Good morning, afternoon, evening or night to you.

This article is for us all. The intention is to bring and offer ways to self-understanding and ultimate acceptance. Not an easy task, but nonetheless possible for us all.

When times are tough we feel hardships and difficulties around us. It feels as if life is unfair and that we are being punished. We want the misery to end, to be given a break and for things to change and turn for the better.

If only we could have done things differently, are the words which echo in our minds. We even end up blaming ourselves and start to think that we deserve the negative situation we are in.

In the midst of the situation we are in it becomes difficult to focus on a different light or better perspective and yet at that moment in time it is the only thing we must do. Only then can we change it. We must relinquish control through the understanding that life does not punish us, but that life presents to us what we deeply feel about ourselves. This happens mostly on an unconscious level however we can influence it consciously and in our favor too.

We must thus look at our situation with new eyes. We must atone (realise and understand) but only when we feel that we have consciously or unconsciously done wrong - (please note, that we are talking about ourselves and not what others think we have done wrong- this is atonement) and take responsibility if we are to create the change we desire.

We must look at ourselves and our faults and realise that whatever mistake we feel we have made, that we too can change it. As hunans we are allowed to make mistakes. It is our imperfections that make us human. Seeking perfection in ourselves is therefore futile.

Remember that every day is a new day to start again and to make the best use of every new day choose to take responsibility by adjusting our thoughts about our feelings of guilt and regret to feelings of love.

Blame, regret or guilt do not serve us on anyway, nor others. They just hold us back. With these feelings tangled within us, we cannot move forward.

We do not repress those negative feelings. Instead we allow them to come up, we feel them and do not resist them so that the energy is transmuted to positive ones and then we make a change because we have left the darkness and entered the light.

In the moment we understand that we have the choice to change things for the better and then take action to do it, we open doors to opportunities previously unseen.

We are no longer victims, instead we become deciscion makers and creators. We are motivated to overcome, not through fear but through choice and in the knowing that because we ourselves are in control of our lives, we are therefore in control of what is to become. In the words of Ghandi, we become the change we seek.

All life improvement stems from taking responsibility and not handing out blame and the power to do this lives within us all of the time. Its just that we are sometimes blinded.

Therefore: We choose to live by choice not by chance. To be motivated and not manipulated. To be useful and not used. We choose to make changes, not excuses, to excel and not compete. When we choose self-esteem instead of self-pity we are in contact with our inner voice and dispel the random opinion of others.

We then begin to live our best lives.