Making Mistakes. My Personal Take.

So I made a really, really huge mistake recently.  I engaged in behavior that did not honor myself or the people I hurt with my words.  I reacted instead of thinking things through in their entirety.  In my rush to be "right", I wrote a horrible, scathing email to people in my life who some say deserved it. 

They did not deserve it.  No one deserves to be insulted, to be belittled which, I am ashamed to say is exactly what I did in my letter.  In my overly self righteous mind, I believed that I was calling them out on their bad behavior.  Instead, I was shining a light on my own. 

Hard stuff to swallow.  Yes, I made a mistake.  Yes, I later apologized.  But the hard lesson for me was realizing that there is nastiness lurking inside of me that needed to be acknowledged, to be exposed.  By making this humiliating mistake, I was exposed to an area of myself that needs work, where I have been messing up.  It also woke me up to where I was supposed to go (as opposed to dwell).  It's as if I was on a path and my ego poked and prodded me and since I was not paying attention, it pushed me really hard to do things I normally don't do.  It made me take responsibility for my behavior.  Being right is meaningless if your ethics, morals, soul are compromised.

My embarrassment over my transgression is slowly giving way to a freer version of myself.  Maybe more authentic.  I am human after all.  Perhaps the greatest realization is to know that we are supposed to keep on loving ourselves, bumps and all.  Above all, I am learning to forgive myself.  Without the forgiveness, I can't move forward............and I am SO totally worth forgiving.  And so are we all.