Forgive Yourself

I came across this song called "I forgive me" by James Fortune and I've been listening to it on repeat for the past few weeks. When I find a song I like and that seems to apply to my life or something I'm going through, I get a little obsessed. 

The beginning lyrics of the song are, 

"I decided to stop replaying regrets 
And I decided to tell my past goodbye, 
I cannot change what I did, 
But it didn't change what you gave me, 
When you took my place, 
No more guilt but grace" 

And I started to think of all the times I tried to forgive myself for things that I've ever done wrong. For me it's easier to forgive others than it is for me to forgive myself. 

I have this thing where I feel like I'm not supposed to do anything wrong. I know I'm not perfect, but I don't like making mistakes. I don't like being wrong. One of my flaws is always trying to be perfect at things, when I know that perfect doesn't exist. I feel like it I'm the best I can make everybody happy. But the problem is that I'm so worried about making everybody happy that I stop focusing on who and what is really important and I end up making more mistakes in the process. 

I always try to be the best that I can be and it causes me to become very critical of myself, sometimes too critical. So whenever I make a mistake, or hurt someone, it's hard for me to let it go. I sit there and I ask myself questions like, "why did you do that?", "why would you do something so terrible?" And I'm here to tell you NOT to do this. It is one of the most self destructive things that you can do to yourself. 

Life is all about choices. When you make decisions, whether good or bad, you need to learn how to deal with the effects. You can't change the past, so there's no point in dwelling in it. But that's what I did for so long. I dwelled in the past and it prevented me from learning and growing in certain areas and it caused me to make decisions that I can't change. 

Just because you make a mistake, you hurt someone, or you do something you wish you hadn't, doesn't mean that you can't learn from it. This is the time to say to yourself, "I know I was wrong, I know I messed up, but how can I prevent this from happening again?" "What can I do differently next time?" "What did I learn that will make me better prepared in the future?" 

Don't beat yourself up for making mistakes, you're human. You're not always going to get it right, and that's okay. Learn, grow and forgive yourself, you'll be better for it. <3 



Love, 

JayCherie 

Healing The Hurt

If you've ever had your heart broken, you know the pain it causes. You know the sunken feeling that you get that you can't seem to shake. That feeling that a part of you is missing that you may never get back. It's tough. And everybody around you tells you, "you're going to get through this" which you know to be true, but it just doesn't feel like it. You sit thinking about what went wrong, what you could have changed, how you can make it right. The thing about being hurt is that one of two things can happen. First you can allow God to heal you and you  can come out stronger, wiser and ready for God to bless you with what He has for you, or you can push the feelings aside and pray they eventually go away. 

Often times, I feel like the latter is what most people tend to do, at least that's what I did. I knew that in time, I would feel better, and I did, but it was superficial. I didn't "feel" those hurt feelings at the surface, but they were still there, I just had suppressed them. 

Last year I wrote a blog about how heartbreak can be a healer. I talked about how if you let God heal you, you can learn a beautiful lesson and end up being better. I didn't take my own advice. 

I thought I was okay. I thought I was over everything that had happened. But the truth is I wasn't okay. I wasn't over it. But I subconsciously suppressed everything that I felt and pretended like it didn't exist. In my mind, eventually the pain, the anger, the disappointment would go away. I didn't know how to deal with it. So I didn't. 

And I didn't realize it until this year. I was forced to face all of those things I was feeling because like anything you suppress, it will eventually come back up. And because of that, over the past few months I've had to learn some hard lessons and I hurt people along the way. 

I've learned that in order to deal with your hurt and allow God to heal you, you have to actually face it. You have to allow yourself to feel all of the things you don't want to feel and find a way to truly let them go. 

I've learned that some days you'll feel like you can conquer anything and other days you feel like nothing is right. But in the end, feelings are just feelings and not necessarily reality. So just because you feel like things are bad, doesn't mean they actually are. 

I'm still learning that everything happens for a reason. I know that God has a plan for my life, but in times of unrest, I find myself wondering why things didn't go the way I thought they should have. I can't always see what God is doing. But I know that if I continue to be obedient and follow what He is telling me to do, I will eventually see the light at the end of the tunnel. 

Healing is a journey. One that has to constantly be worked on. Trust God and truly allow Him to heal you. Don't hold back or suppress any feelings. Deal with them the right way.