I want to preface this by saying that I’ve made a LOT of mistakes in my life. I’ve hurt people and made a lot of choices I’m not proud of. I’ve had times where I’ve doubted my character and thought that, because of things I’d done, I wasn’t a good person.
But, what was I measuring a “good person” by? Some unrealistic ideal I held in my own head that I wasn’t fulfilling? A famous person that seemed to have their whole life together and make all the right choices? That kind of thinking is enough to drive a person mad!
Particularly after making big mistakes or hurting someone’s feelings, I would reprimand myself for the choices I had made and fixate on them. While I definitely do think it is important to reflect on our mistakes and learn from them, it does not do you any favors to dwell on the mistakes of your past and let them define you as a “bad person.”
I recently had a friend tell me “You are such a beautiful soul.” That is the kind of compliment that you feel from your toes to your nose and fills you with warmth that bubbles over to your face and tugs at your mouth, making you smile, no matter what else is happening in your life. I said thank you and proceeded to tell this friend how sweet I think she is and how good of a person I think she is. To my shock, my friend responded with “I wish that were true…”
When I asked why this friend felt this way, she responded with the same sort of reasons that used to make me question if I was a good person or not…hurting people, making wrong choices, etc. This made me think about how we view ourselves and how we can redefine what a “good person” and “bad person” are.
This is so intuitive, but I think we can all stand to be reminded of it now and again:
Everyone has made a wrong choice or hurt somebody in some way at some point.
If we followed the logic of “I’ve hurt people and made wrong choices and that makes me a bad person”, the world would be completely made up of “bad people”! But, the world is NOT entirely made up of bad people. It’s human to make mistakes and sometimes those mistakes hurt people. Of course we should do our best to do right by others, but sometimes we fall short or make a poor choice. The important part about these times is that we learn and grow from what we have done.
Breaking old habits or changing our ways is challenging. If we have thought and behaved a certain way for years, changing these behaviors can be difficult to say the least, and painful at worst. However, the pain of looking at ourselves every day and feeling that we are a “bad person” because of our thoughts, words, or actions is far more painful and difficult in the long run.
So, rather than letting our past define us as “bad people”, we can choose to see our past experiences as lessons and learning opportunities and challenge ourselves to push past our old ways of acting and thinking. We have the power to choose how our past affects us and should we choose to view it through a different lens, one that shows us how these experiences can prepare us for our future; we are then able to confidently move forward with the knowledge that we are ready for any and all challenges that come our way.
This doesn’t mean that we will never be caught off guard, feel down, or feel afraid. It simply means that we are able to look back at all we have faced in our lives and remind ourselves that we have faced numerous challenges, heartache, and made mistakes before and we made it through them. Maybe we crumbled and hit rock bottom, maybe we hurt people we love, maybe we just sort of muddled through; but no matter what, we made it to the other side of what hurt us and others. This should be viewed as a victory, not a reason to call ourselves “bad people.”
This mindset shift will not happen overnight, but through practice, forgiveness, personal growth, and being kind to ourselves we can come out of hard times prepared for our lives and whatever the future may hold. We are powerful beings and if we put in the time and effort to see ourselves as such, we can accept our flaws and know that we each have a beautiful soul.
Coffee Curls and Creativity 