We all make mistakes from time to time. Everyday mistakes include making a mistake in a specific task (in writing, typing, a diagram, etc.), insulting a person, an action that you later regret, participating in risky situations. Because bad accidents are so common, we all need to learn how to fix and deal with them. Correcting any slip includes: understanding your mistake, making a plan, taking care of yourself, and proper communication.
Steps
Part 1
Understand your mistake- Determine the error. Did you say something wrong? Accidentally made a mistake on a school or work project? Forgot to clean the bathroom as promised?
- Understand how and why you made a mistake. Did you do it on purpose but regret it later? Or were you just not careful enough? Reflect on the situation, for example: “How did I forget to clean the bathroom? I didn't want to clean up there, wanted to avoid this job? Was I too busy?
- If you're not sure what you did wrong, ask a friend, family member, teacher, co-worker, boss to help you find out what's wrong. For example, if someone is angry with you, you can ask: “I see that you are angry with me, can you explain why?”. The person may respond, “I’m mad at you because you said you were going to clean the bathroom, but you didn’t.”
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Remember your past mistakes. Pay attention to your patterns of behavior and what similar problems you have had in the past. Have you ever forgotten to do something in the past?
- Write down any patterns and themes that you notice keep coming up. This will help you identify the larger goal you need to work on (focus, certain skills, and so on). For example, you may have a tendency to forget about tasks you don't want to do, such as cleaning. This will be a sign that you are shirking a task or that you need to become more organized so that you remember to fulfill certain obligations.
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Take responsibility. Understand that this is your and only your fault. Take responsibility for your own mistakes and don't try to put the blame on someone else. If you're playing blame game, you won't be able to learn from your own mistakes, because you can keep making the same mistakes over and over again.
- Write down the parts of the problem that you contributed to or the specific mistake you made.
- Determine what specifically you could do differently to get a better result.
Part 2
Make a plan-
Think about past decisions. One of better ways solve a problem or fix a bug – determine how you have dealt with similar problems or bugs in the past. Reflect on the following: “In the past, I did not forget what I needed to do, how did I do it? Oh, right, I wrote things down on a calendar and looked at it several times a day!
- Make a list of similar mistakes you've made. Determine how you handled each of these mistakes and whether it was helpful to you or not. If not, then it probably won't work this time either.
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Consider your options. Think of as many ways as you can to fix the mistake. In our example, there are many options: you could clean the bathroom, apologize, offer to clean another part of the apartment, agree, do it the next day, and so on.
- Use your problem-solving skills to come up with possible solutions to the current problem.
- Make a list of pros and cons for each possible solution. For example, if you determined that one of the possible solutions to your uncleaned bathroom problem would be “be sure to clean the bathroom tomorrow”, then the list of pros and cons might look like this: plus - the bathroom will end up clean, cons - today it will be uncleaned, I may forget about cleaning tomorrow (I cannot fully guarantee that this will be done), it will not solve the problem that I forgot to clean the bathroom. Based on this assessment, it would be better to clean the bathroom on the same day, rather than the next, if possible, and develop a plan for how to remember to clean this room in the future.
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Decide on a course of action and follow them. To solve a problem, you need a plan. Determine the best possible solution based on the past and your options, and be committed to implementing it.
Formulate a backup plan. No matter how reliable the plan may seem, there is a chance that it will not solve the problem. For example, you may clean the bathroom, but the person who asked you to do it will still be angry with you.
- Identify other possible solutions and list them from most useful to least useful. Go through the list from top to bottom. To options may include: offering to clean another room, sincerely apologizing, asking the person how you can make amends, or offering something they enjoy (food, activities, and so on).
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Don't make mistakes in the future. If you can successfully find a solution to your error, then you begin the process of success in future error avoidance.
- Write down what you think you did wrong. Then write down the goal of what you want to do in the future. For example, if you forgot to clean the bathroom, you might have goals like: write down a to-do list for each day, check it twice a day, check off completed tasks, stick reminder stickers on the refrigerator for the most priority tasks.
Part 3
Take care of yourself-
Don't be too hard on yourself. Realize that everyone makes mistakes, it's okay. You may feel guilty, but you need to accept yourself for who you are, despite your weaknesses.
- Forgive yourself and move on instead of dwelling on your problem.
