What has helped me most is this quote from Seneca:
Even this, the fact that it [the mind] perceives the failings it was unaware of in itself before, is evidence for a change for the better in one’s character.
That helped me feel a lot better about finding unnoticed flaws and problems in myself, which always felt like a step backwards before.
I also sometimes tell myself a slightly shortened Litany of Gendlin:
What is true is already so. Owning up to it doesn’t make it worse. Not being open about it doesn’t make it go away. People can stand what is true, for they are already enduring it.
If X and Y make me a bad person, then...I’m already being a bad person. Owning up to it doesn’t make it worse, and ignoring it doesn’t make it disappear. Owning up to it is, in fact, a sign of moral progress—as bad as it feels, it means I’m actually a better person than I was previously.
What has helped me most is this quote from Seneca:
Even this, the fact that it [the mind] perceives the failings it was unaware of in itself before, is evidence for a change for the better in one’s character.
That helped me feel a lot better about finding unnoticed flaws and problems in myself, which always felt like a step backwards before.
I also sometimes tell myself a slightly shortened Litany of Gendlin:
What is true is already so.
Owning up to it doesn’t make it worse.
Not being open about it doesn’t make it go away.
People can stand what is true,
for they are already enduring it.
If X and Y make me a bad person, then...I’m already being a bad person. Owning up to it doesn’t make it worse, and ignoring it doesn’t make it disappear. Owning up to it is, in fact, a sign of moral progress—as bad as it feels, it means I’m actually a better person than I was previously.