Do you get hung up on bad memories? Do you dwell on your past mistakes or failures? It seems we are all prone to repeatedly remember sad or negative memories and allow ourselves to be defined by them.

I find myself remembering that harsh word I spoke to that person, or a particular comment made by someone to me that hurt me. I find myself remembering this shameful failure, or that embarrassing moment. I hurt myself when I continually remember things like that. When it’s something embarrassing, it causes us me to feel the humiliation over again. When it’s something I consider shameful or sinful, it makes me treat myself badly. Remembering the guilt or the shame makes me feel like I am a bad person, an unforgiveable person, or a failure. When I feel like that I start being afraid to try again or persevere with what I’m doing. It starts a failure feedback loop in my mind: I failed, failure made me feel awful, I don’t want to feel like that again, I won’t even try this time… And the more I think about it, the more the negative thoughts get ingrained in my mind and I 

However, when I read the Bible, I don’t believe God wants us to dwell on our mistakes. In Acts 3:19 we can read ‘Repent, then, and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out, that times of refreshing may come from the Lord.’ Once we’ve turned our mistakes over to God, that’s it, they are wiped out. What’s wiped out can’t be looked at again. Just like when you accidentally clear the white board at a meeting, there’s no way to get the writing back, it’s just gone. Feeling regret or sorrow over something we have done, or realising that something we did could have been done better is helpful when it leads us to God, or reveals to us how to do better next time, but ongoing guilt can be harmful.

So, what’s the alternative? How about choosing to think on specific memories of a time we performed well? What about intentionally remembering that occasion when we made a good choice? Remembering that time when we had half a leftover cake in the fridge and we did not eat it? Choosing to think on that occasion when we were tired and frustrated but instead of speaking in irritation, we spoke in love. How about that time when we planned our day well, worked through our assignments steadily and ended the day feeling productive? How would that change how we felt about ourselves?

Ephesians 4:32 reads ‘Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.’ I think that we also need to be kind and compassionate to ourselves. Revisiting and reliving hurtful or shameful moments of our lives is not kind. We wouldn’t torment our best friend by repeatedly reminding them of something they regretted, so why should we do it to ourselves?