- Focus on doing the right thing now and in the future.
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Keep your emotions under control. When we make a mistake, we can easily be overtaken by feelings of disappointment, depression, and a desire to give up altogether. If you are experiencing excessively strong emotions or stress, take a break. Heightened emotions will not do you any good in trying to correct your mistake.
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Cope. Focus on ways to deal with negative emotions that can make you feel better. Think about how you have dealt with making mistakes in the past. Identify the ways that helped you properly deal with the problem, and the ways that only aggravated your condition.
- Common strategies include: positive self-talk (say nice things about yourself), physical exercises relaxing activities (such as reading or playing).
- Harmful and useless coping strategies include self-destructive behavior such as alcohol or other substance use, self-harm, repetitive thoughts, and negative self-talk.
Part 4
Communicate Effectively-
Be persuasive. Use positive interaction skills, talk about your thoughts and feelings in an appropriate and respectful way. When you are affirmative, you admit that you were wrong and take responsibility for your own guilt. You don't blame others for your mistakes.
- Don't be passive: don't avoid talking about your mistake, hiding, agreeing with what others want you to do, and not standing up for yourself.
- Do not show aggression: do not raise your voice, do not shout, do not humiliate people, do not curse, do not show violent behavior (do not throw things, do not open your arms).
- Avoid passive-aggressive behavior. This is a mixture of passive and aggressive forms of communication, when you can get angry, but do not express your feelings. Therefore, you can do something behind the person's back to get revenge, or arrange a silent boycott. This is not the best form of communication, besides, the person may not understand what you are trying to communicate to him and why you are doing it.
- Send positive non-verbal messages. Our non-verbal communication also sends certain messages to the people around us. A smile, for example, says, "Yes, I should frown, but I can be brave and get through this."
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- Do not try to make excuses and explain everything. Just admit your mistake. Say, “I admit I forgot to clean the bathroom. I'm really sorry ".
- Be careful not to blame others. You should not say something like: “If you reminded me that I need to clean up there, then maybe I would not forget, and the bathroom would already be clean.”
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Be willing to make positive changes. Tell the person about ways to fix the problem and promise to work on the issue. This will effective way fix a mistake that hurt another person.
- Try to come up with a solution. Ask the person what you can do for them to make up for the mistake. You can directly say: “Can I do something for you?”.
- Understand how you can do things differently in the future. You can ask the person, “What do you think will help me avoid this mistake in the future?”
- Tell the person that you are willing to put in the effort to reduce the chance of making that mistake in the future. You can say the following: "I do not want this to happen again in the future, so I will make an effort to ...". Say what you will be doing specifically, for example: “I will definitely make a list of household chores so that I don’t forget about it again.”
- If the task is too difficult or insurmountable, take a break or ask for help.
- If you can't fix a mistake or improve a situation right now, focus on how you can do better in the future.
Warnings
- Don't try to fix a bug if it could be potentially harmful to you or someone else. Be mindful of the safety, health and well-being of yourself and others.
Recognize your mistake. To fix something, you first need to understand what you did wrong.
Every normal and wise person would like to make themselves a little happier and more successful. But not everyone understands and realizes that some mistakes in some cases help a person become better, understand what they are doing wrong and start correcting it, becoming even better, then you need to think whether it is worth correcting mistakes in life or, first gain valuable experience and knowledge from them. But some mistakes really need to be corrected and get rid of them, but not everyone understands how to do this. Therefore, today we will analyze with you the most effective and reliable methods to correct your mistakes in life , as well as extract precious experience and knowledge from this.
First what do you need to correct your mistakes in life is to determine what kind of errors you have. After all, you can simply take and write out all your mistakes that you yourself will find in your life on a piece of paper, which will help you much easier to correct mistakes in life, since you understand and know what needs to be corrected. Take a break from your affairs and think about what is going wrong in your life, and write down absolutely all the mistakes that you find on a piece of paper, this will help you simplify the task twice, correct mistakes in life. Also, in order to correct mistakes in life, you need to create a sufficiently strong and reliable motivation. Just create in your mind the picture of life that you want to see in real life, and you will understand and realize that you will need to do everything necessary to achieve this dream. Also, always set new goals for yourself and fulfill them by training and improving yourself, which also helps to correct mistakes in life and become successful.
