Understand what determines us.
Spinoza does not imagine God as a ruler outside the world freely deciding each event. One infinite substance exists; particular beings are its modes. This account changes the relationship between theology and knowledge, rather than simply proposing the poetic idea that everything is sacred.
Seeking an event’s causes rather than a message personally addressed to you can shift the question from guilt towards understanding.
Each being strives to persevere in its existence: this is conatus. In human beings, the striving appears as desire. It is not an instruction to become ambitious, but a principle for understanding affects, conduct and changes in our power of acting.
Behind a desire for recognition, examine what truly supports your capacity to live and what makes you dependent on a judgement you cannot control.
We are passive when we only partially understand the causes of what happens to us. More adequate knowledge can transform our relation to affects. Reason does not act as an external command that instantly silences emotions; it gradually changes the balance of forces between them.
Understanding the causes of anger may change what it moves you to do. This understanding can require time, safer relationships and different material conditions.
Spinoza rejects a will independent of all causes. Becoming freer does not mean escaping nature, but acting more from an understanding of what we are. Personal freedom also depends on institutions that reduce fear and encourage cooperation.
Rather than only asking why you lacked willpower, examine the habits, constraints and forms of support that made an action possible or difficult.