23 October 2021 — FORGIVING OURSELVES FOR NOT BEING PERFECT

When we watch young children being themselves we see them expressing joy. and simply being themselves. The other day I felt I was watching an unusual sight — a little boy expressing great joy through jumping up and down in a puddle making himself wet with his father watching on and not interfering — reprimanding him or telling him not to get his clothes wet!

If only we were all able to have carried this childlike joy into adulthood and as adults be able to express ourselves without worrying about how people were judging us!

Unfortunately, we all reach adulthood programmed as it were with the admonishments and instructions of HOW and HOW NOT to behave. And as adults our idea of what is the right or wrong way to act is based upon our early conditioning. We then, often make things worse for ourselves by indulging in ‘blaming’ and ‘shaming’ ourselves when we don’t succeed in acting as we feel we SHOULD have acted.

We need then to FORGIVE OURSELVES for NOT BEING PERFECT in the sense of not acting in the ways in which we were conditioned to.

If only we were able to remember the joy we had as young children through splashing in puddles and from other activities which brought us joy through simply being ourselves, we might be able to stop trying to yield to someone else’s idea of how we should be and simply be OURSELVES.

PONDER POINTS: what I FELT upon reading this was ….what I THOUGHT upon reading this was ….. the person(s) whose idea of how I should be which still affects me today is …. I feel real joy when …….