Expectations and Forgiveness

This is a topic that is very personal to me; in fact I feel like I was guided to write about this so that the message that is coming through sinks into my own head. I have found some times that this is how my God Soul communicates with me, especially when I won’t listen completely. I become compelled to put something out in the world as it may help someone else, but what it is really doing is forcing me to practice what I preach! One of the values I strive to live up to is walking my talk, so if I put something out in the world, I work to make it part of my own reality. My God Soul (inner Guide) takes advantage of this and will bug me to write something, knowing I will work with that idea more once I have shared it with others.

So this is where I find myself! When it comes to my work I am a perfectionist; I have very high standards for myself. I am more forgiving towards others having difficulty, than I am myself… Sound familiar? Many people i have talked to have this same issue. We set huge expectations for ourselves, then when the world throws us an unexpected turn and we have to deviate from the plan we originally had in mind, then we beat ourselves up about not living up to our own expectations.

Within my own life, I find myself forgiving others, having compassion and understanding for others when they have difficulties in their life…however, I have noticed a pattern of not having the same compassion and understanding with myself.

So, how do we begin to work toward forgiving ourselves and having the same compassion for our own being that we have for others? The first step is by realizing that while we are amazing divine beings capable of the most miraculous feats (which sometimes may be battling the demons of depression and getting out of bed), we are also vulnerable beings worthy of love and compassion. I have started working with the idea of forgiving myself with a very simple exercise that helps me to detach from an emotionally charged situation.

As I have mentioned before, I am an avid journal writer. My journal has given me a tool in which I can work on approaching myself with the same love and respect that I do another person. When I start to beat myself up and don’t know what to do, I write a letter asking for advice. I pour everything into this letter that is going on, then I smudge and walk away for a couple hours. When I return to my journal , after taking time away I approach it as if it is a letter from a friend (after all it was written by the one person that will be with me through every moment of my life). In this way I find it much easier to look at the situation and say “My dear, you are being too hard on yourself! Take a deep breath! When was the last time you slept well? Have you been taking care of yourself?”

The more I work with this exercise the more I am able to do it without the journal, and I work to forgive myself for the harmful things I say. IF I am especially mired in beating myself up, again I will write down all of those negative things that I say to myself- there is something about reading how harsh I sound that wakes me up. Generally, the criticism I throw at my own performance and life I would NEVER say to anyone else. I was raised with the idea of treating others how I would want to be treated, but I find I have to turn this concept against myself and ask if I would ever treat someone else the way I treat myself and if my answer is no, then I know that I shouldn’t be treating myself that way as well.

We are all going to have trips and falls on our path ( I shudder to use the word mistakes, believing that everything happens for a reason and that we can learn from missteps makes the word mistake taboo within my beliefs). Just because we stumble, doesn’t mean we have failed, and we certainly don’t deserve to be beaten down about it. Sometimes, life throws you unexpected events that cause hiccups (my home state of Colorado this month was a great example of this. The first week of September greeted us with a snow storm. *My featured image on this post is from that storm*, those of us who lived here had to slightly modify our behavior and then continue on.) when this happens we need a minute to take a breath and assess what is going on and what we want to do about it. This is not a sign of failure it is a sign of growth.

I personally believe that one of the biggest things we need to ask forgiveness for is beating ourselves up. Is there anything in your life that you are currently beating yourself up about? Take a few minutes and think about the words you use to talk to yourself, do you need to forgive yourself for being negative to the most precious person in your life?