SELF-FORGIVENESS AND SELF-COMPASSION
Forgiveness is a complicated subject and it is something many people struggle with. It can be hard to let go of a past hurt and to start working towards building trust with the other person who caused the hurt. What’s interesting is that we are often quicker to forgive others then ourselves. We can hold on to anger, frustration, and resentment towards ourselves much longer then we do when it comes to others who have caused us pain. Why is it so hard to give ourselves kindness and compassion? I know that for myself that it can be hard to allow my heart to open up and give compassion and kindness to myself, so self-forgiveness can sometimes feel impossible.
What we may view as self-forgiveness is usually a false, pseudo version of self-forgiveness. Have you ever heard of the phrase “forgive and forget”? This is one phrase I have no shame in admitting that I hate, because it’s just so wrong! Forgiving is not “wiping the slate clean” and having no feelings or excusing away what happened. If that’s the way we define forgiveness, I don’t think anyone would be capable of it. There is no way to make your feelings just “go away”, you just have to lie to yourself. Despite how unrealistic “forgive and forget” is, many people will use this approach to “let go” of the negative feelings they have because of mistakes or missteps they have made themselves. We’ll avoid the thoughts and overlook our emotions, maybe even minimize the impact the hurt is causing. This approach often ends up backfiring because we will then start to become even more hard on ourselves and not allowing for any sort of self-compassion. If there is no hurt, then there is no need for self-compassion, right? Well the problem lies in the fact that there is still a hurt, and telling ourselves that we are “fine” when we are not usually does not work out very well.
True self-forgiveness requires us to open our awareness and to acknowledge and take accountability for our missteps. We learn from our past and reflect on what we learned from the experiences where we made a mistake. By doing that we are able to integrate that learning into the way we live or our lives and the choices that we make moving forward. An important step in all of this is acceptance, acceptance of ourselves as who we are, and acceptance of our strengths and out flaws. Once we are able to accept, then we can move forward. We all make mistakes, and if we can learn how to forgive ourselves and show ourselves some compassion, then and only then can we grow. If not we will just end up ruminating and over-fixating on what has happened, and shame will take the place of self-compassion, leaving us feeling stuck and stagnant.
