The Man in the Mirror Project - Forgiving Ourselves

 

Pogo daily strip from Earth Day, 1971.
Author(s)	Walt Kelly
Current status / schedule	Concluded
Launch date	October 4, 1948 (as a newspaper strip)
End date	July 20, 1975
Syndicate(s)	Post-Hall Syndicate
Publisher(s)	Simon & Schuster, Fantagraphics,Gregg Press, Eclipse Comics, Spring Hollow Books
Genre(s)	Humor, Satire, Politics

Pogo daily strip from Earth Day, 1971.

Walt Kelly

Concluded

October 4, 1948 (as a newspaper strip)

July 20, 1975

Post-Hall Syndicate

Simon & Schuster, Fantagraphics,Gregg Press, Eclipse Comics, Spring Hollow Books

Humor, Satire, Politics

How many times have you heard the story about having to forgive yourself before you can move on? We all do it.  It's like a stick of gum that you keep chewing on even though the flavor is long gone.
How can we move on in our lives if we are always holding onto the patterns of self condemnation?

It can hurt when you say it like that, but once a great comic strip philosopher named Pogo said "We have met the enemy and he is us."


In all that has transpired on this earth the only party responsible points back to us.  It's a heavy load.  A burden most don't wish to bear.  So we tend to push it off on someone else making it "their" responsibility.  The ones in charge, the government, the activists, never for once thinking "they" are all just us.  We only separate them in our minds as if we are all separate from the whole earth, or created separately from a different source.

Yet even as we push our environmental, economical, and other worldly woes aside, we still insistently criticize ourselves and condemn ourselves for the wrong we have done.  These thoughts and feelings of anger and despair pollute our fields of energy like a rotten egg.  You can't see it, but boy do we reek of it, even through our very pores.  Emanating an energy of "I'm not worth it" and the universe responds in kind.  Now we have another cycle or pattern of repetition.  We think bad thoughts about ourselves, the universe responds by giving us what we think we deserve and we all get no where because we are stuck in a pattern of belief that we will never amount to anything.

Maybe that's why we don't remember our past lives right off the bat.  If we did, we would constantly be in turmoil about what we did in those lives too.  "Gees, I can't believe I was that evil dictator in that past life.  I must be really paying for it now" Instead we say things like "I'll never be skinny" or "I'm not smart" or "I can't believe I ate that whole can of chocolate frosting."  Condemning ourselves takes practice and believe it or not most of us are really good at it.  We don't realize, however, the real impact this act and belief has on ourselves.  Constantly placing thoughts of this nature in motion only sets ourselves up for defeat by none other than ourselves.  We create the negative pattern, engage in it and bring it to fruition all on our own, without even realizing it.


This week pay attention to those condemning thoughts, and perhaps even look at the condemning behavior associated with it.  For instance if I say "I'll never lose all this weight" my condemning behavior might be to reach for that can of chocolate frosting.  Try to catch yourself in this act, and when you do, look within.  Ask yourself how you can change and if you truly do want to change the way you feel about yourself and how you respond to the thoughts of condemnation.  Becoming aware and conscious of these will allow you to slowly change them and in time a new pattern will be formed.  One of support,  nurturing and love for yourself.