Failure
As you know, failure is the main reason for the appearance of various mistakes in life. Therefore, if you want to correct the mistakes in life and reduce them to a lot less, then you first need to know how to get rid of failure and take action. Create for yourself the consciousness of only the fortunate and happy person, and then you yourself will notice how failure will gradually leave your life, and only a happy and successful life will come to replace it, which you can start building today. Correcting mistakes in life will be much easier with a positive attitude than with a negative attitude. As you know, there are and always will be mistakes in your life when you strive to know and learn more in life. They even help to achieve your goals to some extent, but only weak people do not understand this and give up on the path to happiness and their dreams precisely because of the large number of mistakes and failures.
Conscious and subconscious
As is known and proven by many scientists and psychologists, it is our consciousness and subconsciousness that creates our reality. So why don't we start taking advantage of this incredible opportunity to not only correct your mistakes in life, but also to create for yourself that world in which you will be truly successful and happy people, achieving everything that you yourself want. But if you let your consciousness and subconsciousness float freely and do not control them, then this can only affect you in a negative way. Then big failures, problems, difficulties and mistakes in life will begin to appear. You need to start training and controlling your consciousness and subconsciousness in such a way that your thoughts and dreams are only with a positive attitude, and then there will be much less problems and failures. And after some time of control, the consciousness and subconscious will already create your life correctly and correct mistakes in life, no matter how difficult they are, it will become much easier.
Start correcting mistakes
The most reliable and proven way to fix your mistakes in life, it's just to take and start correcting them. Indeed, without real action and practice, it will be impossible to do absolutely nothing, and your mistakes, as they were, will remain, replenished with even more. And the sooner you start correcting your mistakes, the better you can protect yourself from the big problems associated with these errors. Create a good habit in your life to fix all the mistakes and problems as soon as they appear, this will not only make you happy, but you will also save an incredible amount of time and effort.
Success
As noted long ago, it was those people who achieved success who could quickly and easily correct mistakes in life, and move on along the path to happiness and success. To do this, you just need to know how to start succeeding, and do everything necessary for this, putting all your time and effort into only this work, which will bring you success. And correcting mistakes in life that exist all the time will not be so difficult when you are already a successful person.
That's all what we were going to sort out with you about how to correct mistakes in life. By applying all the methods and tips given in our article in practice, you will incredibly quickly learn and understand not only how to correct mistakes in life, but also be able to take action to achieve your goals and success in life, building life the way you want it. see in your mind.
As one well-known philosopher said, only those who dare to do a lot inevitably make mistakes in many ways. It is impossible to live life without mistakes and situations for which one would not be ashamed even after several decades. But instead of “digging” deep into yourself, figuring out how to correct the mistakes of the past, it might be worth thinking about what lesson did you learn from past mistakes? After all, everything that is given to us is for something, and not contrary to it.
Correcting the mistakes of the past: 2 nuances
Correcting the mistakes of past years is often simply impossible. For example, your mistake is related to a person who has not been around for a long time. In this case, it is physically impossible to change anything. Then it is important to radically change your attitude to the problem: learn to perceive mistakes, accept them as part of the solution to the problem.
Don't back yourself into a corner
Being engaged in “self-digging” and looking for the reasons why you did this, why you didn’t do it differently, you risk coming to complex chronic diseases and disorders of the nervous system, in particular. Therefore, you should not test your body for strength. Maniacal correction of the mistakes of the past can seriously affect your present.
Searching for the guilty in the past will not give you anything.
The second point is the analysis of what happened: do not look for the guilty and do not condemn them for some actions. After all, no one can say with accuracy what he would have done in the place of the guilty. The easiest way is to condemn and put a stigma - "guilty" than to understand the situation entirely.
Correcting the mistakes of past years is your attempt to make the situation:
- did you good;
- never repeated again.
These are the basic principles according to which both psychologists and many wise men advise to perceive information with a negative frame.
Seven Steps to Forgiveness: How to Forgive Yourself for Past Mistakes?
It is important not so much to fix as. Moreover, the second point is much more important than the first. You need to be able to perceive all your mistakes and draw the necessary conclusions from them. Here are seven detailed steps that will help you properly analyze and draw conclusions from the current situation:
1. Accept your mistake for granted
The hardest step. Here you need to step over your own character, look at the situation from the outside, where often your position is not in a winning position. Without offense and, as they say, “with a cold head” you need to accept the situation, realize it. This period rarely lasts one or two days. It often takes weeks or months for this perception to take place. But only after that you can move on to other steps for correcting errors.
