The First Step to Self-Forgiveness
Forgiveness is a journey.
It is one of the most important journeys you can take if you want to live an extraordinary life.
I had to forgive myself for the choices I made that landed me in Federal Prison.
It was a long journey to get to a place of forgiveness, and this was my 1st Step:
Accepting Reality
I spent my days in prison, wishing I wasn’t in prison. I spent my days wishing I didn’t make choices I made that landed me in prison.
I wished and dreamed for life to be anything other than it was. I was fighting against a past and circumstance that can’t be changed.
I would never have the freedom to start over and reinvent if I continued to fight what can’t be changed. I had to do what I was so afraid to do.
I had to accept reality.
I didn’t want to. It felt like giving up; it felt passive. Fighting equals progress. But does it? What was I fighting against? As much as I wish there were, there is no such thing as a time machine Delorean.
Accepting reality isn’t giving up, it isn’t passive. It was an act of courage for me to say,
“I accept that I betrayed myself and chose to commit a crime. I hit the “enter” button, the single keystroke that started it all. I accept I made the choice to continue in the face of the universe screaming at me to stop. I accept that I am in prison. I accept that I hurt the woman I love, my family, my friends….”
A weight lifted off of me when I wrote that. I wasn’t trapped in the past. I felt something I thought was impossible in prison, freedom.
When you accept reality, you give yourself the gift of freedom. It is the freedom that comes when you are no longer locked in the past and regret.
The past can’t be anything other than what it is.
Embracing reality means being honest with yourself. We align with what we know to be true, not what we wish were true.
Accepting reality is a starting point.
It’s the first 1st step out of rock bottom and Shame.
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Are you ready to Let Go? To Rebuild and Reinvent?
Book a Free Start Over Strategy Session today.
For more about me and my journey through Shame and finding my Worth, check out my TEDx — “How I Learned My Greatest Worth in Federal Prison.”
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