My Bad

I know a lot of people who have just been going through it lately. I don't mean they had a bad day or two. Nah, these folks are lobbying to be in the Hall of Fame of Some Serious Fucking Personal Growth.
The prognosticators say the problem is the economy and the upcoming election...
The astrologers say the cosmos are doing an ethereal break dance...
I think it's just time to say sorry, let go of the past and welcome the new...

Lately I've been looking over my life and seeing all the dumbass mistakes I've made...
It's been a straight across the board beating myself up...love, career, family, you name it
I've been going to town on myself as I regret bad decisions that have effectively dented my self esteem and affected my life in some challenging way...
And I wasn't the only star in this rear view mirror movie showing. There was a whole cast of people whom I thought had done me wrong who were getting equal billing as well...
I was kind of trapped on my own dark history hamster wheel, and I was just wishing I could re-do the last 25 years...

Then, a little miracle happened...

I had a conversation with someone who knows me well and has a solid background in mastering the psychological Rubik's cube...
It actually wasn't my therapist but someone who has a ton of experience helping people detach from the past and welcome a new day...
She pointed out that true self-forgiveness can only happen when we take full responsibility for our mistakes...not other people's fuck ups, but our errors...
Not just lip service to our wrongs while still pointing the finger at everybody else...
She was talking about taking full responsibility for bad decisions that I made...not anyone else...
I wanted to fight back and say, "But can you see what that fucker did to me?!"
It's so easy to play the victim, ain't it?

I had some good dysfunctional reasons and rational excuses why I made these really poor choices in my life, but it was a debate I would never win.
As long as I shirked my part in it, I would never be able to forgive myself, to really heal...
It's kind of impossible..
I had to take care of my side of the street and fully embrace the mistakes I made...ouch

After a moment of sadness and regret, a weight kind of lifted...
I could see how I wasn't just an innocent bystander who was a victim of bad luck...
In fact, many times I either put myself in a position to be hurt or was an instigator of the problem itself...double ouch

So I've been accepting my bad decisions in order to move on...
Lesson learned...
Feeling much better...
My bad.