I remember saying to my children "It is not you who are bad, but your behavior was bad" or some such.
I love the distinction between regret and guilt. There are things I feel guilty about, and things I regret. But there was one very bad thing I did for which I feel neither, because I did it for revenge. Oh dear. Does that make me bad?
Knowing your self worth is so important, and feeling safe enough to apologize springs from there. Excellent essay. Hopefully I'll get a chance to come back and say some more!
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@owasco! How have you been? <3 It feels like ages since I have heard from you, or went around your work. Well, it has been busy around here. Things truly change, time wise, with the end of the summer. Oh well ... :)
I prefer forgiveness over revenge. But, what's been done, has been done. Does that make you bad? Well, there you go, you can apply to yourself the very notion you instilled in your children : what is bad is the action, not you. Even though you claim you don't have any particular regret towards it, I'd put money down you took a lesson from the situation :)
Big hug from Portugal @owasco :*
It's been a whole week! lol
Yes, I do regret that I gave into that temptation, that I sank that low, and I remember feeling much more remorse way back then. But he had it coming! I get a tiny bit of joy knowing that I made my point, and maybe HE learned a lesson. In the end, no real harm was done to either of us. Maybe that's why I can speak so glibly about it today, because this is years later and from here it looks like a drop in a bucket. So guilt that does not diminish with time is a different kind of guilt than the one I am feeling right now.