There are moments in life
that stay with us far longer than they should.

A mistake that still stings,
a word we wish we could take back,
an action we regret not taking.

We call this reflection,
but more often than not,
it becomes a place where we stop moving—
where thoughts loop backward
while our life is forced to move forward.

This tension quietly presses down on the heart.

When spirituality says “Do not blame yourself,”
it is not offering comfort for comfort’s sake.
It is a deeply practical reminder:

Do not bind the present self
to the standards of a past self.

The person we were back then
had different emotions,
different wisdom,
different circumstances.

That version of us
did the best they could
with what they had.

To judge them with today's understanding
is to hold onto something
that can no longer be changed.

Self-blame is not a method of growth—
it is merely an attempt
to rewind time,
and such attempts
have never succeeded.

A Story About Facing the Past

There’s an episode of Medium that lingers in my memory.

A young soldier was once captured during deployment.
Chaos unfolded,
their captors vanished,
and with no food or rescue in sight,
the soldiers made a devastating decision:
they took turns consuming the dead
to stay alive.

This man survived.

Years later, he was running for mayor.
His past surfaced.
People were horrified.
Many judged him as cruel,
focusing only on how he survived.

But the truth was different.

After returning home,
he vowed to live with integrity.
He worked hard, built a business,
and anonymously supported
the families of the fallen soldiers
for years.

He didn’t use survival as an excuse
but as a compass for how to live forward.

And when his past was exposed,
he did not hide.
He simply stood before the citizens and said:

“The man I was then
is not the man I am now.”

People looked beyond his past
and saw the life he had built.
He was elected mayor.

What We Should Learn Is Not the Past—

but the Person Who Chose the Future

Whatever choices we made,
those decisions were made by
the person we were at that time.

The present self lives
with different knowledge,
different insight,
different capacity.

So when spirituality says, “Release self-blame,”
it does not ask us to erase the past—
but to stop letting it define the present.

A person is never defined by their mistakes.
A person is defined
by the choices they make now.

One choice leads to another,
and those choices shape
a life that slowly becomes more authentic.

The moment we release the grip of the past,
life—almost as if it had been waiting—
begins to move forward again.

We make a new choice,
then another,
and these choices weave themselves
into a new direction.

At the end of that path,
there is always
a place the universe has prepared.

To let go of self-blame
is to take the first brave step
toward that place.

✦ Recorder’s Note

— Why Self-Blame Feels Easy, and Why the Universe Supports New Choices

That old episode stays with me
because now I understand
how impossible that first step must have been.

To return from a heavy past,
to continue living,
to carry the weight without
dragging self-blame behind you—
this is not easy for anyone.

In fact,
escaping the heaviness
is often the harder path.

It’s always easier
to sit with the familiar burden
than to rise and choose something new.

This story gently reminds us
why we should never rush to judge others.

We have no idea
what they faced,
what they felt,
or what survival required of them.

Remembering this
also reveals something else:

how harshly we judge ourselves.

The choice we regret—
at that time,
it may have been
the only path available.

And choosing to step away
from the weight of self-blame,
choosing to live in a different direction—

that is one of the quietest,
most beautiful forms
of human courage.

The soul’s truest form of reflection
is not scolding the past self
but offering the present self
a better direction.

One step,
and life shifts.
One step,
and the path unfolds.

Spiritual teachings ask us to release blame
not because the past is irrelevant,
but because new choices require
far more courage than regret ever has.

Regret is easy.
Self-blame is familiar.

But choosing differently—
choosing forward—
that is difficult.

And yet life,
always,
is open to that effort.

The universe pays close attention
to that difficult step.
It sees the effort
to rise again,
to walk differently,
to free oneself from old weight.

To the universe,
that single step
is a radiant signal.

A sign of awakening.

A sign of readiness.

This is why the universe says,
with such gentleness:

“Do not blame yourself.
Do not stay in regret.
Just choose differently.”

Because the universe knows—

one new step
can reroute an entire life.

🜂 May Melanie(Yeon Seo-on)