Book of Mormon: Day 150: Repentance means change -

30 Yea, and as often as my people repent will I forgive them their trespasses against me.

Repentance tends to be a concept that has the ability to trigger all kinds of anxiety and fear in us. Why? Because recognizing and admitting that we’ve done something wrong (maybe even the same mistake/sin for the umpteenth time) can often be a painful reminder of our inadequacies and shortcomings. What’s ironic is that “on paper” we’re all really good at recognizing that we’re bound to make mistakes–we should expect them, even!– and that it’s all a part of our natural growing process.

Yet, when a mistake is actually made (you yelled at your kids again, you lied to get out of a commitment, maybe you unfairly criticized your co-worker), we tend to beat ourselves up or chastise an offending party by reacting in ways that totally contradict what we know to be true. The truth is this: We will live perfectly imperfect lives and repentance was given as a free gift to compensate for sin by turning them into learning experiences. It’s all part of this mortal design.

The following 3 truths can help us to better allow the gift that repentance was meant to work in our lives.

Understand that repentance means CHANGE. It doesn’t mean an indictment of bad, worthless, or less than. In Ether 12:27 we read, “And if men come unto me, I will show unto them their weakness.” What this means is that the more we start living like he does, which draws us closer to him, the more we will begin to recognize what we need to change to improve ourselves. Often as we start to do better spiritually in some aspect of our lives, we get overwhelmed when other areas start to seem glaringly out of line with what we now know/see/feel we should be doing. Don’t let this discourage you! Choose to see this as the good news that it is. You’re making progress and noticing other ways to grow towards a happier life!
True and meaningful change tends to be a slow, gentle and consistent transformation. Cut yourself some slack, my well-meaning friends. Kick the tendency to expect instant perfection to the curb and let’s get real. Real change looks more like the Colorado River carving the Grand Canyon over millions of years, little by little each day, as opposed to the flash-in-the-pan high tides at the beach that make fast, temporary changes to the coastline. Take a moment to see the progress that you’ve made in the last 10 years. Now look back 20 or more if you can. Aren’t you so much smarter, wiser, and understanding? Making mistakes helped to get you there and repenting, by choosing to do better and be better, got you to where you are now and where you’re going into the future…day by day, year by year. Pat yourself on the back for how far you’ve come. You’re doing great!
Our learning here (often in the form of mistakes) doesn’t reflect who we were as spirits before we came here to earth. We are AMAZING and powerful beings filled with light that wanted to come and learn by experiencing contrasts that would be heightened when coupled with a physical body. For now, most of our memories are limited to this earth life, and what we’re more likely to see is an incomplete, not quite all together, work in progress instead of deity in the making. We doubt and drown out those whisperings that tell us otherwise, identifying more with the middle-aged mom in sweatpants than to the eternally wise spirit who willingly stepped down for a time from God’s heavenly home. Your mistakes don’t define you and repentance helps us all get back to being who we have always been, but now even more capable as we learn to master these physical bodies.

What the Savior wants for you to do is to understand these truths and increase your self-compassion. So many of our daily misfires, mishaps, and miserable moments just come with the territory of mortal life as we learn to shed what the “natural man”–our physical bodies and minds–would drive us to do. Beautiful, shining you is no exception. Receive that good gift of repentance that was made especially for you and for me.