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
Growing up, I was very rebellious and went about doing a lot things without the blessing of my family. I was in love and went against anything that didn’t allow me to do what I thought was the best, for my relationship. I then later made the saddest mistake of neglecting my daughter through this journey of self-destruction. Needless to say, what I thought was my partner for life and I broke up. Left to pick up all the pieces of all the mistakes I made and people I wronged, mostly, with my family. I was lost, bitter, angry, guilty, in need for love in pain, felt so guilty, self-blaming and in a rut. As a result, I derailed, delving deeper into self-destruction and messing up a lot of things in my life. Then I lost everything. At this point, instead of family being my rock, they gloated in “I told you so.” As a result of this, I took upon a life that would be lived rectifying these mistakes and seeking always to do right by the people I had hurt. All this rebellion impacted heavily upon my relationship with my mom and I lost favour in her eyes. Our relationship was bruised for life. Although, I do feel that she didn’t support me enough in the biggest challenges of my life, like losing my son in 2007 at 15 days and many other heavy challenges, I still felt that I had to win her favour. I’ve come a long way on that journey and have tried to make her believe that I am still her little girl. This attempt seems to not have worked because till this day, I still feel I have so much to prove to her but just can’t find the right way. There is soooooooo much that still goes unnoticed and I remain overlooked in a lot of areas, even at times when I just simply need the nurting of a mom like a little girl. She has sided with so many other encounters that I felt only a mom could solve with my sibilings and simply fuels situations that stand against me instead and disrespect my authority. She further now, stands by my younger brother’s side everytime he displays actions of power and complete disrespect for me, as an older sister. Instead of intervening, she says nothing at all, when things need to put in right order. She overlooks his doings completely and applies no discipline in areas that need to be dealt with, eg my younger brother selling one of her cars without declaring the money back to her, selling the house laptop, without her knowledge, with all important work documents including mine, being robbed by my brother, causing her great setback, protecting my brother when he knocked my toothe out because he got an outbursst by me requesting for the laptop charger that I needed to finish off a deadline for work on the following day, choosing to believe everything my brother feeds her and playing dumb in really pressing sibling issues. All this has gotten me to a point where I feel like, nothing I do will ever rectify how I wronged her. Nothing I do will ever make up for the pain I feel I caused her during my time of destructing, all for the purpose of keeping love. I mean really, I did only half the things my brother does. Never did I set her back ever. Yes, I hurt her but never did I set her back. Maybe it has always been about me having less favour amongst my sibilings because of being the indigo child, the black sheep of the family. All this has brought me here. I’m worn out and surrender. I give up. There are a lot of areas that I immensely need her but I have come to realize that she has no interest in helping me. So much so, that I’m desperately praying to God to grant me my independence back or send me vessels that will be my helpers. All my energy is worn out from seeking her acknowledgement and need for her to be my mommy that I can run to no matter what, needing her guidance as mom. I can’t live my life proving I don’t know what anymore. It hurts everytime it hits me that I will never win her in that way…that I will never experience the warmth of her nurturing like that she gives to my older sister and younger brother. I will never have her involving herself in my life and reminding me that “mommy’s got you”. I want it to stop affecting me and setting me back in my spirituality. I want to overlook her disapproval and the need of always being validated, affirmed, acknowledged, praised and supported by her. I want to continue with my life in such a way that I can move on whether she’s for me or against. I want to stop making decisions and living my life in fear that my mom will never approve or be in favour of whatever decision I make. I want her judgements and actions to not touch a thing in me, to literally bounce off and never effect me like it does now. I want my. independence from her. I wanna move on, having forgiven myself from the pain I think I caused. I don’t want to be indepted to her anymore. I want to release the power she has over my worthiness or lack thereof. I want to let go of how this pain of her chosing not to be involved in my life, hurts me. I want to move away from feeling like the way she treats me is all my karma and I deserve it. I want to move away from feeling so unworthy to her. I want to stop feeling like I have no right to other things, to feel other things or to express other things. I want to stop fearing expressing my emotions, lest I am sarcastically deemed as “you’re a fine one to talk after everything you have put me through”. I m back my power and cut the chord. I never want to feel the way I do right now and I want to find way to communicate all this pain to her, without rebeling, without being deemed as disrespectful and rather being respected for having communicated all this in a way that will reach out to her. I can’t feel this pain no more. It sets me back terribly. I want to LET IT GO and remain content, blessed and happy in how I have done it all.
I want to let go of the anger I feel towards me for letting people treat me the way they do…I’m feeling guilty after I lash out on someone that doesn’t have anything to do with ,y problem at the moment, I hate that. I hate the guilt I feel, I hate it – it isn’t that I can’t let go , I just don’t want to – and I realise that I have to , in my head if I let go of the anger that’s a sigh of weakness and if I let go I won’t make them pay…
three separate abortions. Somehow I feel I must be punished for interrupting 3 lives and for the past 18 years that’s what I have done, except, that I don’t live in an island by myself,so everyone near me gets punished too, one way or another. Somehow, I can forgive with loving compassion friends who have had abortions, but not me, and self forgiviness is becoming a necessity because I feel as if I can self destroy.
Thank you