Our need to be forgiven (#799)

Within all of us are thoughts and actions of which we are either proud or ashamed. This is not new to anyone and why I bring this up is to discuss how we deal with that reality. The part concerning pride needs little distinction but it does need some. With myself as an example, I find that those rare moments when I do feel a sense of pride in my thoughts and actions I am instantly self-congratulatory and given to high praise for myself. This is only a momentary event, because just as instantaneously I remember that I was mostly lucky and rarely duplicative of such feats. I then move directly to humility, which in my perfect world should have been the first stage of my rationalization of pride, instead of egoism. I am working on that and I am finding some success. The other half of this commentary focuses on the shame I feel when I reflect back on some of my past thoughts and actions. Now this paradigm is much more prevalent within me than the pride paradigm. I also have a way of dealing with shame and it involves a process of recognizing where the shameful thoughts and actions generated from and admitting to myself that I did choose those thoughts and actions I represented. In other words I see what I did and I take the blame for it. That is the first phase but now what is to be done with this uncomfortable scenario? I have been taught that asking for forgiveness of the thoughts and actions that brought about my shame is an acceptable process for relieving me of the guilt associated with the shame. How is that done? Mostly through some conversion to a religious based ideal. I have not chosen that path. Instead I have come to realize that what I need to do is forgive myself for my thoughts and actions and resolve myself to choose pathways that reflect pride in thoughts and actions instead of shame. I do not consider myself some unique being or a demigod of any sort, but I do have to live with myself and if I can forgive myself and resolve to be better, I have essentially found forgiveness on the back of improving my own life.