In growing up in an alcoholic/dysfunctional family, I learned to think in absolutes:

• Drinking alcohol was always bad.

• My father was also all bad.

• Dealing with a problem meant shutting someone bad out of your life—forever

Shades of gray didn’t exist. It was either one extreme or the other. The problem with thinking in absolutes is that life isn’t like that, and I’ve missed out on the nuances in life.

Just because someone does a bad thing doesn’t make them entirely evil and the devil. On the flip side, my mom went through hell in her first marriage, but she wasn’t perfect (no one is).

As a kid, I had a skewed view of my parents. I idolized my mom as the suffering victim who did the best she could with what had happened to her. And for my father, I branded him as a demon and evil incarnate.

Growing up with such a limited view and living life that way put me in some tough situations. When I started dating and being in relationships, when bumps in the road came along, I often thought: “Well, this person is always a problem.”

But what changed how I saw the world was a simple fact that I make mistakes. And I know that I’m not all good or all bad. I am human and do the best that I can.

What’s important isn’t if I am perfect, but that I realize that after I make a mistake that I can atone for it and work to be a better person. And when I see others, and they make mistakes, to be open to listening to them and forgiveness.

The next that you run up against a problem and you catch yourself thinking that someone or something is all bad ask yourself: Is it true?

You might just be surprised by the answer that comes to you.

Like what you’ve read? Be sure to check out my other posts in my Let Go and Be Free blog.