“The important thing to do when we know in our hearts that we’ve been wrong is to look open-eyed, even if teary-eyed, at exactly what we did and why we did it. It’s very important to own our mistakes if indeed we made them.

We may end up with a painful conscience, but that’s appropriate, for only a sociopath has no remorse. Minimizing our regret, numbing the pain of conscience, dulling our own lamentation is not the way to enlightenment. This is one of the areas in life where only burning through the pain will get us to the gain. Grown-ups own up to our mistakes, and grow from them.

And when we do take an honest look at the darkness in our hearts, we might be surprised at what we see there. We find that our mistakes, our character defects, are simply the coping mechanisms of the frightened child who still lives within us.

We had to have been very hurt in life to have concocted such a dysfunctional way of dealing with things. Behind the blackened heart is a fragile heart—in all of us.
God would have us look on ourselves, and on each other, as He does. God is love, and He created us in his image. An angry God is the ego’s fiction, created in its image. This does not, however, change who God really is or how He really works. Our mistakes are met not by His wrath, but by His mercy.”

Excerpt From: Williamson, Marianne. “Tears to Triumph”