Why are we so hard on ourselves?

Why are we so hard on ourselves?

Dear Fellowship,

Let me first apologise for the long gap in new articles, blogs or self-help units.  In truth, I have been so busy with life, family, work and caring for my father that this has had to take a backseat.  Thankfully, the support you have shown via email and the comments page has reassured me that you are all still enthusiastic to continue.  I also hope to be able to confirm a Crypt Chat session for this Saturday at 2pm – God willing.

I was doing my morning Rosary for Men of Hope and during the 4th Sorrowful Mystery I had a strong desire to write something about success.  We are all ‘hardened’ sinners and as I have mentioned in previous articles – impurity is not our only stumbling block.  However, as we see it as such a pivotal aspect of our behaviour we can find ourselves becoming a little obsessed  about it.  I know that I regularly judge how well I am doing simply by the period in which I have stayed clear of pornography or other impure activity.

That is fine as a starting point but I do caution you to be careful – pride can become a monster in this area.  When you start Stage 2 of the Self Help Units (SHU) you will be writing a detailed ’emotion’ based critique of your life.  It will be focussing on all the things that hurt you or made you feel good.  It is difficult because you will be facing some pretty powerful feelings – if you do it properly.  I mention this now because I want to remind you that you are no longer that person who didn’t want to change.   You are no longer the person who needed pornography to feel good.

You have already taken positive steps to confront and minimise the behaviours linked with your addiction – you engaged with this Fellowship.  For many of us, this ‘cycle of addiction’ has ruled our lives.  Rarely have I been able to look back and say to myself: WELL DONE! …and believed it.  All I was doing was keeping my head above the water until the next big wave engulfed me.  I had no illusions that the wave wouldn’t come and I had no belief that I would rise above it the ‘next time’.  Does that sound familiar?

In truth, I spent many years battling without a plan to succeed – I was doomed to drown eventually.  I was never able to truly congratulate myself on ‘spells’ of abstinence because I had already accepted that they were momentary.  I was going to fall again so why be optimistic?  Deep down I still knew I wasn’t willing to give anything up.  Hence there was never anything to be proud about…

Hopefully, I am not losing you as I ramble on?

At this moment there are 5 men who have each decided to change.  What has occurred before that decision was made no longer matters and should not influence any motivation or enthusiasm for the future.  YOU ARE NOT THAT SAME SINNER.

Say the words out loud:

“I AM NOT THAT SAME SINNER”  (Don’t panic – I am not going all Evangelical on you)

Yes, we will all sin again.  Yes, we may still sin against impurity. So what!  No, I am not saying that it doesn’t matter and we shouldn’t care.  What I am trying to say is that we should recognise the impact our decision to change has made on us spiritually.  We no longer believe that eventually we will drown – that should make us happy.  We are no longer in despair.  Be filled with joy and pray in humble thanks to Our Lord!

Guess what?

You are just like anyone else who is human and trying to find the narrow path to Heaven.  So from this day on praise yourself for saying ‘no’.  Recognise how powerful you are when you go a day without pornography or other impure vices.  Be thankful and positive when Our Lady showers you with Her love as she recognises the struggles you are making on behalf of Her crucified Son, Jesus Christ.  You are beginning the path to sanctity.  Do you really think that it will be easy and do you really believe that all those saints walked that path without tripping?  Of course they didn’t!  They were human but recognised how to change and knew it was all about cooperation with God’s Will.

We each have a different path to tread and we each have different obstacles to climb over.  The devil will fight each of us in different ways…but he only wins if you let him in.  And you will – we all will at some point.  We are human and we have concupiscence.  That does not mean we should hang our heads in shame when it happens. That does not mean we should give up and tell ourselves: “it’s no good…I can never change”.

RUBBISH – we have already changed and we should never scold ourselves for our lapses.  Even frequent lapses – so long as they are not accompanied by that ‘old friend’ despair.

Yesterday, I added 5 to the total of ‘self denial’ – that represents 5 slaps to the face of the devil and 5 fewer  lashes to our Lord’s body.  So rejoice at your success yesterday and think only of what you are doing NOW.  We must live one hour at a time if we are to stay on our God given path to salvation.

Please be happy and stop punishing yourself when you fall – that only pleases the devil.

Yours in Jesus, Mary & Joseph,

SA James.