How to Forgive Yourself?
Let it go. Forget about it. Move on.
Forgive yourself. It’s easy to say, but so much harder to actually do! We all mess up sometimes, whether it’s lashing out at a friend, engaging in a self-destructive behavior or cutting corners at work.
And with those mistakes often come overwhelming feelings of guilt. Shame. Self-condemnation. Humiliation.
Counselors and life coaches have found that these emotions can lead to stress, depression, anxiety disorders and even heart disease, if ignored.[1] Not exactly the formula for a happy life!
Forgive. We’ve all heard the word before, but what does it mean? And why is it so important?
Dr. Frederic Luskin at Stanford University reports that “learning to forgive helps people hurt less, experience less anger, feel less stress and suffer less depression. People who learn to forgive report significantly fewer symptoms of stress such as backache, muscle tension, dizziness, headaches and upset stomachs. In addition people report improvements in appetite, sleep patterns, energy and general well being.”[2]
If self-forgiveness is such a good thing, why is it so hard?
Too often, we punish ourselves for past mistakes, as if we could somehow “make up” the wrong that we’ve done. We walk through each day feeling less-than. We call ourselves losers. No good. We live chained to our past, holding on to hurts and grudges. And though no one else may know about our secret pain, the negative emotions we feel gnaw away at our joy and satisfaction in life.
Counselors and life coaches report that the hardest person to forgive is yourself. Not the friend who backstabbed you. Or the dad that wasn’t there for you. Or even the ex who broke your heart.
Why? Because you know yourself and you live with yourself every day. Go figure.
If you feel stuck in the rut of your past failures, try these tips for embracing forgiveness.
1. Talk about it.
When it comes to the past, silence can be deadly. So stop pretending. Free yourself from the bondage of holding it all in. Talk about what’s tearing you apart inside. Express the emotions you feel to a counselor, mentor, or friend you can trust. Forgiveness starts with being honest and vulnerable about who you are…the good and the bad. So say what you need to say.
2. Be honest with yourself.
“If I just pretend it never happened, maybe it will all go away,” we tend to think. Sounds nice…but not true. Choose to break out of denial. Be honest about how you’ve messed up and the consequences of your behavior. Journal out the specific behaviors and actions that are causing you angst.
3. Accept it for what it is.
As an imperfect person, you will make mistakes in life. Face it. You will hurt people sometimes. Youwill have regrets. It’s part of living in a less-than-perfect world. But you have a choice.
Either your past will keep you in a rut of guilt and shame…or you will accept it for what it is and experience the freedom to move on and enjoy the now. Self-acceptance is critical to your emotional health, so don’t miss out!
4. Let go.
Don’t hold on to guilt. You don’t need to justify your past actions or try to prove yourself. Letting go of the past means burying it and giving up your right to engage in self-condemnation. Forgiveness is a choice, but also a process. It’s choosing to stop hating yourself and cutting yourself down, but instead, seeing yourself as a valuable human being.
One of the first steps of letting go, is to just get it out there. Please feel free to use the form below to let it go, or apologize for something that has been on your chest for years.
You can use an anonymous name (and the email will NEVER be shown). Your post will be added to the wall below.
It’s okay. You can let go.
Develop realistic expectations.
Evaluate the expectations you (and others) set for you. Are they healthy? Or unrealistic? If you find yourself never being able to measure up—no matter how hard you try—you may just need to change a few things in your approach to life. Healthy expectations are achievable and fulfilling, not draining and overwhelming.
Forgiving yourself is tough. It means striking a deal with yourself …
- to let the past be past and live in the present
- to stop beating yourself up about something that happened two or five or ten years ago
- to banish guilt and shame from controlling your thoughts and behaviors
- to accept and respect yourself as you are…in spite of your screw-ups
Counselors and life coaches tell us that “to forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover that the prisoner was you.”[3]
Tired of living as a prisoner? Click below to download our free forgiveness ebook.
Notes:
[1]Dr. Frederick Luskin, Research from Standford University, learningtoforgive.com/ [2]Ibid. [3]Lewis B. Smedes
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Anthony Centore
I want to let go of the love and desire to be with a man that could care less if I died today. When we first go together he had nothing but habits. I helped him through thick and thin and he’s done nothing but made me feel less of a woman than I am now. I helped him get his benefits as well as provided a home for us when he would take off with his friends for weeks. I’m living in the house we shared and when he left I was left with no income and bills behind. I’m so devastated because now I’m having utilities disconnected and nobody to ask for help. Yet, I still think of this man and hope for reconciliation and he has moved on with his life.
Sometimes I wake up in the morning, thinking, I’m a horrible person. Or when I scroll through my Facebook newsfeed, seeing statuses of People who I have burned bridges with in the past. I got fired from my teaching job last March. I had so many other commitments for the two years I worked there, that it was extremely hard to be the dedicated promising teacher I can be. My boss fired me via email while I was on vacation. I was never able to see or communicate with my students again. I have guilt that my students think I have abandoned them. I think about all the things they must say behind my back. I left my nannying job this past month. While I was away on teaching trip abroad, I told the family that I would be gone for 3 weeks…after that, I was too embarrassed and afraid to pick up my phone when the family would call me. She hired another babysitter. Now, I’m terrified to go grocery shopping because I’m afraid of running into this family. I still have two jobs–a teaching job and another nannying job. While at work, I have these moments of complete and utter guilt and I become completely distracted. There has been tension between my boyfriend and I because of it. I’m constantly irritable, defensive and completely stressed.
It’s a lot of stress having all this guilt and knowing I’m wrong.
I just needed to let that out.
I want to let go of the shame and alienation I have been feeling as a result of my past breakup.
In the midst of the breakup, I obviously was very vulnerable and in a lot of emotional pain and opened up to his sister. She is a mental health professional and her and I had already developed a pretty decent relationship. In the midst of the breakup, I obviously trusted her enough to tell her my inner most deep feelings and one of those happened to be suicide.. another happened to be not being able to let go of the relationship because I felt I couldn’t live with out him. (I truly loved this person.) She told him about this e mail. He did not handle it compassionately, or empathetically. Trying to diagnose me with all sorts of personality disorders out there hastily. I hated him forever. It has been just about two years now since we broke up. I feel like I have moved on in every possible way except, I do feel a lot of shame and guilt with my behaviour and lack of coping skills during this breakup. I can’t help but still care about how alienated he has made me out to be to his entire family and all of his friends and for some odd reason, I am terrified to ever see them because they might view me as crazy. I would like to let this feeling go.