Forgiveness does not only relate to letting go of the hurt others caused you, it can definitely be letting go of the hurt you have also caused yourself. Awareness is key because realizing or understanding the emotions you’re experiencing is a path to forgiving yourself. According to research, recognizing and categorizing your emotions will help decrease the intensity of your feelings.
While growing up, we are taught to forgive others because it is humane but we barely remember to forgive ourselves. Some people cannot let go of the mistakes they made in the past because they keep judging themselves. That stops healing. Understand that you are human as much as the person next to you, learn to give yourself a break.
It takes more than just letting go of the past and moving on to forgive yourself. Accepting what has happened and being kind to yourself is key. Facing your past and the experiences head on is the first step towards forgiveness and self-healing. It can also be the hardest or most challenging step. It takes a lot of willpower and self-discipline to not just make excuses for your behavior to appear acceptable.
Being compassionate towards others is an absolutely great thing but we need to learn to be self-compassionate also. That helps with embracing and loving ourselves. We should nt lie to ourselves and be compassionate towards our mistakes all the time. We should know the limit to avoid deceiving ourselves. Most importantly, let’s be less self-critical and more self-compassionate.
Allow yourself feel remorseful for your mistakes is another step towards self-regulation. Although, you may have to experience negative emotions, which include shame and guilt, it is absolutely normal to feel remorseful.
Finally, guilt is completely different from shame. Guilt can be very healthy because it signifies that you are a good person but shame makes you perceive yourself as a bad person.
