Think Results NOW: You Are What You Think book 1 – #13: Don’t Feel Guilty

You Are What You Think book 1

Article #13

My life is an Excellent Adventure from using “You Are What You Think”

Don’t Feel Guilty - Learn From The Past

IF WE HAD TO CHOOSE one factor that prevents a person from developing either mentally, spiritually, or materially, and causes more unhappiness than any other, it would be self-condemnation, or feelings of guilt.

If you are subject to these feeling, I hope you will consider what these teaching have to say about the subject.

If you don’t agree with them, at least give them some thought.

I HAVE SEEN MEN who have been in prison for years turn their lives around completely and accomplish great things once they were able to rid themselves of the burden of guilt, and it can only come through understanding.

This doesn’t mean we are not to be help responsible if we have wronged someone. It does mean we should make restitution where possible and resolve not to repeat the transgression.

Then we can face the future with the assurance that we cannot be dragged down by our past mistakes.

AUTHORITIES SAY that at least 50 per cent of the inmates of mental hospitals could leave tomorrow if they could be convinced that they were forgiven.

Self-condemnation is perhaps the most common and dreadful malady from which we may suffer.

If you are burdened with feeling of guilt, here is some wonderful mews for you: As long as you would no longer do the things you feel guilty for having done, you are not guilty.

THIS IS NOT JUST wishful thinking. The Bible says that we are not punished for doing wrong, but for our PERSISTENCE in doing wrong.

If we condemn ourselves for something we did in the past, and in the meantime we have changed, we are condemning a person who no longer exists.

How can we learn to forgive ourselves when we know in our hearts we have done wrong ?

HERE IS SOMETHING that will surprise you.

You may not be able to accept it at first, but when you do, you will feel as if a great weight has been lifted from your shoulders.

It is this: Whatever you did, it was the best you knew at the time !

YOU MIGHT LOOK back upon your past and say you should have known better, but if you had known better you wouldn’t have done what you did !

I am going to quote from the great writings of Dr. Emma M. Smiley in her wonderful little book, “Not Guilty.”

Dr. Smiley writes: “We must awaken to the truth that we have always done the best we have know. We may think and believe that we knew better. We may say in bitterness and regret, “If only I had it to do over again, I would do better.

“ACTUALLY WE WOULD do just the same unless we had gained in understanding.”

I think Dr. Smiley has a point that most of us have never considered.

Isn’t it natural to assume that if a similar situation occurred in our life we would act the same as we did previously, unless in the meantime we have changed ?

SHE GOES ON TO explain that if a child in school gives the incorrect answer, it is only because he doesn’t know the correct one; and the wise teacher, instead of condemning or punishing the child for his mistake, would simply teach him the right answer.

What value would there be in the child condemning himself ?

For whatever reason we are condemning our self, our greatest difficulty will be in understanding that we did not know better, that if we had known better, we would have done better.

IT IS POSSIBLE for everyone to be healed and changed when he no longer condemns himself !

You have always done your best, according to your understanding at the time.

Regardless of the commissions and omissions of the past, a person has to start in the present to take steps to insure a happier future.

OUR MISTAKES, failures, and even our humiliations were necessary steps in the learning process.

However, they were meant to be a means to an end, and not an end in themselves.

The unhappiest of people is the one who insists upon reliving the past, over and over in imagination, continually criticizing himself for past errors.

A GREAT TEACHER once said, “The house of the Divine is open to anyone who knocks, no matter what his past stumbles and errors.”

Today is the only day that counts.

Yesterday ended last night !