Hi Jack,

Glad that you are in recovery. The title of your post struck a chord in me. I am 50 and I still have some secrets from over 30 years ago that cause me anguish due to major issues I had. Not everyday, they come and go, mainly when I am anxious.
What I have learnt, am learning and try to do as much as possible is to be compassionate with myself, either by positive self-talk or by listening to a guided loving kindness meditation when I get in a funk.
Because we are no longer our past, we have grown and will continue to grow until we pass away. I am also learning / realizing that everybody suffers, we all have things that we regret or are ashamed of. We all do the best we know at the time.
Knowing this makes my pain, shame more tolerable and I believe it is finally starting to dissipate.
Knowing this also makes me more loving and tolerant with others as I realize that we are all in the same boat.
We are brothers and sisters flying around on this piece of rock all dealing with something.
So I guess what I am trying to tell you is that you are good, you are my brother, you as all humans do have some divinity in you.
So don’t be hard on yourself, be good to yourself, be very good to yourself, you are trying to better yourself, you deserve it.
Not certain if I can post a link up here but I will try…The link below is a good source of self-compassion / mindfulness guided meditations and they are free. Try them out if you get in a funk 😉 Have a good weekend, be good to yourself!!

http://self-compassion.org/category/exercises/#guided-meditations

Claude