2. Admit the truth
After you have said to yourself: who is to blame, what is to blame, and why is to blame, a series of relief and humility will follow. You understand that no matter how much time passes, but without recognizing the truth, you will only complicate the situation. Whatever this truth is, it exists, and it is important to realize it. Only in this way can you do at least something today to correct the mistakes of past years.
3. Forgive yourself for past mistakes
Often, in order to justify yourself, your actions, you can blame others: you didn’t help, didn’t prompt, kept silent. Stop! No need to blame - just accept and forgive. And himself, and the one who is to blame, and who participated (indirectly or directly).
4. Repent
Forgiveness and repentance are one and the same for many. But, these are completely different things. To repent means to accept the situation and make sure that it does not happen again. You cannot promise for others, but you will not lie to yourself: you will do everything possible to prevent similar situations in the future. You won't fix what happened in the past, but you may not make those mistakes in the future.
5. Stay grateful
Never a failure always a lesson. And how correctly you have learned that very lesson, the result of what you have done will be so correct and effective. Often a mistake in the past is not a mistake at all, but the next step towards a new period in life. Be able to mentally thank for such lessons.
6. Try to forget
After you have learned a lesson, even if it is cruel, you will forever extract everything useful from it, and leave the bad behind. Stop thinking and blaming yourself for past mistakes. Only conscious benefits and good memories will help relieve tension and continue a full life without regard to past mistakes.
7. Don't compare
Whatever lesson you learn, it is your personal experience. You should not learn from the experience of others or, moreover, advise and bring own situation as an example. Everyone is different, and what may seem useful to you may turn out to be traumatic and cruel for another.
To correct the mistakes of past years or learn from them is the individual need of each of us. You just need to understand that everything that is done is really for the best. Everyone understands this after a while. And the mistakes of the past are therefore in the past to stay there. Don't obsess and don't bring them into the present.
Life! How many interesting moments it brings us. We sometimes think about how quickly time flies, but few people think about such things, for example, how valuable every minute and second that flies by instantly. I will start my story with an aphorism of the wonderful Polish teacher Janusz Korczak, and it sounds like this: “Respect the current hour and today! .. Respect every single minute, because it will die and never happen again ...”.
Mistakes in life
Everyone makes mistakes in life, but it is necessary to find strength not to despair and not to lose heart. It is necessary to learn a lesson for yourself from each situation and look for ways to correct it, if. Sometimes we get upset at first, and then time passes, and we think, “Ah, everything that is not done is all for the better.” But at the same time, this should not be attributed to everything. There are people who think whatever they do will be right.
Everyone makes mistakes in life, the most important thing is to be able to admit your mistakes and wrongness. The one who finds the strength in himself and admits this will be many times more reasonable than the one who still cannot repent, admitting that he is wrong.
“The greatest glory is not in never making a mistake, but in being able to rise every time you fall” Confucius
Advice:be able to admit your mistakes and learn from every mistake you made - see what life teaches you.
Conclusion: mistake - this does not mean that you should give up, you need to objectively look at the situation, admit that you were wrong, try to find a way out of this situation and correct the situation in better side. If you see that someone is wrong, you should not blame him for this, you need to calmly discuss this moment with him and try to come to a compromise solution. It is necessary to become moderately indulgent towards yourself, sometimes it is better to forgive yourself for some mistakes in life, trying not to repeat them again, instead of reproaching yourself throughout your life for what you have done.
Bad habits
How many people now suffer from bad habits, but who do not want to fight them. They give pleasure to some, they are already tired of others - but there is no strength to leave them. Many sources today say that smoking, drinking alcohol and drugs are harmful to our health. A person who has, suffers not only from the fact that his health deteriorates from this, but also from the fact that he is not fully happy with his life.
Why do people start smoking or drinking alcohol? In order to get happiness, and this kind of happiness is temporary, and it must be maintained all the time. And is he happy that he constantly depends on something? Not! Happiness, it must come from within, from the state of the soul of the person himself. Therefore, it is necessary to follow a different path to obtaining happiness and not be dependent on those substances that, in the end, ruin our lives with you, but, unfortunately, life teaches nothing to many.
