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
It’s been 3 years since I did the worst thing imaginable. I look back and am ashamed and shocked at what I did and hate myself for hurting so many people. I don’t recognize myself when I look back and am finding it so hard to forgive myself and move on. So 3 years ago I was caught having an affair with not just my close friends husband but he was also my husband’s best friend. Me and her became friends first and then her husband and my husband became friends too. We went on holidays together and our kids were close to their kids. Our social life was becoming unhealthy in that it was becoming just us 4 getting together at each other’s houses and getting very drunk and sleeping wherever we fell asleep. He was a bit of a charmer and talked the talk. We got on well and he became more my best friend than she was. I wonder if it was his plan as he was messing about before especially when he worked away. I felt like I was in a bubble with him and I felt so excited at the time. I never stopped to think what I was doing. When we got caught it was the worst time ever. My friend who I had hurt was obviously so angry with me and rightly so hates me. We haven’t spoken since the day she found out. She slapped me and told me to never contact her or her family again. Me and him never spoke again either. He stayed with her even though when he was sleeping with me he was telling me how unhappy he was. They both seem happier now than ever. Me and my husband split for 8 months but got back together. It has taken him until now to accept what I’ve done. I feel I have been punished and everyone has shunned me as my ex friend has told everyone what I done and it was all down to me. I am so sorry for what I’ve done and wonder if because I’ve been punished and judged for what I’ve done for so long I can’t climb out of this black hole
I’ve always had weird problems with time management. I think I might have OCPD. I have to do things in exactly the right order, but life always intrudes and I end up unable to get anything done. This has been the case my whole life, but when I’m happy and satisfied with my life I can figure out ways to cope with it. I may not get anything done before the deadline or in a very timely fashion if there is no deadline, but I can get things done when they really need to be and work out ways to complete what has to be done.
That’s when I’m happy and satisfied with my life. When other things are going wrong, I can’t maintain those kinds of coping skills. I end up getting nothing done and being unable to complete the things that don’t instinctively appeal to me. I fall behind deadlines. I’m not able to do whatever job I’m working at as well as I could potentially do it if I didn’t have these issues. It’s not just regular procrastination – it’s a dedication to a weird, personal ideal that no one else shares or cares about.
I recently left a job that I found tolerable. I wouldn’t say I was happy or satisfied with my life. I had serious issues with getting some things done on time. However, I could tolerate the job. Even if I did some things badly, I knew I was doing other things quite well. My colleagues and superiors respected me and saw me as a very capable employee with some unfortunate weak spots but generally an asset in my position. I was respected enough that I even was offered and took on a mentorship role for others. Plus, I was hardly the only person who couldn’t get things done in that environment, so my struggles seemed like the norm.
I left that job to try a job with a similar title but in a completely different environment, not because I desperately wanted to change my life but simply for family reasons. It ended up being terrible. All sorts of things that I could do adequately in my previous job suddenly started going completely downhill in the new job. There were such different expectations that I didn’t know how to get used to it. I was utterly miserable – and, unsurprisingly, I ended up struggling terribly with my time management. Moreover, there weren’t even any support structures or oversight in this job like there had been in the previous job to keep me anywhere close to on-target. Plus, I seemed to be the only person struggling like this.
There are a lot of valid reasons and excuses why I did a terrible job in my new environment. It truly was a complete culture shock for me and there was nothing rewarding about it. That said, I know that I am to blame in many areas for trying to cover up my flaws. Because I couldn’t get things done on time but didn’t want to publicize how much of a struggle I was having with this, I allowed other things to get worse and did not ask for help. I had a contract for a year – now the year is almost up, and I wasn’t rehired for the following year (and probably don’t deserve to be). But since it’s a year-long contract I am still stuck here for a while and must deal with the fallout of all of the errors that stem from my unwillingness to admit my own flaws or find a way to cope with them.
I know that in the end I made mistakes and there is a lesson for the future I can take away from them. But the problem is that I don’t think the lesson is to fix my time management issues. I know of ways to do that, but not internal methods. The only ways I know of to deal with these problems are to live a life that’s more satisfying, which gives me the mental resources to cope more effectively with my challenges, and to find external structure and support which gives me motivation to overcome my instincts, which I can’t do alone. Those things weren’t possible at this job, and so if I take that perspective not only do I feel I was doomed to failure in this environment but I also think it’s important, despite the fact that it makes my family relationships more difficult, to avoid similar job environments in the future.
Is that okay? Is it just a cop-out to say that the lesson that I’ve learned from this is that I can’t function in this environment? I feel like the big lesson I should learn is to do time management differently, but I can’t. I don’t know how and will never know how. I’ve even started seeing a therapist who says it’s okay to have personal challenges and to know ways to work around them – but I’m confronted by family members who just want to see me learn from these errors to change my own ways. Am I immoral to say that there are limits on the methods I can use to do that? I don’t think I always have to be as completely dysfunctional as I was this year – and I don’t think I’ve always been quite that dysfunctional – but I also need functional methods to create change in myself, and the only methods I have are based on lifestyle and environment, not some kind of effort of personal will. Is that horrible?
I rode my scooter home drunk and feel awful about it. I didn’t hurt anyone or myself, other than getting a small burn on my left while struggling to put the kickstand up… I don’t understand why I did it- I am usually such a cautious person but am worried everyone will find and think I am a horrible person. I can’t stop feeling horrible guilt and shame