With jaundiced eye.

[Bring4th_Austin]

I think the difficulty is being aware that you are beating yourself up. If you were that aware then there would be no need for forgiveness.

Forgiveness in this sense, for me, would be coupled with awareness. Once I become aware that I'm subtly condemning myself for an action sprung from immaturity or irrationality, forgiveness is usually only a matter of relaxing and allowing.

Sometimes though I'll have recurring distortions. I may go to sleep relaxing into the idea that I am human and I am allowed to make mistakes, and that I'm not defined only by what I have yet to accomplish. But then I might wake up the next morning dreading my actions the same as before, and my mind will circle around this judgment again and again. This is especially true for any action I take which affects others in major ways. It's hard for forgiveness to "stick" when I see active disharmony playing out as the result of my ill-informed action. These are the things I beat myself up over the most.

Judgement is an unnecessary distortion. However, a common belief in our society is the thought is that judgment is necessary for discerning action, which is not true.

Back to judgement as condemnation: even if one condemns, I would suggest that it is only "unnecessary" to the extent that one is actually attached or identified with some idea that prompted the response. That is because any identification falls away with integration. Unless you want to say that any response is "unnecessary". Anything that is not true to oneself is "projection" and therefore "unnecessary" - even many people's ideas of "loving". "Thus the most fragile entity may be more balanced than one with extreme energy and activity in service to others due to the fastidiousness with which the will is focused upon the use of experience in knowing the self. "

As Ra might say, "This distortion is not in any case necessary. It is chosen by each of you as an alternative to understanding the complete unity of thought which binds all things."