There will always be times when we will do things that go against our values and beliefs. These things are what we call mistakes; and damn, this shit can sometimes be very hard to move on from. It can make mirrors very unpleasant to look into, sitting with yourself very uncomfortable, and facing consequences a quite daunting task. The good news is: It’s okay. There are probably a few reasons why this is sometimes the case, and knowing them can make it easier for you to maneuver guilt and finally make it to truly forgiving yourself. Below are some of the most common.
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#1 You think of yourself on a continuum.
Thinking of yourself on a continuum means you think that you are not just the person you are today, but also the one you were yesterday and the one you will be in the future. It means you allow your past to define you, and your future to be weighed down by all the expectations you have of yourself. The problem with this is that it goes against a very important fact: The fact that the only real constant in life is change. The choices you made yesterday aren’t necessarily the ones you will make today, and your perspective of certain things today is very likely to be different tomorrow. Quite understandably, letting go of especially the past can feel like you’re releasing a part of yourself. It is, however, also very liberating to know that with every experience, every new choice, and every decision to reroute, you are reincarnated into a novel you. Grasping this makes it a whole lot easier for you to unchain yourself from the guilt of what you’ve done and give it the chance to do better the next time.
#2 You struggle with self-love.
Struggling with self-love comes in many shapes and forms. It can mean being too harsh on yourself and allowing your inner voice to be extremely critical of you. This kind of negative self-talk can be so deeply rooted that it takes away your ability to have any compassion for yourself. Without this compassion, you will always find it hard to show an understanding of the fact that you are human, and that mistakes are a normal part of that. Even worse, struggling with self-love can cause you to be too dependent on other people’s opinions of you, believing that you are worthy of love only if they think well of you. Hence, when you make a mistake, you might find yourself dwelling upon how others would view you if they knew about it. This can cause you to start judging yourself as they potentially would, leaving you unable to move on from a mistake because you’ve — unjustifiably so — attached it to your identity.
#3 The consequences are still haunting you.
You might have hurt a person you love, and now they won’t forgive you. Or you might have hurt yourself and are still struggling to heal. Whatever the case, when the consequences of a mistake still won’t let you go, you are very likely to fall into a loop of regret that makes it hard to forgive yourself. Facing these consequences can be quite daunting, and it can, in some cases, even make you hate yourself for getting yourself here in first place. What you usually need to do here is to fully accept the situation as it is and then to try to make the necessary amends, if possible. Acceptance in such cases may bring along pain, but it’s important to realize here that no emotion is permanent, and that getting through the pain will only help you come out on the other side without the burden of regret.
#4 It’s not the first time.
When you’ve repeatedly made the same mistake, you are likely to keep questioning how you fell for it…again. Though you had acknowledged it as a mistake the first time already, you still did it again. This might leave you feeling extremely frustrated as you start to blame yourself for how nothing has changed. What you need to know here, though, is this: It’s okay. It happens. Learning is not linear, and it takes time. The same mistake can sometimes come disguised as another. It may have been harder to spot the second time. The circumstances are barely ever quite the same. While it’s definitely important to be accountable enough to acknowledge that you’ve repeated something that goes against your values, it’s also important that you treat yourself with enough compassion as you do.
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You see, the journey towards self-forgiveness may not be the easiest, and it does take a whole lot of work to accept the parts of yourself that you deem unacceptable. With enough self-love and self-compassion, though, it is absolutely possible and I do promise that the view on the other side is a whole lot brighter. The only question is: Are you willing to get there?
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This post was previously published on medium.com.
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