When you’ve done something terrible, shame will never give you the freedom you’re looking for. You can pile on the self-loathing and inflict as much punishment on yourself you can think up, but it will never be enough to take the weight off your spirit. It will merely push you into a dark place and slowly suffocate you.

This is why forgiveness is so important, especially forgiveness of self. There are those who would say they don’t deserve it, that they still don’t believe they could have done something so awful and they must suffer for it, but the truth is that we are all capable of awful things.

The sadder reality is that we are far quicker to forgive others than we are ourselves, because we thought more of ourselves. We were better than that.

But we’re not.

We’re all equal in both our ability to love and cause pain, and the sooner we can accept that, the sooner we can sit down our ego and start being normal. It’s a very peaceful place to live from.

And yes, you’re still just as likely to mess up in the future, and that’s because you’re normal too. But the more you accept yourself, the more whole you become, the less likely you are to do awful things.

So here’s to self-acceptance and telling shame where it can go.