We Are Much More Than Our Scars

Our scars are much more than the memory of our mistakes. They do not have to define us negatively but to remind us that we have lived through a situation and we have managed to learn from it.

Many of us carry our scars like a heavy load ; This makes our past too present, overwhelming us, exhausting us. It also allows anxiety to take shape.

So we forget that we are not just our scars or our past mistakes. We are much more than all that, but we don’t want to admit it. For this reason, we suffer while we carry a guilt that no longer even belongs to us.

What are errors?

After the word error there are many beliefs that cause discomfort. Some of them are: “you are a failure”, “you are not valid” or “nobody is going to love you”. And, more often than we think, we return again and again to the past to open old wounds and suffer for what happened long ago, when now is what matters.

The mistakes made will, over time, become our scars. But we should not feel bad for that. Neither is it going to benefit us to deny the situation or try to hide the scar.

In other words, dwelling on a past is not the best way to move on. We must find a way to work the guilt to overcome our concerns and close both cycles and wounds. Once we have worked on this, we can see that the scars are there to remind us that despite the mistake we made, we learned something and kept moving forward.

We must not let a bad experience make us suffer beyond the moment. We must not let the wound remain open. But this can be very difficult to handle in some cases. Guilt is not something that is easily worked out.

The guilt that opens our scars

There is no reason to live feeling guilty. Everything that was carried out we did at the time because we felt it that way, we wanted it or because it happened that way. What’s done is done and you can’t go back in time to change it. Although you can remember the situation to learn and act better the next time.

Guilt keeps us from turning the page and moving forward. It prevents us from seeing what happened in the past as an experience capable of providing us with a tool. It only brings back the pain, in a time to which it no longer belongs.

So if something goes wrong what do we have to do? Learn, beyond the pain, shame and guilt.  No matter how bad it was, no matter how big the stumbling block, we can always learn something from what we experience.

Instead of identifying with what we are not, with something that is already in the past, we must find a way to move forward. Do not forget that part of the importance of properly managing guilt is protecting yourself from manipulative people.

Where does this guilt come from?

For our scars to stop defining us in a negative way, we  need to analyze where the guilt we feel comes from.

• Most likely, it comes from multiple beliefs that surround the situation experienced and that make us see it from a very negative perspective.
• You can write the answer to this question on a piece of paper, giving free rein to your hand to count everything without paying attention to format, beautiful handwriting and other details. Let your feelings speak through your words.

Difference between guilt and responsibility

• Guilt makes us believe that we are the cause of something negative. And it can lead us to ruminate thoughts, whip and lament over something that is no longer worthwhile. It also leads us to wish we could go back to change what happened and avoid being responsible.

• Let go of guilt and embrace the fact that what happened is over and that now is the time to try to learn and make amends for what has been done. You have to accept the mistake and its consequences.

Thanks to responsibility we learn from a mistake made and we become stronger. Instead,  with guilt we get stuck and we can’t get out of there. Thus, we can mourn for years over something we should have blurted out.

Now we know that our scars do not define us for the worse, but allow us to help ourselves to be better, maintaining coherence between thought and action.