When I first decided to go on the journey to inner discovery, I made a list of things that I needed to do. On the top of the list was stop being angry at others, forgive others that have hurt me, stop the resentment etc. It seemed like the perfect solution- forgive others and I would be rejuvenated and revived. So I tried my best , I did some exercises asked people for forgiveness and thought I was miraculously healed.
But then something happened, a few days passed and I was on this high of forgiving people. I felt great because I was the good and kind person who was able to forgive these big monsters or bullies. But by doing this I later on realized, I healed nothing inside of me. All I had done was given my ego a bigger bed to sleep on and my narcissistic personality had more reason to believe that I was perfect.
Who was I kidding? Of course a few days after this high, I started to feel like shit again. It didn't make sense to me at all. I was rid of the anger I had towards others and so I should've been in a perfect harmony like the Buddhist monks seem like they are in. And then it hit me - I had forgiven everyone else but myself!
The self loathing and guilt still resided in me, the guilt of making wrong choices the anger and resentment towards myself because I was the one who gave people permission to treat me badly. How could I be so stupid to treat myself so badly? And the self loathing started all over again.
At that point I realized that we are our own biggest enemies. We treat everyone with love and respect but ourselves. We allow others to walk all over us or put us down, because we feel powerless and undeserving.
It has taken me years to understand this, but it's easy to be kind and show compassion to the world, but we need to show it to ourselves before we can genuinely spread it. We can't hate ourselves secretly and be grateful for our blessings, we can't not respect ourselves yet show respect for others that are in our close circle.
So today start by appreciating small things about yourself- the way you smile, your persistence, your culinary skills, the way you dress and eventually you will value everything about the special person that is you! By forgiving yourself and just appreciating the individual that you are will increase your outlook on life. Believe me I learned the hard way..................