How To Forgive Yourself

To err is human, to forgive is divine!’ No other phrase can be truer than this. A human being is born with both negative as well as positive sides. All of us have hurt people, deliberately or accidentally, at one time or the other and later have felt guilty about it too. To realize is everything; when you realize what misdoings you have performed in the past, you are more aware of yourself. It gives you a better insight into the kind of person you are. We are sometimes so busy in a phase of life and sometimes so engrossed with our own needs and wants that we end up neglecting or hurting people around us. Although it is not a conscious act but still you end up feeling regret and remorse––that regret and remorse is everything as it makes you realize how as human beings you do not even have control over yourself, forget about control over others and your surroundings. Therefore, making mistakes is an important spiritual lesson that each one of us learn in our lives. The important thing is to learn from it to not make the same mistake again. But you have to forgive yourself for making those mistakes; you cannot hang on to it for the rest of your life. It is sometimes not an easy process if it has involved a great loss or hurt that has come from you. But, you can take a step everyday towards forgiving yourself. If you are struggling with the moral battle of whether to forgive yourself or not or how to forgive yourself, you have come to the right article. Read on.

 

The first step towards forgiving yourself is to realize that you are a human being and not God. Making mistakes is a part of growing up. In fact, we learn most of the lessons in our life by making mistakes and then correcting them. It teaches you that you do not have control over your environment and fortunately/unfortunately, you sometimes do not even have control over yourself. Even if you have committed a mistake intentionally and later on you realized the full intensity of what you have done, it is good enough. We sometimes get carried away but to ultimately realize it is the real deal in life.

Seeking forgiveness from the person, whom you have hurt in the process, will help you in forgiving yourself too. Saying ‘sorry’ eases the burden of guilt and makes you feel much lighter from inside. It helps you to understand that what you have done is not irrevocable and has not caused a permanent damage. But in case you are not granted forgiveness from the person whom you have wronged, you have to try and move forward from the incident without that person’s gracious forgiveness. You have to tell yourself that it might take a while, may be a lifetime, for that person to see the whole incident or your mistake from your point of view; but your responsibility in the meanwhile is to be fair to yourself and move past it.

 

If possible, try correcting your mistake. Undoing the wrong that you have done will make you feel much better about yourself. Try to bring a smile on the face of the person you have ended up hurting. It will make you smile again too. Never leave an opportunity to fix something. If you have to go out of your way to mend the things that you have wronged, go out of the way. This will bring a lot of peace to your soul and you will stop tormenting yourself with guilt and regret.

 

Accept yourself for what you are. At times, we fail to live up to other people’s expectations (like our parents, partner or children) and end up feeling guilty about it. Nobody in this world is perfect and this holds true for you as well. You will always make mistakes no matter how conscientious you are; somebody will always be left behind and end up getting hurt. You cannot please everyone in your life and although you should take out time in your life to wait and feel regret over what you did and whom you hurt, you cannot blame yourself forever for it. You have to find a way to move on from there and try and lead your life in a much more aware way.  

 

Remember that even God forgives those people who realize their mistakes and try to undo them or prevent them from happening again. When God has forgiven you, you can easily forgive yourself too. If you are not finding it easy to logically forgive yourself then turn to religion or spirituality. Sometimes the knowledge about who we are and the greater sense of life and its real purpose can bring ease to our minds suffering with regret and agony.