Thanks for sharing your story Elizabeth. It’s a great reminder to all of us who might be dealing with guilt or shame about our past that we’re not alone and, as Jade pointed out, that we don’t need to let it be our scarlet letter.

I bring this quote by Kathyrn Shulz to mind whenever feelings of shame or guilt come up as a reminder that we can use these turning points in life for growth and development,

“If we have goals and dreams and we want to do our best, and if we love people and we don’t want to hurt them or lose them, we should feel pain when things go wrong. The point isn’t to live without any regrets, the point is to not hate ourselves for having them… We need to learn to love the flawed, imperfect things that we create, and to forgive ourselves for creating them. Regret doesn’t remind us that we did badly — it reminds us that we know we can do better.”

And as with all relationships, the golden rule applies, “One should treat others as one would like others to treat oneself”.

Or to take it one step further and to paraphrase Goethe, ‘Treat others not as they were or are, but as they could be.’

Anyone who does not apply these rules in relating to us is not worthy of our love and affection.