My client this morning on the phone said, "I wish I'd known to throw this out years ago." She sounded down on herself about not knowing that she didn't need to keep certain paper records.
I told her it didn't matter. That today was a good day to toss these things.
We imagine doing a lot of things differently in retrospect. "If I'd only..." "I should have..." "Why didn't I..." But that's not what happened. There's a forgiveness that comes in accepting what we can actually do now.
It's compassionate to work with ourselves as we are, and do the best we can with the situation as it is. We don't do well under self-criticism. We shine when we take care of what we can now.
My client let go of the heaviness of the self-blame. She seemed relieved of that burden. As my client let go of the papers, she said, "Wow! This is really freeing. This is unbelievable! This is going to be a real weight off my shoulders."