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 broke my engagement two months back. He was a super good guy and just perfect for me. I still dont know exactly why i broke with him. May be it was stress, fear of commitment or just cold feet. But whatever it was i became reason for hurt and pain for so many people. Now he has moved on with his perfect better half and am really happy for that. But i feel so guilty and regret my actions that it sometimes becomes very hard to digest. I accept that past is past, but somehow i am just not able to forgive myself for what i have done to myself and others.
I regret the story I made up about why, as my parents would eventually (respectively) confess, I was invisible as an infant, child and adolescent. I regret the story I came up with (that I must be intrinsically unlovable) because in believing it, I allowed myself to be haunted by it. And as I haunted myself with this story, I developed a mindset of “not enough.” The not good enough to be noticed mentality comes hand in hand with another troubling state of being, and it’s a governed by one rule: do not become too much. Life was a constant tightrope walk between perfectionism (good enough) and accepting scraps (because to complain would be too much, needing too much, in particular, and cause rejection). So the end all, be all regret is really the defense of that I developed. It’s not particularly uncommon for those who were invisible to their parents, and never held or rocked and told that “it would be okay.” I regret believing the story that I was valueless because it caused me to also believe no one would ever hold on to me, because who would hold on to someone like me? By believing this, I caused others pain. I never held on to some, and I rejected or boxed out others without consciously meaning to as a way to avoid what I thought of as the eventual disappointment I would feel when they, too, would leave me behind. I didn’t allow anyone to love me, either, and it breaks my heart to think about someone offering their kindness as a gift to someone who essentially turned from the giver, leaving the gift unnoticed and unappreciated, unused and still in their outstretched hands. It is a difficult thing to forgive. I guess I realize now that I have no choice; paradoxically speaking, if I want to move forward in life and stop hurting people, I have to forgive myself. And do so by pursuing forgiving values, I guess. The good news is that I can do this; the bad news is I have to live forever with past mistakes. I hope they shrink as I make self forgiving actions now and in the future. I guess I’ll find out if that helps. Until then, thanks so kindly for this outlet.
I was in a complex relationship with a guy for three months before he left to work abroad for seven months. I guarded my heart as I couldn’t allow myself to trust his words and potentially get hurt. There were a lot of red flags with him, I particularly felt like he put me on a pedestal and I didn’t want him to attempt long distance with me thinking I was perfect. Knowing that he hated smoking, after a night out I took a smoke from a stranger. I could tell by the way he looked at me that I had ruined things. I recognised my self-destructive behaviour and feeling brave, I openely admitted to it and we talked. He never quite got over it though, he would bring it up time and time again claiming that my insecurities caused him to question the relationship. No big surprise but it didn’t work out. I wonder what would’ve happened if I hadn’t done that. I was so afriad of him figuring out the real me and leaving that it became a self-fulfilling prophecy. He also made mistakes but will never apologise for anything. I can’t seem to stop blaming myself but I’m choosing now to let it go.