The Truth of your heart is what counts. What else can compare?
Appearances are like curtains. They do not necessarily indicate what is going on behind the curtain. There is something greater than appearances, and, sometimes often, something greater than words and, sometimes often, something greater than actions.
Others may be fooled, but do not fool yourself.
It has been said not to judge. What do you have to judge by anyway? Foregone conclusions, I suppose.
When it is your coin, you spend it as you will. Where does guilt come from but from judgment? Guilt is an aspect of ego. It is a time-delay mechanism. Although guilt makes you a shade of a villain, it also makes you a focal point. Instead of love for yourself, you beat yourself up, and you keep the past. Walk away from the past now.
So you messed up.
I will judge guilt as erroneous. I will judge sense of guilt as a kind of badge you wear. It might seem that half the world is riddled with guilt, and the other half has none. Half the world seems to have high standards and mighty conscience, and the other half’s conscience may have dwindled.
Guilt is a circle that you almost can’t get out of. Better not to have it. Better to go on in life and be courteous and considerate of others and of yourself. Dispense with carrying guilt around. Absolve yourself of guilt. Guilt lives in the past. Just be responsible now.
You are responsible to be good to yourself. Do not tie yourself in knots. Do not let your conscience be overbearing. Clear your conscience now. You hold yourself back when you weigh yourself down with conscience. It is time that you forgive yourself. Repair your heart.
As a child, you may have told a lie that hurt another. Bless the one you hurt. You are sorry. You have been sorry for a long time. Get up and out of the Sorry Chair and rescue yourself from the past. You will be freeing the one you hurt as well.
You can escape the past. You must. The past does not serve you now. Catch up to your life. You are someone else now. In fact, you never were the person you thought you were. Believe in yourself. Because you fell down once doesn’t mean you have to stay down. You have beaten up yourself enough. Hands off now.
It is like you are driving a car. You can choose the direction you go in. May I suggest that you go forward. See new sights. Stop going into reverse. Look ahead.
Be of good cheer. Look forward. Do not look back. You have done enough looking back. Give yourself a new lease on life. Let go of the leash you have kept binding you. There is a better picture you can paint of yourself. Make it true. Let the past pictures go. They’re all illusion anyway.
What if you stumble again, you ask. You know the answer. If you stumble, you pick yourself up, wipe yourself off, and keep going forward, one step after the other.
Leave off the kind of self-consciousness that grouses at yourself. And if you stumble, say:
“Well, God bless me. I messed up. I’m not going to stay in this spot longer. I’m up and out. I free myself from the past, the far past and the recent past. I am going to be forgiving of others and forgiving to myself. Let me put it another way. I am simply going to be giving, giving to others, and giving to myself, and most of all, giving myself to God Who has the eyes to see and the power and glory to open mine.”