Advice:find another source of happiness, do not be addicted to bad habits and you will become much happier!
Conclusion: if you still decide to be happy and successful in life, not to be dependent, and to have a source of happiness in yourself, and not look for it in bad habits, then lead healthy lifestyle life, move towards your goals and you will achieve positive results and true happiness.
Laziness
A person is sometimes overcome by laziness, he cannot find the strength in himself to do this or that thing. Or maybe, after all, he has no desire for this or desire? Yes, it's worth thinking about. After all, when a person has a goal in life or favorite activities, they give enthusiasm and inspiration to go through life, delivering in turn a lot positive emotions. Laziness also prevents you from changing your life, correcting the mistakes that you have met on the path of life.
“You say all your life that you are limited. Parents, teachers, the state, but the only thing that limits you is your laziness. - Unknown author -
Advice:you need to interest yourself in some business that would benefit not only you, but also the people around you.
How wonderful it is when a person is full of enthusiasm, he has many ideas that he wants to implement in order to achieve a certain goal. And he moves towards it, passing through difficult and happy moments, there are obstacles on his way, but he does not stop moving in that direction, does not leave the goal. A person, having achieved his goal, begins to indulge in memories of all those moments and difficulties that he met on the way, and with which he coped. A person is overcome by a feeling of joy and success. Although there were moments of loss and gain on the way, but this only gave more strength for correction, and he himself achieved success in his work with his own work. And most importantly, that any business that you undertake should benefit not only you, but also those around you!
Conclusion: in order to, motivation is needed, so do not waste those minutes that pass in vain in your life, value time and try to find the strength in yourself to do things.
How to fix mistakes in life
Sometimes it is enough to realize your mistakes in order to form a firm conviction about how to do the right thing and how not to do it in order not to make the same mistakes in the future. To correct mistakes in life, you need to start changing something in your life., start at least with simple things, everything starts with small things.
- Follow the routine of the day
- Keep a short list of things that need to be done
- Start planning your day more effectively
- and try to make the most of it
- Do something that you love
- Communicate with friends and relatives, support a good relationship with them
- Go to your goal, despite the obstacles that you meet on the way
- Replace bad habits with something more valuable to you, find yourself in some business that would bring you much more happiness than this
- Be yourself and do not try to imitate others, develop a full-fledged personality and find yourself in this world
- Constantly develop and do not stand in one place
- Appreciate and respect all those around you!
So what does life teach - that the key to a happy relationship and life in general lies in the fact that it is necessary to treat everything that surrounds us with gratitude, because without this, few people know how your fate would have been. Treasure those people who are close to you, appreciate and take care of them, try to establish harmonious relationships with them and believe that everything in our life is possible. To correct mistakes in life, you only need to want it, and start moving through life in this direction!
How to correct the consequences of your mistake if everything is out of control? If its results have become so large-scale that they cannot be dealt with? For example, he had a fight with his grandmother - and she died due to a heart attack. He lied - and this lie crippled the life of a friend. I retold the gossip to the boss - and the colleague was fired from his job. The driver hit a man. Will God forgive if there is nothing to fix? How to find a balance between self-flagellation and self-justification? Archpriest Vyacheslav Ponevin, Rector of St. Nicholas Church of Yenakiyevo, pondered these difficult questions.
Repentance is not only a listing of one's sins before a priest. This is repentance for the deed, the desire to improve, change, and in addition - compensation for the damage caused. Of course, it is impossible to return the situation to the state in which it was before the mistake was made. Often a person has no control over the consequences of certain actions. However, you can still try and, if possible, correct, if not the consequences, then yourself.
Do no harm
I must say right away: compensation for damage is not as simple as it seems at first glance. It is necessary to undertake it in the event that it will not cause harm to the one to whom we are going to compensate, and to us too. After all, you can correct your mistakes in such a way that others will not be happy. Example: a boy and a girl had a relationship, the girl gave birth to a child, the guy ran away. However, despite everything, the girl successfully married, she is doing well. But the ascetic of piety, which the guy has become, suddenly decides to repent, compensate for the damage, and begins to search, call, write letters. As a result, because of good intentions, a family can collapse. Not always our good intentions are actually good and lead to good things.
