Analyze Yourself -- Boy, This Should Be Fun??!

To analyze one's self-- How do we even begin the process?!

First, we need to look at your life and pick out things you want to change. What CAN you improve. What kind of person do you WANT to be? What do you need to do/change to get there?

We have a tendency to pick out and focus on the negative things about ourselves-- what we're bad at, what our faults are, our lack of skills and talents, our different ailments-- what we need to do is focus on what we are GOOD AT. What are your strengths, your talents, your skills, your health-- Start looking at what your strengths are and start thinking about how you can make the most of them in the things you choose to do.  What can you do to move into wellness instead of living in sickness? Remember that talents are innate, skills need to be worked on to perfect them. We can't expect that everything will fall into place without any effort on our part. We need to work hard for what we want. If you're not willing to put forth the effort- don't expect anything in return. 

Another thing that I want to bring attention to may be something that we may not think affects us- but in fact may be one of the key aspects that is holding us back from achieving our full potential. That thing is: forgiveness. As sang from the most elegant movie of our time, "Just Friends" I give you: FORGIVENESS.

Forgiveness,
Is more than sayin' sorry. 
Forgiveness, 
Is accepting peoples flaws. 
To forgive is divine,
So lets pour a glass of [soda]..."

This song may be super silly and actually kind of retarded, the first line of the song rings true. It is more than saying sorry. Forgiveness is a change of heart, a change of thinking-- letting things go-- not just only verbally saying you forgive someone. 

In starting this process- we need to think of a few different things: Is there someone in your life you need to apologize to? Is there someone YOU are expecting to apologize to you, therefore causing you to hold a grudge against them? Forgiveness is not something that comes easy to anyone. It is probably one of the hardest things we may ever do. Not forgiving is 99% of the time only hurting ourselves. We cannot fully portray our anger and resentment towards someone we are unwilling to forgive. We are the only ones that truly suffer. Holding those feelings of hate, anger and resentment only eat us up inside. Not forgiving has the horrid potential of destroying our lives. Now, I want you to brace yourselves- because here come a SLEW of quotes about forgiveness-- but, they are all well worth the read.

One thing that is very very important- is we MUST learn to forgive ourselves.  I don't know about y'all, but I have made some pretty stupid mistakes in my life. One of the hardest things to realize is that I make mistakes too. I know that I have been forgiven by others, but the hardest thing to achieve a lot of the times is forgiveness of self. Learning to forgive not only others, but ourselves is an accomplishment in and of itself. "We can never obtain peace with the outer world until we make peace with ourselves."

I write this in hopes that it helps us become better people. Let us really step back and look at the things we want to change in our lives and to have the courage and strength to be able to achieve what we want. But most of all-- let us remember to forgive. Let us swallow the pride that is doing nothing but torturing us and preventing us from moving on. Let us forgive. Forgiveness is the key to freedom.