One of the easiest and most common ways of dealing with personal guilt is to find your reflection in the face of another person, and then vilify and rage against them. I find that those I'm most critical of are often mirror images of a self I'd rather pretend never existed than accept as a past reality, and forgive.
It is in moments when I find myself most bothered by others who think and act as I once did that I realize I've still not fully forgiven myself, and am therefore still living a divided life. There's a part of me, the present part, that I accept, but another part, the past part, that I'm trying to bury and pretend never existed. There are strains of Christian thought that will allow you to take ideas like "the new creation" to unhealthy extremes in which we think, act, and speak as though everything we've done in the past is irrelevant to our present, and so are free to feign amnesia concerning these things, but that's just not very helpful at the end of the day. You just keep burying things that need exhuming, and while you can pretend you've finally buried them deeply enough that you'll never have to see them again, we all know better.
The other option is to find your doppleganger, and wage a nasty war with them. This makes you feel as though you've dealt with your past, because you're using it to better other people's lives, but deep down, if you were honest, you might find that this is just a more convenient way of not forgiving yourself. The fact that you have to fight the old you seems to prove that you still hate the old you, and have yet to accept them for the naive, misguided, but sincere soul that they were.
I see this tendency within me all of the time.
More and more, however, when I hear the specter of past-Jeff stumbling through the hallways of my heart in the middle of night, instead of calling the Ghostbusters or an exorcist, I've taken to inviting him to a sit down and a conversation. Instead of always fighting with him, I'm trying to learn to understand him: Why did you preach the things you preached? Why were you so controlling? Why were you content with such childish beliefs, and why were you so determined to make everyone else see things your way?
Questions like these don't get answered in a fight or an exorcism, making understanding and forgiveness next to impossible. Getting to know the old me that I love to hate, however, has led me to begin to love even him. And the more I can love the parts of me that I hate, the more I become a complete person. And the more I become a complete person, the less I feel the need to fight with others in the name of feeling better about myself.
Sometimes we just need to stop running from our ghosts, and invite them in for a drink instead. That, my friends, at least for me, has been the key to healing and wholeness.
It is in moments when I find myself most bothered by others who think and act as I once did that I realize I've still not fully forgiven myself, and am therefore still living a divided life. There's a part of me, the present part, that I accept, but another part, the past part, that I'm trying to bury and pretend never existed. There are strains of Christian thought that will allow you to take ideas like "the new creation" to unhealthy extremes in which we think, act, and speak as though everything we've done in the past is irrelevant to our present, and so are free to feign amnesia concerning these things, but that's just not very helpful at the end of the day. You just keep burying things that need exhuming, and while you can pretend you've finally buried them deeply enough that you'll never have to see them again, we all know better.
The other option is to find your doppleganger, and wage a nasty war with them. This makes you feel as though you've dealt with your past, because you're using it to better other people's lives, but deep down, if you were honest, you might find that this is just a more convenient way of not forgiving yourself. The fact that you have to fight the old you seems to prove that you still hate the old you, and have yet to accept them for the naive, misguided, but sincere soul that they were.
I see this tendency within me all of the time.
More and more, however, when I hear the specter of past-Jeff stumbling through the hallways of my heart in the middle of night, instead of calling the Ghostbusters or an exorcist, I've taken to inviting him to a sit down and a conversation. Instead of always fighting with him, I'm trying to learn to understand him: Why did you preach the things you preached? Why were you so controlling? Why were you content with such childish beliefs, and why were you so determined to make everyone else see things your way?
Questions like these don't get answered in a fight or an exorcism, making understanding and forgiveness next to impossible. Getting to know the old me that I love to hate, however, has led me to begin to love even him. And the more I can love the parts of me that I hate, the more I become a complete person. And the more I become a complete person, the less I feel the need to fight with others in the name of feeling better about myself.
Sometimes we just need to stop running from our ghosts, and invite them in for a drink instead. That, my friends, at least for me, has been the key to healing and wholeness.
