Forgiving others is not always easy. When someone hurts you, it may take great strength (and maturity) to breathe deeply, put your ego aside, and accept a sincere apology. But what if the person you need to reassure is, uh, yourself? Many of us are too self-critical and it can be really, really hard to forgive ourselves for making a mistake or hurting someone.
Maybe you have already asked someone else for forgiveness, but you don’t know how to get rid of the guilt. Or maybe you need to forgive yourself for an annoying pattern that’s doing more harm in your life than you’d like (please someone?). Maybe you’re even wondering how to forgive yourself for something terrible, whether you actually committed an extremely unacceptable offense or your brain is turning a minor incident into a story that evokes more shame than it does. Deserves that.
Whether you made a few careless comments at a wedding and are now on the wrong side of a potential breakup with a friend, or you’re tired of never standing up for yourself, ending your relationship can feel downright impossible. self-condemnation and let this shit go. And you can’t even understand Why it’s so hard to forgive yourself for past mistakes, no matter how ready (or think you are) to let go of the burden of carrying those feelings of guilt with you.
Often, « the reason it can be difficult for some people to move on to forgiveness is that it’s not just a single event, » Courtney Cope, LMFT, senior clinical operations manager at the therapy platform on line BetterHelp, says SELF. Whether it’s forgetting a friend’s birthday, for example, or a bigger transgression like cheating on a partner, « the event triggers other negative emotions, and then the person will start to memory all things they did wrong, » she said.
Cope adds that resorting to shame, blame, or anger when you make a mistake can all fuel the struggle to forgive yourself. No matter what thoughts or feelings you’ve been stuck in, we hope the expert advice below will help you forgive yourself and move on (because you deserve it).
1. Affirm your ability to forgive yourself.
If you can barely think about what you’ve been doing without needing to quickly focus on something else – or if it sends you into a spiral of pointless, repetitive thoughts about the situation – that’s all right. normal, says Cope. As a result, « people struggling with self-forgiveness may experience depression, anxiety, or insomnia, and in more extreme examples, this may culminate in self-harm or self-medication with materials ».
When what you’ve done (or haven’t done) weighs heavily on your mind, self-forgiveness can seem unachievable, which is why you tell yourself that you can overcoming this is an important step in the healing process, Fanny Tristan, LSCW-R, a New York-based therapist, tells SELF. “Start by asking yourself: Do I believe in my ability to improve? Change and improve myself, while recognizing that I have flaws like everyone else? Tristan recommends. Even if your brain responds with a resounding « NO », challenging your negative thoughts in this way can help you begin to see the possibility of self-forgiveness, which is necessary to really begin. stock that, she said.
2. Treat yourself like a best friend.
“When we’ve done something that’s out of our moral comfort zone, we often start to blame ourselves, which doesn’t really help. So we have to practice a lot of self-compassion,” Emily Jamea, PhD, LMFTsays SELF.
