You have the ability to change!
If given the tools, understanding, and proper guidance, we all have the capacity to grow as individuals and to change our lives for good. But even positive change is difficult because it requires a great deal of courage to challenge the old stubborn habits, negative self-perceptions and world-perceptions, and to do things differently–even if the new ways of thinking and acting are healthier for us.
You have the ability to heal and to grow!
You have the ability to forgive yourself!
It might seem like the guilt and shame from your past choices are so bad that you cannot imagine being free from them. Those choices often feel like a ball and chain that you must carry with you to punish yourself; or as a way of paying penance for the wrongs that you have committed by continually reminding yourself how horrible you are. There is freedom from that overwhelming burden that you were never created to carry. God assured this by covering the penalty Himself.
You have the ability to forgive others!
All of the antipathy that you feel; the anger and pain that continually surges through your body as you recall the abuse, hurt, neglect, trauma and misunderstandings that others have inflicted upon you. Why do you carry the resentment? To punish your offender? Resentment and unforgiveness only punishes you and those closest to you, not the one who hurt you. In fact, holding onto past offenses turns it into toxic waste and it slowly destroys you. You can find freedom from the emotional burdens that others have put onto you. Even if reconciliation is not desired, forgiveness is something that you do for yourself so that you can heal within, and grow unencumbered from the weight of what other people have inflicted upon you.