Wanna help me? Talk to me, not about me. 
A friend of mine shared a post about loyalty to her Facebook page the other day. She wrote, “Don’t talk to me about loyalty, I’m still here holding secrets of people who threw dirt on my name.” And I could relate. 
I think it’s something we can all relate to; someone close to us betraying our trust, talking about us behind our backs.  
I could never understand why someone who claims they love you would have anything negative to say about you behind your back and not to your face. How is that supposed to help me be and do better? 
When our loved ones come to us for advice or help, or they confide in us, it’s because they trust us to keep a secret, to help them find a solution or they simply need a shoulder to cry on. 

And when you turn around and use it against them for the sake of gossip or making them look bad, you are the villain in this picture. What you’re also doing is discouraging them from ever turning to you again. 
Whatever needed to be said you were/are supposed to say it to their face, and not behind their backs. 
Going behind their backs says a lot about you; that you don’t really care, or maybe you care more for gossip than the well-being of a loved one; that you’re not loyal; that you can’t be trusted. 
What we all need to understand is that when we make mistakes, many times it’s hard for us to deal with and forgive ourselves. We can be really hard on ourselves about our own sins. That is why we don’t need anybody else reminding us of our mistakes or broadcasting it to the world to scrutinize us further. 

Unless that person is a danger to themselves or others, you keep whatever they told you to yourself. 
It hurts like crazy when someone close betrays your trust like that. But that’s on them, its a choice they made. And you have some of your own choices to make. We can choose to forgive ourselves, and we can always choose to be better than we were yesterday. 
We need to stop holding ourselves hostage to yesterday’s mistakes. If we knew better, we would do better. 
But now you do, so just try and be the best version of yourself today. 

It’s not always going to be easy, but it gets easier the harder you try. Remind yourself that you are not your mistakes. You are not your past. You are who you choose to be today and every day. So who are you going to be from here onwards?

Paula Christoph’s column concentrates positive and inspirational write-up’s every second Friday in the New Era newspaper