There’s a trope that keeps coming up from numerous people, of all kinds of backgrounds, over and over and over again.
“You’ve made so much progress, you should be ashamed of who you were back then.”
No. Just no.
Whether you like it or not, every single stage, every belief you have and have had, every decision, every scenario was a necessary step on your path. To me it’s the only pragmatic way to deal with what we call regret. It’s always so easy to say, in hindsight, you should have done things differently. You didn’t.
And the really insidious side to saying you SHOULD be ashamed of where you were is it’s an internal attack on yourself. Self-destructive, folks and unnecessary.
Remember, always, just how conditioned and programmed we all are. Whatever your fuckupery, it is a sophisticated response to enduring circumstances which you had no control over. As dramatic as it sounds, it was a way to survive in the only way you knew how AT THE TIME!
That’s where you were.
That’s how you responded.
Those were choices you made.
They’re an intrinsic part of you who are.
Don’t hate them, accept and embrace them. You made it through.
And if you’re looking for a fucking miracle, the fact you made it through is one.