LEARNING TO FORGIVE YOURSELF

ITS HIGH TIME YOU FORGAVE YOURSELF

Have you ever thought of making some hideous mistakes in the past later to end up saying 'had I known' ? Have you ever wished you took a particular step at one crucial point in your life? We all have. Everyone has that one thing about their past they could never bring themselves to tell anyone. Or, if they have, maybe one or two people ever.

It’s that one thing you don’t know if you could ever forgive yourself for. It shames you.

Just thinking about that mistake either words or actions will make you never want to forgive yourself then you seek an escape route in a different task or a sudden urgent thought. Something else to distract you.

But hey!, you don't need to beat yourself up, there are 7 billion people in this world and mistakes are only human. they abound for us to learn and make us better persons. However, here are a few points i would want you to consider on how to deal with any form of self guilt:

Emancipation From Guilt

Often we feel guilty for things we don’t necessarily feel bad for. Usually it’s one of those beliefs you've just picked up from the world around you, but you don’t understand it.

This is not what we’re talking about today (although that’s an important topic on A Life on Your Terms and you can read more about it here). Today, we’re talking about actions you've decided you definitely deserve to feel guilty about.

The easy thing to do is to berate and torture yourself for the rest of your life because you feel like you deserve it. Maybe you do, maybe you don’t. Either way, that’s the easy thing to do.

Suffering is easy. It’s all over the place. Every time I turn a corner, I run smack dab right in the middle of some suffering.

Achieving and sustaining happiness and peace is much harder.

The answer is not to condemn yourself to a life of self-inflicted pain. The answer is to emancipate yourself from guilt.

Emancipation Step 1: Acknowledge Your Actions Without Excuses

If you thought I was going to tell you it’s okay that you did what you did, you’re sadly, woefully, hugely mistaken. Emancipation has nothing to do skirting responsibility.

You need to acknowledge that you did what you did, whatever it might be. You did it. Not some impostor or evil twin.  Stop ignoring it or denying your participation in your actions.

For me, this means saying that I had sex with more boys from the age of 12-14 years old than I can count or than I could even remember. I violated a sacred value  and I annihilated my own integrity by my own actions.

Emancipation Step 2: Acknowledge Your Actions To Those You've Hurt

In this case, I didn't really harm anyone other than myself, so I’ll have to give you another example.

When I was fifteen, I some kind of demon awakened inside of me, and I became the worst, most disrespectful child ever to live. There’s no room to get into the why of this particular horror, but just know I've gone through this process for the terrible actions I committed during this time.

Make Up For Your Actions

For my actions, I needed to make it up to myself. I needed to gain back my own integrity, and I did that by reclaiming my virginity (mentally) and promising to fiercely protect it for the rest of my life.

I've done a pretty good JOB of that.

For you, it might be returning that money you stole, minimizing the damage done by a lie, paying for the car you crashed, etc. Do what you can to make amends. This is your responsibility, so don’t expect gratitude (although most people are so good that they’ll give it to you).

Emancipation Step 4: Choose Learning & Growth Over Self-Condemnation & Contempt

This step takes place throughout every other step and continues until you’ve forgiven yourself for your actions.

You need to learn and grow from what you did or you’ll just do it all over again. Guilt is toxic to your self-esteem, and happiness is hard to come by if you feel shitty about yourself.

Similarly, easy as it maybe to hold yourself in contempt and condemn yourself, it’s not conducive to peace and happiness which is what you deserve.

In the case of guilt and regret, to grow, we must seek to understand our actions so we can make a commitment to do it differently the next time.

Understand why you did what you did.

It’s important to remember that we, as humans who want to live, are always acting out of our self-interests. What we choose to do may be objectively wrong, but, subjectively, we’re only trying to take care of ourselves. 

This is vitally important to understand and is the crux to understanding our actions and developing compassion for ourselves.

Ask yourself in what ways you were trying to look after yourself when you did whatever it is you regret. There is always an answer to this question (unless what you did was a complete and total accident).

Maybe you were taking actions to avoid pain, discomfort, or some other kind of hurt?

Again, how were you trying to take care of yourself? In what way can you do it differently next time?

Moving Forward

I know it feels impossible right now, but you can move forward and past whatever it is you feel like you can’t forgive yourself for.

I also know you may not want to move forward.

You may feel what you've done is so terrible that moving forward would be too good for you. Maybe you want to punish yourself. Unless you've done something unspeakable like raped or murdered someone, you’re taking the easy way out.

You’re also taking the path that propagates the kind of behavior you’re punishing yourself for in the first place. Less integrity leads to acting with less integrity which is followed by a further diminished integrity and self esteem.

So if you really want to make up for it you have to learn from it and resolve to stopping the behavior for good. That takes time, understanding, compassion  and forgiveness.

If you think you’re a wretch, and treat yourself like one, you’ll act like a wretch.

If you think you’re a good person who made a mistake, you’ll act like a good person who made a mistake; which is, in fact, what you are.

BC.