All through my childhood and teenage years I was very good at mentally bashing myself for the mistakes that I made. I punished myself even if no one else knew that I had done wrong or that I had made a mistake. I punished myself harshly and let myself know that there was not a greater idiot in the world, and no one had failed as I was surely always going to do. In my opinion “stupid I was, and stupid I will always be”, after all, all those past mistakes proved it.

As a child there were some very negative influences in my life, and they were prideful and in one case especially intend on putting me down and letting me know that I was hopeless, stupid and a fool that no one would ever like or want in a relationship. It was a constant education that was false, but to me the constant repetitive reminder of my mistakes. or real and imagined faults, that made me convinced as an older person that I wasn’t intelligent and was more of a disappointment to others, and I felt sorry for people who had to put up with me (sometimes I felt this way).

 

As a teenager my confidence was very low. I failed school, I failed relationships (because I knew that I would because other people older than I, had educated me to believing that I was a failure in everything that I did), and even though people I knew had their own issues, in my mind (even if I didn’t show it to the outside world) I was the unwanted.

 

Some years ago while I was talking to a lawyer she made a mistake on something that she was writing down and she smacked herself hard on the head and called herself stupid. I stared surprised. Here was this professional who had passed all those important degrees to become a lawyer and she was self-punishing herself for a small error, and she hit herself hard. She told herself that she was an idiot. She was not forgiving herself and she was letting herself know what she thought of her making a mistake. What she was really doing was doing what had been done to her all her childhood by adults.

 

In a book I have, the author has this example: A man is talking to some people on a stage. And every now and then someone in the audience comes over to him and slaps him on the face because of something he said. Probably every 5 minutes this happens. The man who is addressing the audience finally sees the face-slapper get up from the audience to obviously slap him again, so he slaps himself. and says, “Don’t worry about it, I got it this time.” And from this point on when he makes a mistake he punishes himself before others can, and this constant negativity defeats his life. He may slap himself not-so-hard and believe that he has some control over the situation, but the reality is that he is allowing the previous opinions of others destroy his life even though they are not there anymore, or they are there and he contributes their dislike of himself, by disliking himself as well. No one can succeed and be happy under a constant self attack because there is no room for improvement and no room for being positive.

The above example although exaggerated shows what we will tolerate from others as well, and how we will accept their opinions and punishments even though they are not doing us any good whatsoever.

 

The man has taken over the punishment that was previously dished out by someone else. We tend to do this too. I did. I spent many, many years punishing myself for the things that I did wrong or imagined that I did wrong, even little things that I did wrong, small mistakes. I would call myself names. I would cry asking myself why I was so stupid. I was very depressed because I thought that I was an idiot, and that I couldn’t be worse than I already was. Sometimes I would punish myself for hours, days and weeks over the same thing. It became a habit, and it was created by others when I was younger.

 

As I got into relationships some of the females noticed what I did and they added to it, using me, and telling me that I was an idiot, and so with that person’s help (they had taken over the role of my childhood publishers) I was back to mental self abuse – I felt that I must be a failure because it was happening all over again with an new person – after all they cannot all be wrong (in reality they were all wrong, they had their own issues to deal with). I was now an adult who really didn’t like myself.

It is no wonder that my life never really progressed until I found God. God started to show me that life could be different and that I could love myself and others. And that even though I did some foolish things and hurt others God has forgiven me, and He wants me to forgive others exactly the same.

 

In the past the knights and others would punish themselves by whipping themselves, or having themselves whipped so that they were showing God that they were regretful of sins. Instead of trying to remove the sin from their lives they self-punished themselves. It didn’t cure anything and only made them more unhappy. God frees us from slavery and self-punishment.

 

If we punish ourselves we give negative thoughts total permission to slaughter any happiness that God has for us. It may comfort us to some degree to falsely believe that due to the wrongs that we did then we must suffer for them forever and that we don’t deserve happiness, but that is not how God works. There is no gain from constant self punishment.

 

Love means total forgiveness with all your heart and soul. Love is a total commitment to forgiving yourself and then opening your life up to God’s Blessings and self-forgiveness. We must let go of the self-punishment and accept God’s love and rewards for being a good and faithful servant.

 

All the best from

James M Sandbrook.

First Published – 16th of September, 2014.