There Are No Mistakes, Only Lessons
Human growth is a process of experimentation, trial, and errorultimately leading to wisdom. Each time you choose to trustyourself and take action, you can never quite be certaion howthe situation will turn out. Sometimes you are victorious, and sometimes you become disillusioned.
The failed experiments, however, are no less valuable than the experiments that ultimately provesuccessful; in fact, you usually learn more from your perceived "failures" than you do from yourperceived "success".
If you have made what you perceive to be a mistake or failed to live up to your own expectations,you will most likely put up a barrier between your essence and the part of you that is the allegedwrong-doer. However, perceiving past actions as mistakes implies guilt and blame, and it is notpossible to learn anything meaning while you are engaged in blaming. Therefore, forgiveness isrequired when you are harshly judging yourself.
Forgiveness is the act of erasing an emotional debt. There are four kinds of forgiveness.
The first is beginner forgiveness for yourself. The second of forgiveness is beginner forgiveness for another. The third kind of forgiveness is advanced forgiveness of yourself.
This is for serioustransgressions, the ones you carry with deep shame when you do soimething that violates yourown values and ethics, you create a chasm between your standards and your actual behavior. Insuch a case, you need to work very hard at forgiving youeself for these deeds so that yo call closethis chasm and realign with the best part of yourself.
This does not mean that you should rush to forgive yourselfor not feel regret or remorse; butwallowing in these feelings for a protracted period of time is not healthy, and punishing yourselfexcessively will only creats a bigger gap between you and your ethics.
The last and perhaps most difficult one is the advanced forgiveness of another. At some time ofour life, you may have been severely wronged or hurt by another person to such a degree thatforgiveness seems impossible. However, harboring resentment and revenge fantasies only keepsyou trapped in victim hood. Under such a circumstance, you should force yourself to see thebigger picture, by so doing, you will be able to shift the focus away from the anger andresentment.
It is only through forgiveness that you can erase wrongdoing and clean the memory. when youcan finally release the situation, you may come to see it as a necessary part of your growth.