Why Is It That the Person We Find Hardest To Forgive Is Ourselves?

We give people so many chances, and often ignore, or at least accept their faults as parts of who they are. When they make mistakes, we tend to forgive them, as long as they admit guilt, apologize, and hopefully promise to learn from it and not make that mistake again. Even when others hurt us, a sincere apology and clear communication are typically all it takes to earn our forgiveness.

To be clear, I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with that. Yes, we should set boundaries to protect people from hurting us or taking advantage. But even with healthy boundaries, forgiveness is still necessary. Holding onto pain, blame and anger does not help anyone or solve anything. In fact, it hurts you more than anyone else because it’s keeping you feeling bad, which puts you on a low vibrational frequency. If you are feeling and vibing low, you are attracting more low vibrations into your life. The goal is feeling good, and forgiveness is essential to get there.

Essential? Really, are you sure? Yes, I’m sure. Forgiveness is the only way to overcome all of the trauma in your past that has created emotional blockages inside of you. How do I know you’ve had trauma? Cause we all have, in one form or another. The truth is, suffering is part of the human experience. We are living this life for the purpose of growth, whether you know it or not. Every human being experiences highs and lows in life, and in our modern society, very few of us are taught how to properly understand and cope with the ups and downs.

The worst part of it all is that the person we have the most trouble forgiving is ourselves. Admit it, you nitpick and overthink about your faults far more than you do about anyone else’s. You replay your own mistakes in your mind much more often than other people’s. When you hurt someone, you hate yourself more than you could ever hate them, even if they hurt you too.

So back to the question I started with:

Why is it that the person we find hardest to forgive is ourselves?

Since there are a lot of ways we could respond to this question, I’m going to have a little fun and discuss some possible replies that are NOT the correct answer. Feels like a little tribute to my book about dating, How NOT to Date.

You are NOT the worst ever. I promise.

I don’t care why you think you’re the worst. You’re not. Whether you’re lazy or ugly or anxious or irritable or grumpy or lonely or sad or angry or dramatic or mean, or whatever, that does not make you a terrible person. If you’re reading this article, you are more than likely a good person who is trying to improve and is more than a little hard on yourself. But you are not the problem!

The problem is, our society doesn’t prepare us to be our best selves. As a former high school teacher, I can tell you honestly that there are some serious holes in our education system. First and foremost, we are not taught emotional intelligence, which is essential for living an enjoyable life and reaching our full potential. Most people don’t really learn it at home either, because our parents are uneducated in this too.

We have to forgive ourselves and others for not knowing what we weren’t taught. It’s not your fault. Our society is setting us up for failure. Not only are they not teaching us how to understand and cope with our emotions, but they are also teaching us a whole bunch of ideas that are both incorrect and limiting our potential. We are being fed endless information as distractions in order to hide the truth of our power. If you want to dive deeper into this topic, you might like the article below.

We need to face our emotions to discover the meaning behind them so that we can understand the message.You are a beautiful human, perfect in your imperfection. You were taught to be imperfect, and you are meant to be imperfect, in order to spend your whole life growing. Forgive yourself for the past and all that was beyond your control so you can love yourself right now in the present.

Your past mistakes are not who you are.

If you can’t forgive yourself because of the mistakes you made in the past, please realize those mistakes do not define who you are. Every human on the planet makes mistakes because it is part of the human experience. The thing is, it’s the mistakes themselves that make us better. Because when it hurts, we learn.

Just like the child who learns the hard way not to touch the stove when it’s hot. They get burned and it hurts, but they learn a lesson so that they will never get burned by this ignorance ever again. Every time we learn a hard lesson, we have the chance to become a new person. We call this learning the hard way.

But what if we could learn the easy way? It would be nice if society had taught us this early on, but there’s still hope. The universe is giving you a chance to choose the easy way in every single choice you make. The universe is giving you test after test, and each one is an opportunity for growth, or another chance to learn. It’s up to you to decide which. Either way you will grow, but one way will be smooth and exciting, while the other will be slow and painful. Put more eloquently,
You make the moment, or the moment makes you.

It is up to you to choose who you will become in each and every moment. The past dictates nothing, unless you allow it to. The past is who you were, not who you are. Who you are is up to you in every decision you make right now in the present.

As adults, we tend to beat ourselves up for our mistakes over and over, but take forever to shift our behavior to improve. We suppress our emotions, ignore them, become numb to them, or we feel so overwhelmed with all we’re holding in until eventually we explode into a full-blown breakdown. If any of this sounds like you, I highly recommend this article.

If you numbed yourself to the pain of a mistake, then it’s probably still there, waiting for you to learn the lesson so you can finally let it go. The universe tends to keep teaching us the same lesson over and over until we finally learn it and change our behavior. So if you are stuck in a cycle of pain and you don’t understand why you can’t escape, again, the answer is forgiveness.

The correct answer is… We want better for ourselves.

The only real reason it should be hard to forgive yourself is that you want better for yourself in the future. But guess what? That’s really just another reason that you need to forgive yourself. Because your future depends on how you feel! Feeling strength, hope and gratitude will allow us to enjoy our lives and achieve our goals much more than guilt, shame or anger.

You must forgive yourself in order to find the strength to truly face all of your past trauma, in order to look at it closely, learn the valuable lesson the universe is trying to teach you, and then forgive yourself in order to let it go.

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You must forgive yourself for every mistake you made before you learned how to stop. You didn’t know better. You had to go through that pain in order to learn. Forgive yourself for not knowing for so long. No one taught this to you in a way that made you understand.

Until now. I hope now you understand.

I’m hoping you realize that your pain is a decision. Nobody else can choose to forgive you or heal you or save you. You must save yourself. And the first step is forgiveness.

Healing is a painful process, but so is living a painful life. Instead of suffering forever in a cloud of guilt and ignorance, allow yourself to face your past trauma with the intention of forgiveness and healing. Don’t let the past keep you stuck in a low vibration. Cope with negative energy and let it go, so you can rise up into the healed version of who you are meant to be.

If you need support, I’m here for you. You can schedule a reiki healing or coaching session on my website. Or you can join the Read-for-Read club via the article below to connect with our little community of supportive writers and readers.

Last but not least, you can read more of my articles about healing here on Medium. If you’re not already a member, feel free to sign up with my referral link below to support me and my writing. Thanks for reading! Sending love and light on your journey of healing!

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This post was previously published on medium.com.

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