Looking back at situations where you have regrets can be challenging, but it’s so important to give yourself compassion. You did the best that you could in that tough time, with the tools that you had in that moment.That’s something I keep reminding myself these days. We can look back with regrets or question why we did or said something the way we did, but we also often didn’t know any better than to act that way. And from that experience, you learn new tools, and you can use those new tools to do better in the future.
It’s so important to give yourself grace and kindness about the past. It’s okay to reflect and to grow from the past, but try your best not to live there. I’m being reminded far too often these days of just how short and fragile life truly is, it’s so much better to choose to forgive ourselves for our past mistakes and fully choose to be here in the present. We can’t change the past, we can’t change what we did or didn’t do or what happened to us, but we can change our perspective about it and realize that we only did the best we could with the tools and information we had at that moment.
And now you have new tools. You have new experiences. You have new resources. You have healed some of your trauma. You have new language to say how you feel. You have new ways to reach out for help. You have new tools to calm down before reacting. You have new tools.
And so do I. And my new tools are allowing me to live so fully in the present. My new tools are allowing me to be compassionate about how I’ve acted in the past, things I wish I had done differently in my life, and my new tools are allowing me to slow down and not rush this new chapter of my life. My new tools are allowing me to self-reflect in a way I never have before and are allowing me to avoid allowing others to bring me down.
We can use our new tools to move us forward. And in the future we can look back at our current selves and forgive ourselves for our current mistakes, because we only have the tools we have right now. Future us will have new tools. We are learning and growing every day. Lean into that. Forgive yourself and keep learning.
Xo,
Be Beautifully Simply You
