We hold ourselves to a wild set of standards
If a friend came to you feeling guilty about a mistake they made, what would you tell them?
Would you say, Yeah, you probably should hate yourself forever for that one?
Would you tell them they should keep replaying it, just to make sure they’ve suffered enough?
Would you insist they need to pay a little more, hurt a little longer, prove a little harder before they deserve to move forward?
Of course not.
But when it comes to ourselves?
We don’t just hold onto our worst moments—we chain ourselves to them.
We don’t just carry our mistakes—we wear them like evidence in a trial that never ends.
We demand suffering before self-compassion.
We demand punishment before peace.
We demand a level of atonement, reflection, and retribution that we’d never require from anyone else.
And we wonder why we feel so stuck.
