When I fuck up I do not need to beat myself up. I am human and failing is part of it.
AND
I need to hold myself accountable for the consequences of my actions!
I see this in myself and around me all the time and I am so over it. It’s AND – we do not get to choose one.
When I hold myself accountable, when I regret, reach out, apologize, learn and do better I do not need to beat myself up.
Also, I can not just tell myself that I am human and failing is part of it and be gentle to myself and brush off the damage I have done, the pain I have caused for another person. I have to hold myself accountable for that too!
We all have been lashing out on others because we couldn’t handle our own pain, so we know that failure is human. And we all have been on the receiving end of someone failing. The pain, the hurt, the self-doubt is real! If we get an honest apology, see changed behaviour, we can connect to our shared humanity easier, and in most cases, forgiving will come more naturally. But what if the person brushes it off and walks away being kind to themselves for failing and ignores the pain, it caused us? That is just cowardly, and yes part of me can understand that too because admitting our failure, being vulnerable and accepting that we have caused pain is hard too, but if we claim we want to grow and become better people facing that hard, unpleasant conversations is the only way. There’s no shortcut and no easy path.
And what is there to lose? If the apology is much needed, we did the right thing, nourishing and opening a path healing. The other person might not be able to forgive us, but that’s a different story where we can also connect to when we were in a situation where we were unable to forgive. The apology might cause pain again because it opens up a wound that was pushed away, ignored but never healed. It needs to open up again so it can heal. And maybe what we need to be held accountable for is so grave that there will be severe consequences? Well, it’s hard, but then that’s what needs to happen. Deep down, we somehow keep count on the fuckups we healed the hard way and the ones we pushed away and ignored, and they’ll come and haunt us in one way or another.
The picture was taken is the museum for modern art in Prague in February 2020