Hello everyone and welcome back to my blog. I hope everyone is feeling great. February was all about new adventures, new beginnings, new blessings but also new article on Karo’s blog. I hope you took some time to focus on yourself and made this month special.
We often hear people talk about forgiveness. We often see or hear quotes like “I forgive but I don’t forget”. Some people refuse to forgive altogether, one mistake and they cut you off forever. But today my question for you guys is this one : “Have you forgiven yourself?” You might wonder “forgive myself for what?”. Hear me out, I’ll help you understand what that means.
What is self forgiveness?
Forgiveness means that you accept the behavior, you accept what has happened, and you are willing to move past it and move on with your life without ruminating over past events that cannot be changed.
Nolen-Hoeksema S, Wisco BE, Lyubomirsky S. Rethinking rumination. Perspect Psychol Sci. 2008;
In other words, self-forgiveness is about accepting that you were wrong. Accepting that what is done is already done and there’s nothing you can do about it. It’s about letting go, accepting that we all make mistakes and forgetting.
Basically when you forgive yourself you stop thinking about a past situation and stop blaming yourself for how it turned out. Most of the times, we focus more on blaming ourselves for what someone did to us. “I should’ve seen this coming. Why was I so dumb? How did I fall in the trap? Why I didn’t do this/that instead?” You made a mistake, so what? Self forgiveness is all about feeling good.
In an article written by Kendra Cherry, I found something interesting called the 4 Rs of self forgiveness : Responsibility, Remorse, Reparation, and Renewal. I’m going to use them to explain the process of self forgiveness.
1. Responsibility.
What happens when you decide to ask for forgiveness? You accept that you were wrong and you come forward to own your mistake. To forgive yourself you need to accept that you were wrong, let go of the illusion, and take responsibility. Forgiveness is not only about letting go and putting the past behind us, but it’s more about facing what happened and understanding your part in it. If you keep trying to justify what you did, you will never let go.
2. Remorse.
Now that you’ve accepted the reality, you will face some negative emotions and feelings : guilt, shame, anger… It’s normal, embrace them. Don’t push them away. Allow yourself to feel those emotions. Cry, scream, run, pray… do anything you can to free yourself from the pain. You will feel like a bad person but understand that everyone can change so why not you. You’re bigger than your emotions.
3. Reparation.
Third step in the self forgiveness process consists of repairing the damage caused. How would you ask someone to forgive you? You’d probably buy them a gift, cook their favorite dish or just do something nice for them right? Well why don’t you do it for yourself? When was the last time that you actually did something for you? Something to make you feel good? Think about that.
4. Renewal.
When you make mistakes, you should always look for ways to prevent yourself from doing the same thing again. That’s why we always ask what have you learned from a bad experience. What were the lessons. Now that you’ve forgiven yourself, how can you grow as a person? Sadly I cannot answer this question for you but I can tell you that a good way to become a new version of you is to understand why you behaved the way that you did.
That’s it for today. Thank you for stopping by. I hope you had fun reading my article as much as I had fun writing it. Until we meet again stay safe and be blessed…. always! Xoxo!!!