Whether you still are
defensive about something you’ve done in the past, or you feel objective enough
to acknowledge the wrong of it without self-disgust, depends on how
disconnected you are from that version of yourself. It depends on if it’s
actually a past version of you. The transitory point is shame, when you no
longer defend what you once said/did but are still not comfortable
acknowledging it. That’s like when an amoeba is at the mid-point of separating
from itself but is not yet two distinct bodies. Once you become a different
version of yourself, you can look at some past actions with regret but not
shame because it’s like observing someone else altogether.
Then again, that might
be another self-deluding defense mechanism. I’m not really sure either way.
