Here's what I want you to do. I want you to think about something
horrible that you've done to another person -- maybe somebody close to you, maybe a virtual
stranger -- something that you have reflected on and mentally beaten yourself up over having done. Then I want you to
forgive yourself for it.
Maybe it was something you did when you were young and impetuous and didn't think things through. Or something you did in a
rage, or overwhelmed by
grief, or some other such unbalancing emotional force. Maybe it was even something done under the blinding light of purely selfish
desire, a foolish compulsion of some sort to get for yourself and deprive from the other person. Maybe
pride drove you, maybe some misused sense of
duty. Maybe any or all of these things played bit parts in it.
So I want you to look at yourself in the
mirror as though you are looking at another person whom you love dearly, but who has screwed up. I want you to look at this person as you would look at your own repentant child, as you would look at your own wayward parent making amends, as you would look at your own soul-suffering sibling; and I want you to tell them, "what you did was bad, and wrong, and you know this; you were right to be
ashamed for having done it. But you are only human, and I love you, so I forgive you."
We must, every one of us, be willing to reflect upon the things we have done wrong; if we did not experience guilt for them, we would be monsters. But we do, and so we are not monsters, we are but children of our Universe, hopefully stumbling in the general direction of
enlightenment.
Forgive yourself. Whatever it was,
I know that you are only human, and
I forgive you.
You are forgiven.
And when you reflect on this thing in the future, when it bubbles up in your mind, remember that you are forgiven; and remember why.
Go in
peace.