Outback Jack's Journey

I couldn't sleep, as I hadn't taken the drowsy antihistamine (diphenhydramine) that I've taken every night for the last 4 years to get to sleep and stay asleep. My Inner Critic was telling me, "You're such a pathetic man that you need a tablet to get off to sleep!" My mind was full of other unhelpful messages in the realm of: you're hopeless, worthless, unlovable, stupid, unimportant, unnoticed, uncared for... But I was finally able to separate the voice of the Inner Critic from myself. It was being incredibly critical, horrible, nasty, hurtful, and evil! I could see for the first time the Inner Critic as separate from me, but attacking me. In the counselling session last week, the counsellor had a chair for the Inner Critic. I sat on it briefly and the messages started up, but she didn't give it much airtime. I sat on my regular chair and spoke to the Inner Critic. I said, "You want him to man up, grow up, and get stronger. But you've been do...

  I went to a talk on Forgiveness just now by Dan Anderson. He said forgiveness has two aspects: An absolute insistence on the wrongness of the wrong. Forgiveness is not the same as excusing a wrongdoing, minimising a wrong, overlooking or forgetting, or just getting over it. Forgiveness refuses to say that a wrong doesn't matter. The decision by the person wronged to not act toward the wrongdoer on the basis of the wrongdoing. Rather than reasoning from the wrongdoing to a set of actions toward the wrongdoer, instead the forgiver accepts reasons to excludes the wrongdoing from consideration and acts on the basis of these other reasons instead. Two other curious things.  Jesus "invented" forgiveness. It does not exist in any historical writings before Jesus resurrection! (People cannot forgive without having first tasted forgiveness from Jesus.) Repentance (admitting the wrong) (where possible) is required for #2. (Luke 17: forgive your repentant brother 7x) I've defi...