up with plenty of positive energy to tackle whatever life throws your way. Isn’t that worth making the effort to forgive yourself and love the real you?