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 have suffered from regret for 30 years. I regret the decisions I made when I was a teenager and young adult. I have embarrassment about my actions. I feel like I let myself and my family down because I had a low self esteem and prioritized partying over college and, while never had an addiction, definitely used alcohol in college to hide my fears (low self esteem). Ultimately I ended up dropping out and eventually got my act together in my mid 20’s. I have so much guilt about the person I was. The guilt and regret are eating me alive and I don’t know how to forgive myself and don’t feel that I am living my best life because every single day I run through the “if only..” scenarios. From the outside you would see a highly successful woman with a great family/kids but inside I feel that I am living a lie and not up to my full potential.
-Kim
When I was 20 me and a friend went to pick up a guy friend and I had some sexual contact with this guy friend while I just met another guy I went out with a few times with and he became my husband. I’m now 54 years old and I hate myself for doing that with this guy friend. I ‘very felt shame and guilt for what I really didn’t want to do. Not to say I told my husband who was at the time the guy I met and was dating a few weeks. He was hurt that I did that. I can’t seems to let this go. I feel like such a aweful person!
I have issues controlling my anger. I am a nice person. I know the cause of my anger issues. I just wish I knew a cure. When I feel like it’s been cured, something stressful happens and I fly off the handle. I know anger is a secondary emotion, and my primary emotion is sadness. I am a very sad and scared person that tries hard to appear happy and perky. The only person that may have some idea of how sad I am is my boyfriend. He is the kindest human to me and I have been mean to him on occasion. Recently it got out of hand because I felt that he wronged me, I was hurt by this and I *thought* I wanted him to feel how I felt. I’ve always thought this is what I wanted and usually he is really good at remaining calm and level-headed. This time, my harsh words and harsher tones I used to berate him with, made him cry. It broke my heart. I saw him wiping tears and when I looked at him face on, I realized he was tearing up. Immediately, I stopped everything and just hugged him and apologized and asked him not to cry. I’ve done a lot of bad things but making an innocent man cry really broke my spirit. It’s true whenever you cause harm to someone, you are also bringing harm on yourself and this situation proves that and was also instant karma. It is making me cry typing this. I know he forgives me (i truly hope he does) but I find it hard to forgive myself because I hurt the one person I really love and I don’t understand why. I really hate that I did that and I feel the need to punish myself. I don’t even know why I’m sharing this I just want someone, God, the universe SOMEONE to know and understand how terrible I feel in hurting my loved one and how even though my actions said the opposite, I never want to see this person hurt or crying. I broke my own heart. I guess this wasa lesson for me learned the hard way. I used to think vengeance was the way to go, but now I know, although I may harm someone else, I’m also harming myself more in the process. I wish I could erase what I did. The images of him wiping his tears replays over and over in my head and I want to tell him how sorry I am over and over but sorry means nothing and I guess it’s not his forgiveness I’m seeking it’s my own. I just want to forgive myself so I don’t have to relive making the worst mistake day in and day out. Long story short: I was a true evil bitch to him that day and I hate myself for it.