Release Self-Judgment and Guilt

I have a Spiritual Group meeting in my home...this is our lesson this week. Thought I would share some food for thought...Hugszzzz to all!
Step5 – Release Self-Judgment and Guilt
WeatherI know it or not, I am always attacking myself. I may believe that I amattaching you, but that’s just an illusion. Of course, sometimes you buy intothe illusion too, and then you take offense. That’s how the world turns.
Itdoesn’t have anything to do with punishment. Many people, even those whobelieve in karma, don’t understand that. Nobody is being punished for his sins.He’s just getting back what he put out so that he can become aware of it. If heputs out anger, anger comes back to him, because he needs to become responsiblefor his anger. He must own everything he puts out. Only by owning it, will itbe released.
Itis a simple law. We don’t have to beat each other with it. We don’t have tosay, “There you go, you creep. I knew you’d get yours back.” We don’t have toplay God. We’re not needed for that role. We just need to understand that weare going to keep on making mistakes until we learn our lessons. We are goingto keep on projecting negative and positive qualities onto others so long as weare unwilling to own them in ourselves. We are going to keep on attackingothers until we own the attack.
Owningthe attack is just a way of short-circuiting the process. I say ”Okay, anger, Iknow you belong to me, so I am not going to pretend that you belong to someoneelse.” That doesn’t mean that I don’t express the anger. If it’s there, it’s myresponsibility to express it. But I must do so knowing it belongs to me. Thatway it does not have to go out, stick to someone who feels guilty enough topick it up, and then come back to me through some form of quiet resentment.
Itake responsibility for the anger. I understand that it is not you, but me whomI attack. I don’t get lost in the projection, or at least I don’t when I amsuccessful.
Successdoesn’t happen all the time or all at once. Sometimes I attack you andsometimes I own my attack. When I attack you, I feel guilty, because I believethat I can hurt you. I carry that guilt around, and then when you or someoneelse attacks me, my guilt invites the attack to stick. It’s all very bizarre.
WheneverI strike out at you I feel terrible. That establishes me as a target forattack. Strangers with stored up anger sense a potential victim coming when Ipass by. Even German Shepherds pick-up the scent.
Everytime I attack you, I establish my own guilt. If you don’t think this is true,read Dostovevsky’s Crime and Punishment. In the novel, Roskolnikov tries tocreate the perfect crime. He believes that if he kills “for a good reason” hewill not feel guilty about it. It doesn’t work.
True,he isn’t caught. He gets away with it. But he can’t live with the guilt.Eventually, he turns himself in.
That’swhat we all have to do: turn ourselves in. As soon as we attack, we need toremember that we are establishing our guilt.
Let’sfess up right away. To hell with justifying our actions! We know attack cannotbe justified. So let’s just take responsibility for bringing healing toourselves and others.
“Imade a mistake, brother. I attacked you because I was afraid. I thought I had aright to attack you, but I was wrong. Forgive me. Help me get back on track.”
WhenI make my attack a call for love, my brothers and sisters allow me to approachthem. This is a gesture of reconciliation.
IfI recognize my attack and take responsibility to correct it, I do not establishmy guilt. Guilt is established when I justify my attack and refuse to makeamends.
Chronicguilt is nothing more than the consistent refusal to take responsibility forrecognizing and learning from my mistakes. Nobody becomes a punching bagwithout cause. Yet often the cause is hidden deeply in the psyche.
Everyattack I make on you is an attack on myself. That attack an be a very subtleform of judgment, yet if repeated over and over it continually gives me themessage that I am inadequate.
Itis not coincidence that those individuals who have the lowest self-esteem arethe same people who make the greatest number of judgments of other people. Themore we judge others, the more we subconsciously judge ourselves.
Allprojections return. That is the function of guilt. On some level, it refused tolet our attack leave us. We simply can not attack others without feelingresponsible for the attack on some level of our being.
Whenwe make this responsibility conscious, we can begin to heal. When we allow itto remain unconscious, we attract events which force us to become conscious notonly of our trespasses against others, but of the deep self-hatred behind them.
Guiltand responsibility are mutually exclusive. Guilt hold onto the wound and soprevents it from healing. Responsibility is the first step in the healingprocess.
Tolet go of self-judgment and guilt, we must begin to take responsibility for ourattack against others. We must become conscious of our projections as theyhappen.
Becomingconscious of our attack, we see the cause behind it. We see our own fears, ourdeep-seated judgments and feelings of inadequacy. We see our deep call forlove.
Thatis essential. We cannot begin to forgive ourselves until we realize that all ofour darkness is a call for light, and all our anger and hurt is a call forlove. We need to acknowledge this, or we take our awareness and use it to beatourselves.