Regardless of our current relationship status, all of us have been unfaithful at some point in our lives. Unfaithful, that is, to the single most important relationship we’ll ever have: Our relationship with ourselves.
When we make choices that don’t serve what our heart and Soul truly desire, choices in support of the authentic story we were born to live, we betray the very opportunity we’ve been given in this incarnation of ourselves.
As with any act of betrayal, the aftermath of discovery offers the choice of forgiveness.
We can forgive and move forward with the grace of heightened awareness and understanding, or we can let betrayal burden us with regret and shame that festers and grows heavier, hurting ourselves more.
I’ll be the first to confess at the altar of life that I’ve betrayed myself in a myriad of ways, from relationships to self-care to denying my gifts. I take no pride in past inauthentic choices I’ve made in important parts of my life, but neither do I take shame or self-pity.
In retrospect, I know I made the best choices I knew how to make at the time with the resources that were available to me. I’ve traded guilt and shame for love and compassion for the earlier versions of me who truly didn’t know any better. After all, it took those versions of me to learn and grow into the woman I am today, the me who is much more vigilant in my awareness to stay true to my authentic story.
Me and me, you and you, we’re each wed to ourselves for this lifetime, for better or worse. Let’s turn what once may have looked like ‘worse’ into better by letting it go.
Without judgment, we can take an honest inventory of our lives and notice where we feel a twang of guilt or shame.
Maybe we stayed stuck in a relationship long after it was over while our heart withdrew from being starved of the deep connection we desired. Maybe we’re slogging it out in a job that sucks the life out of us because we’re afraid of whether we can create an abundant life doing what we’re truly called to do. Or maybe we missed an early morning date with ourselves at the gym because we’d opted for a little extra revelry with friends the night before.
Whatever the source of angst, look deeper now into those areas and see that we did the best we could at the time. Even though we can’t undo what’s already done, we always can make different, better decisions going forward.
Let’s give ourselves the love and compassion we’d offer a close friend. Forgive ourselves. Keep what we learned and let the rest go. Free ourselves to claim the authentic story of our lives.
