I wish more things came with Snapple facts

I have begun to try to use my guilt for good. We all carry the coping mechanisms that have been forged in us from our lives, our pain, our wounds. A very wise person said to me this morning, a wound is a place the light can shine through. There is depth in this. By saying that I use my guilt for good it is one of the litmus tests I use to measure my actions. Does the path I am choosing make me feel guilt? Do I feel I could have handled a situation better? Is there a place where I can choose humility and ask forgiveness of others for my shortcomings? Judgment comes very easily to humans it would seem, it is very easy to see the faults in others and lose the opportunity for our own development. This is where honesty with oneself comes in. This is not guilt tied to manipulation or to use on others to make them feel remorse, that is not our place. It is the knowledge of how you feel when one makes decisions which do not weigh on our souls, that do not increase our burden, rather they make it just a little bit lighter. I have begun to frequently employ the advice of “just make the next right choice”, we will never have all of the information when we are making decisions, we have to follow our instinct, our best judgment, our collective experiences. Good luck right.

The second half of this is to not let guilt guide us down a path of feeling bad about our choices or ourselves, we cannot change the past, we can only choose reparation, honesty, and love when we note these shortcomings in our actions. It is the canary in the mineshaft of our souls, it allows us to move boldly forward hopefully avoiding the heaviness weighing and rotting inside.

So thank you, to everyone I have ever hurt who has forgiven me, everyone who has loved me despite my failures and the times I have fallen short of the man I can be. Thank you for showing me how to forgive others, and how to forgive myself. There is no greater joy than peace.