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
My shame has been years in the making. I had always been a loner, finding it hard to make friends, so I spent alot of time in the internet. I made my fair-weather friends there and thought I was content. It was my safe space. I then met a wonderful man in a dating side and we married to this day. My shame is that I never really committed to the marriage in the beginning and my internet habits did not diminish. They just became more secretive. He worked late hours and my own working hours were very fluid .. being shift work so I found myself alone all the time. I justified my time online in that I wanted a connection with someone.. anyone one. My husband found the chats and was rightfully hurting. At no time did he get angry, even at the worst. It’s been two years now and we have been working hard on our relationship. I gave up all online time cold turkey, and am very wary of anything that may have an online element to. This is the first forum I’ve posted to and intend to delete the page once I’ve finished my confession.
when i was a child around 9-10 years old, i did sexual things with one of my cousins and a neighbor. at that time i didn’t know what i was doing or what might possibly come out of it, no one was forced into doing things as well, we did it because we were curious and lacked parental supervision when searching the internet. now that i’m almost an adult i can’t help but feel guilt and shame over the things i’ve done and if i knew any better as a kid i wouldn’t have done those things 🙁 they are both doing pretty great now the other one is in a relationship and the other is enjoying life with family and friends, but why am i stuck ? i’m stuck here questioning my self over what i’ve done in the past and i’m also stuck on thinking of my self as some kind of bad person who doesn’t deserve to be happy 🙁 i stopped doing the things i love because of my anxieties and fears i also don’t go out as much or greet friends and family members 🙁 i know there’s plenty of people out there like me who is experiencing guilt from sexual childhood exploration and it’s really hard to just move on 🙁 but i hope that i and those people who still feel guilt and shame from their past will soon be able to move forward and forgive themselves !
I’m turning 18 in a few days so it it has been hitting me a lot more lately, though I’ve struggled with this for a while now . Has I started hitting my prime teenage years I started making bad choices , I slept with many guys (I believe it’s too many for my age ) , I’ve made mistakes at home , I’ve put myself in the spotlight but the spot light wasn’t good . I’ve just done a lot of embarrassing things . My sophomore year of high school is when I had made a major mistake , what I had done landed me in a bad situation that would lead me to be an introvert . After my mistake , it felt like everyone knew , I mean they did . I was hearing about it from other kids at different schools , not even in the same school as me , which really shocked me . I felt like everywhere I went everyone knew who I was and everyone had a made name for me . I just felt so embarrassed, so regretful of what I did . I ended up having trouble finding friends and boyfriends after . I always had felt like it was because they knew what I had done and were always so judgmental about my past mistakes . So it pushed me further down into guilt and regret . After a while I started sticking to myself , I didn’t get on social media as much , I didn’t socialize in school as much either . I figured hiding myself would be the best way to be happy because I feel if I bring myself to the spotlight again , i will hit a memory in someone’s head and they will remember everything I have done again . It didn’t stop there though . When I was a freshman in HS , I would always make fun of other women. Girls i didn’t like you can say . I always tried to fight them for literally no reason , I remember bullying this one girl really bad now when I look back on it . After I became socially distanced I ended up getting bullied for my body . Girls at school would call me bad built , or a bad fraction , because my boobs were bigger than my whole body . I was always a girl who liked to dress up , now I always cover up and try to dress as low as possible in hopes no one notices me or who I am . I haven’t forgiven myself for the things I’ve done , I feel like a hypocrite because I am so big on women lifting eachother up now , and women’s bodies . I feel like people look at me like “oh but she use to bully me “ . I don’t know how to come to terms with what I have done , I don’t know how to forgive myself . I want to , I want to apologize to the girls I use to bully and i want to forgive myself , but i don’t know where to start I don’t know how to let go of the regret I have in myself . I try to push most of it aside by applying for colleges away from my city , i feel like moving where no one knows me and where I can begin fresh is the best thing for me . I want to be social again , I want to have friends again I want to begin dating (nothing serious of course) . But I feel scared . Scared someone is going to know who I am . Like I have a bad social record or something . I want to move on I am ready to move on But I do not know . I feel so unsure about everything . I tend to tell myself I’m happy but when bed time comes around and I’m lying down I think about it all over again and I become unhappy . I always feel so lonely now . I only have about 2 friends , and one of them has moved and the other just works with me , when I feel like I don’t need anymore friends I feel fine like yunno what whatever , I’ll keep my circle small , until I am bored at home and have no one to make plans with . I’ve wanted to start getting into dating but gosh it is so damn hard . Men no a days just want to have sex , and I feel I give in to it too often . I don’t know my self worth u can say . I feel so ugly and worthless , but I feel this is what I deserve for what I have done in the past .