The repentance of a person occurs with the participation of a priest. I think that compensation for damage should also be discussed with the spiritual mentor - so that it does not bring harm to anyone.
What to do if guilty?
What to do if there is no way to make amends or ask for forgiveness from the person you offended? The main thing is not to fall into despair. Yes, compensation for damage is necessary, but the situation does not always allow this. If you can - reimburse, no - look for other ways. There are different options.
First: help those who are on this moment is in a similar situation and needs help. I have come across situations when people beat someone in their youth, and there is no way to apologize to the victim: either time has passed and he has died, or it is impossible to get in touch with him. I recommended to go to the hospital and donate bandages, medicines for those who suffered from beatings.
Second: pray. If we offended someone, and this person has already died, you can always pray for him: at home, in the church, at a memorial service.
Third: charity. You can make some kind of donation, help financially - now there are hundreds of opportunities for this.
Who needs it?
Making amends is necessary for our soul to be changed by doing good deeds. Still, for God it is not a formal confession, not a formal correction of mistakes, but a change in the soul that is more important. To repent means to become a different person: more kind, merciful, honest. In that the main objective. To repair the damage, but to remain the same as it was, is wrong.
People brought many formalities into the Church. Everyone baptizes children, bury the dead, blesses cars and houses, but in fact a very small percentage of people can be considered Christians. The bulk, and this is about 90%, simply observe rituals. “We were told so”, “it’s necessary”, “well, it’s supposed to be so”, - but for what it is needed, what is the point - no idea. They do not know the Symbol of Faith and Our Father, but they bless the water, Easter cakes, order memorial services. In fact, they did not become part of the Christian community, and Christianity without the Church is impossible.
Formalities are to be avoided. Whenever doing something, you need to imagine ultimate goal. If we repent, then we need to understand that the goal is to change our inner self. Getting rid of the passion that torments. If a person is irritable, he can offend people, then ask for forgiveness, then offend again, and this will last indefinitely, there are no changes in him. What's the point of his apology? Can his repentance be considered sincere?
If a believer repents, then the result should be his inner change for the better, the replacement of passions and sins with good deeds. Do you feel bad, overcome by selfishness, irritation, pride? At these moments, it’s good to go and do some small good deed: pray for a person, tell him good word, treat.
Guilt as a way to punish yourself
Often people who have made some irreparable mistakes suffer extremely from feelings of guilt. It becomes their way of punishing themselves. They think that this feeling is right, because they are supposed to be oppressed after what happened. This, of course, is not true. Yes, we must have a sober awareness of our bad deed. Nowhere to go: I did it. But this does not mean that you need to execute yourself for the rest of your life.
What should be done? - fulfill the three points already mentioned: repent, make a promise to yourself not to repeat what has been done, and repair the damage. If not possible, do good deeds. "Turn away from evil and do good"(Ps. 34:15), says the Psalter. So let's replace evil with good. It is not enough just to refuse to do evil. If we begin to do good deeds instead of evil, then the Lord will heal us through them. In doing good, we come into contact with God, since He is love, and we are cured of our spiritual illnesses.
Between self-flagellation and self-justification
Self-flagellation is a demonic state. It doesn't benefit anyone. On the contrary, both the people around us and ourselves suffer from it, because we drive ourselves into despair, despondency. These states are partly a manifestation of pride. We must overcome it. Yes, I have committed a sin, acted badly. But I can change.
Despair is disappointment, disbelief in the all-forgiving mercy of God. God does not punish anyone. Crucified on the Cross, He says: "I love you so much that I am ready to die for you." Looking at the crucified Christ, we see neither punishment nor condemnation - only love. When people begin to self-flagellate, it is as if they say to Him: “We do not believe in Your love and forgiveness.” This is a sign of pride.
Self-justification is also an unequivocal evil, since in this case a person lies to himself, to God, to people. Everything is clear here. Many of their evil deeds are justified by some good goals. Make a small sacrifice for something. But good does not need evil. The Lord came into the world and died without doing a single bad deed. He did not violate anyone's freedom, did not inflict mental or physical harm on anyone. He could have done everything differently, easier, but he did it the way he did, and in this he is an example to all of us. No matter how good intentions we may justify evil, it will always remain itself.
