How to Practice Self Forgiveness

Holding on to unfavorable situations raises your stress level and reduces your overall enjoyment of life. It makes you feel bitter, furious, and agitated. It is critical that you learn to adapt, fix your mistakes, and develop from unfavorable experiences. To be able to do this, you must be able to forgive yourself for whatever mistakes or wrongdoings you may have committed.

What is the difference between self-forgiveness and self-compassion?

Self-forgiveness is frequently confused with self-compassion. Self-compassion is distinct from but related to self-forgiveness. The three characteristics of self-compassion are:

Be kind to yourself. People are not flawless, so why should they be? When things are difficult and do not go as planned, those who practice self-compassion recall this. They accept the reality of flaws and are kind and compassionate to themselves.
Humanity was shared. Everyone faces difficulties in life. As unforeseen occurrences arise, everyone will experience painful emotions or have to handle problems. Giving yourself compassion entails not believing that you are the only one on the planet who is going through these things.
Mindfulness and clarity. People can feel uneasy when they are experiencing bad feelings. They will frequently exaggerate or minimize these sentiments. It is a sign of self-compassion to be able to clearly sit with these emotions and perceive them for what they are.

Self-compassion differs from self-forgiveness in that self-forgiveness is a method of reconciling how you perceive yourself after experiencing guilt, shame, and disappointment. These sensations occur when you do anything that causes you to question your self-image. As a result, it is a component of self-compassion.

Self-Forgiveness Methods

You may occasionally do something that contradicts your own perspective of yourself. And it might be difficult to reconcile with yourself when you do something that harms you or others. Here are some suggestions for practicing self-forgiveness internally:

Consider the past

Consider a period in your life when you felt safe and cared for someone. It could be a friend, relative, teacher, mentor, spiritual figure, or a pet.

Visualize yourself being safe and secure around them. Allow yourself to feel safe. Then, with the help of your protector, make a list of all of your positive traits.

Remember the occasion

Next, accept the facts about what you need to forgive yourself for. Consider the precise occurrence and how it made you feel. Take note of what is difficult to face.

Make a list of everything that happened and categorize it into three categories: moral flaws, incompetence, and everything else.

Moral flaws necessitate regret or remorse, whereas unskillfulness necessitates rectification, such as resolving to never repeating certain conduct.

Don’t try to avoid feeling guilty

It is normal and healthy to feel awful about doing something bad. What remains after we remove the negative sensations associated with wrongdoing? There is, however, a distinction between shame and guilt.

Shame is accompanied by protective feelings such as denial, avoidance, and aggression. It is not useful to tell yourself that you are a nasty person at heart and to feel guilty about it.

You may not believe you can change as a result. However, feeling guilty about your acts can help you avoid repeating them.

Accept responsibility

You can’t forgive yourself unless you own up to what you did, both to yourself and to the person you hurt. Tell them, and yourself, that you accept responsibility for what you did. Accept completely that you did whatever you did.

Attempt to remediate the damage

It may be difficult for you to really forgive yourself if you believe you haven’t done enough to make amends. Perhaps this entails providing financial assistance, fixing the property, or simply apologizing to someone.

Empathize with people other than yourself

It has been discovered that people struggle with self-forgiveness when they have empathy for the other party involved. It is common for people to experience tension. However, without compassion for both yourself and the other person, self-forgiveness can be hollow and meaningless.

These suggestions are difficult to implement, but so is true self-forgiveness. It will almost certainly be a long journey with troughs and peaks. You may never completely let go of your bad emotions. Self-forgiveness does not have to be self-indulgent, but rather a clear assessment of your capacity for doing good and ill.