As I continue my mindfulness practice, I’ve been able to put space between my thoughts and myself.

As I observe the thoughts my mind spontaneously generates, I have taken to gently confronting them with reality. Recently, my father told me he’s never judged me, and for the first time I believed him.

For much of my life, I found myself living in the shadow of my father, making him the villain of my life, and now looking back, I can see I was deeply wrong.

In reality I was preforming to no one. I wanted a villain because it gave me an excuse not to try. I learned to be helpless, and I learned to ignore how my father loved me because he did not love me in the particular way I wanted him to.

My perfectionist desires, so branded into my mind ensured I’d never be content with what is.

As I find myself accepting what is, I am not happier, but I am sure as hell better able to deal with the world.

The sucky things still suck, but I don’t expect them not to suck, and that makes them suck for a shorter amount of time.

As I look at how I think now, I catch myself asking, “who are you preforming to? Who are you posturing for? No one can see your thoughts but you?”

The hypercritical part of my brain automatically generates these negative thoughts. I can see where it learned these behaviors, the people who imparted this negativity, but I see now, I let them.

This is not to say that I am at fault. No the fault lies in those people who were cruel to me, but I think the part of me that is responsible is the current version of me.

The child in me had no idea of how to resist or move around the wills of other people, and allowed the strongest to be imposed. That was not his fault, he was after all a child.

However, as an adult, we can choose. We can go back to the past events and forgive everyone involved. We can see those people who visited cruelty upon us were victims in their own way, and we can forgive our younger self for not resisting them.

Most importantly, we can observe the thoughts and learned behaviors with a mindfull eye, and question them.

“Am I really a loser? or was I a child with a learning disability that limited his ability to gauge social ques?”

“Am I a failure?” Or are my standards set without limits or regards to my abilities?

Do my thoughts align with the most objective reality I can grapple with?

Nonetheless, I know I am not done, but in reality, nothing ever is.