Self-justification is the opposite of self-flagellation, but it is also a sin that must be fought. They are like plus and minus, but the essence is the same: these are wrong, false feelings.
How can a person understand that he justifies himself? In spiritual work, an outside perspective is always needed. Without this, it is difficult to understand yourself. If a person has some serious mistakes, difficult situations in his life, it never hurts him to come to the temple and discuss the situation with an experienced spiritual mentor - in order to understand whether he justifies himself in relation to what happened. It is convenient for many to push everything into the corner of memory and live in peace.
About imaginary good
This work is the work of our whole life. Our confession and repentance must be its result. We come to the temple, confess before communion, simply listing some habitual sins. This is acceptable but not desirable. You need to constantly work on yourself. We think very little about our lives, analyze feelings, comprehend actions. Every mistake, every passion - what pushes us to them?
How often, when doing something, we think that we are doing well and with good intentions, but in fact we are doing harm! For example, in the family there is a person with addiction. He constantly gets into some bad situations, and his relatives pull him out of them. They pay off debts, redeem what is pledged in a pawnshop, defend themselves before their superiors at work. Thus, they pay for its degradation, help to slide down.
A person, perhaps, after the first incident would come to his senses. For example, he would sit in a cell for fifteen days, he would be fired from his job, and he would find the strength to say: I don’t want that. When he does stupid things, and everything is fixed for him, it is very convenient: do what you want, no consequences. So why fix it? He does not see the problem and continues to degrade.
Relatives need to figure out why they do this, what feelings push them to such behavior, why they think that if they don’t respond, they will go against God.
It often happens in family relationships that representatives of the older generation consider it normal to interfere in the life of a young family, destroying it. At the same time, such elders, as a rule, do not have a normal family (divorced or live as spouses nominally), but they believe that they have the right to teach life.
Why did I give these examples? To the fact that, first of all, you need to carefully analyze your life, try to understand why you act one way or another, what it leads to.
Remove the rotten from the pantry of the soul
Preparing for confession is a kind of inventory. We remove from the internal bins everything rotten and spoiled. We also evaluate our life: what did we do wrong, for what reason, and so on.
There are people who come to confession and get off with a formal enumeration of sins: "I have sinned in deed, word, thought." This list becomes memorized, does not change for years. Some confess what they have already repented of, what they have crossed, what has long been the yesterday of their spiritual life. Many say: “In your youth you did this and that,” but what have you done now, what do you want to repent of now? That is, people go around in circles, do not change, their spiritual life at this time stands still.
Joy is like a litmus test
The Lord forgives us all sins - subject to our change. Let them not want to forgive you, let them reject the attempt to make amends - do not lose heart, this does not mean that you will not be saved. We are well aware of examples of people who made mistakes that were impossible to correct. For example, the holy King David, who committed the sin of adultery and murder: he took possession of the wife of a man whom he deliberately sent to death. Or the holy prince Vladimir, who was a pagan, had many concubines, killed. In their case, it was impossible to fully compensate for the damage, but these people are canonized as saints. They repented and did good deeds, tried to change, were transformed. As we repent, we must also change. The fruit of repentance is a change for the better.
To understand if we are going in the right direction, we need some kind of markers. If, bringing repentance, we do not change, do not become kinder, then we are doing something wrong. We need to look for the error. One of the gifts of the Holy Spirit is joy. It must appear in our lives if we draw near to God. To become happier is normal, because people are called to this by God. If this is not the case, if we continue to lose heart, despair, feel guilty, then there are problems with our repentance.
We need to believe that the Lord forgives us, to be filled with light, love. In life, fullness, meaning, joy should appear. These are signs that a person is moving in the right direction. The apostle tells us: “Always rejoice. Pray without ceasing"(1 Thessalonians 5:16-17). This is what you should strive for. Yes, despondency and despair can attack, and a penitential feeling can sometimes be difficult, but there is no need to fall into despair.
Often people face problems in their spiritual life because they misperceive God. You need to see in Him a loving Father, and not a punishing being who is just waiting for you to make a mistake in order to immediately punish for it. Fear keeps us from opening up to God. We say we love Him, but in reality we are afraid. You need to understand that the Lord does not punish - we ourselves punish ourselves with our bad deeds. God shows us only love.
Recorded by Ekaterina Shcherbakova
