Can you ever forgive yourself?
Okay, you did it. You spent half the month’s food budget on the ashoebi for the wedding, didn’t get to your daughter’s school to watch her in the play ll the second act, did not get your mom to your house when she was sick, and absolutely refused to let your sister in law’s daughter visit, and, when the dog’s barking got on your nerves, you, you awful person!, you looked around, saw none of your kids and you let it outside where it was promptly hit by a car.
God may forgive you. But how on earth are you ever going to forgive yourself? Yikes! It’s tough to forgive yourself. Your family and friends would never forgive you if they knew half of what you do. Unfortunately, you know the whole. And the sheer awfulness of it rocks you with guilt and sinks you with shame.
Amazingly, the biggest obstacle to self- forgiveness may be the tendency we have to wallow in our own guilt. “It’s not just that we feel bad because we know we’ve done wrong,” says an expert. Everybody does that. But some of us actually draw those bad feelings around ourselves like a blanket, cover our heads, and refuse to stop the wailing.
If that sounds nuts to you, you’re not alone. Wailing should be reserved for the vicm, not the perpetrator, right? But some of us try to use those bad feelings like a talisman to ward off the consequences of our actions, says the expert. We curl up in a ball and say, “Hey! Look how bad I feel! See how I’m suffering! I’m pitiful! I’m pathetic! I can’t be punished any more than this; it
wouldn’t be fair!”
It’s a crazy form of penance. Instead of taking responsibility for what we’ve done by trying to repair the damage or make things right, many of us unconsciously decide, mea culpa, to punish ourselves by feeling miserable for the rest of our lives.
It’s not just about you. Unfortunately, the decision to feel miserable for the rest of your life can have tragic consequences. And not always in obvious ways. For one thing, misery loves company. “If you keep beating yourself up, then the person who tries to love you is going to get beat up too,” explains the expert. It’s inevitable. Anyone who’s wallowing in guilt is going to be more withdrawn, more critical, and less open than they normally would. So whoever’s around, your spouse, your children, your parents, your friends, is going to suffer right along with you.
Nor does the suffering stop with those around you. Mind affects body in a zillion interconnecting ways, and those guilty feelings you’re nurturing are generating chemicals that are headed straight for your vital organs. They increase your heart rate, raise your blood pressure, disrupt your digestion, tense your muscles, dump cholesterol into your bloodstream, and reduce your ability to think straight. And every me you remember what you did and wince, those bad feelings give you a fresh hit of corrosive chemicals.
It’s no wonder that studies on forgiveness have led scientists to suspect that those who have difficulty forgiving are more likely to experience heart aacks, high blood pressure, depression, and other ills.
The healing power of forgiveness “Forgiveness is a tool with which we face what we’ve done in the past, acknowledge our mistakes, and move on,” says the expert. It does not mean that you condone or excuse what
happened. It does not mean that you forget. Remember the saying, ‘For everything there is a season’? Well, there’s a season for our suffering and regret. We have to have that. But the season ends; the world moves on. And we need to move on with it.” Here are ways to do it:
Categorize the offense “Most of us find it hard to forgive ourselves when we’ve done one of four things,” says Dr. Luskin.
- You fail at some major life task such as making your marriage work.
- Your actions have hurt someone else.
- You’ve hurt yourself by the way you’ve led your life: drinking or doing something else that’s self-
destructive.
- You didn’t do something you thought you should, such as intervene in a family dispute or send your child to university.
Categorizing the offense begins the forgiveness process, it allows you to break down what you did, look at it, get a little distance, and begin healing.
Understand what you want. You don’t necessarily want to reconcile with the person you hurt, but if you can, why not, nonetheless, you just want to get rid of the shame, release the blame, and feel calm and whole at your center.
Recognize unrealistic expectations. Most of us have a set of unconscious rules hovering in the back of our minds about how we expect ourselves to behave. But those rules, many of which we’ve absorbed in childhood rather than actually thought about, are not always realistic. So give yourself a fighting chance by not always aiming to be the ideal.
Identify the hurt. Realize that the hurt feelings, guilty thoughts, and tummy tightening stress you feel whenever you think of your offense is what’s actually making you feel bad – not what you did 2 minutes or 10 years ago, says the expert. It’s your reacon to it today that’s causing a problem. It’s a habit that has to go.
Hit the stop button. Replaying what you did over and over again in your head isn’t going to help you or the person you hurt. It just makes you feel bad. So every me you catch yourself ruminating on your sins, stop, and refocus your attention on something more positive.
Sorry! When you can’t forgive yourself because of something you’ve done to someone else, sometimes all it takes is a sincere apology to make things right. Apologies are most effective if made in person, of course. But if that’s not possible, consider wrapping your apology in a little humor.
Make it right. To make amends, you look for a way to be kind to those you have hurt. Even if the person you hurt is dead or otherwise absent from your life, you can still make things up by providing a kindness to someone else. Think you were a bad parent? Okay, you can’t go back and change things now, but can you go out of your way to be an outstanding grandparent? “Do good rather than feel bad,” says the expert. Not only will you forgive yourself, but doing so will turn your life around in ways that you can only imagine.
Lose the Wicked Witch thing. Once you’ve made amends, it’s me to stop telling yourself the old story in which you’re the Wicked Witch of the West. Start telling yourself a new story: a heroic story in which, despite your human frailties, you do everything in your power to be a forgiving person
Put things in perspective. Once a day, think of all the kind and loving things you’ve done today alone:, the crying child you distracted so its mother could eat her lunch, the destitute gave some money and a smile, the new staff in your office that everybody is ignoring that you invited to join the bunch for lunch. Think about it for very long, and you’ll realize that you’ve become one amazing person!
Give yourself a break! Feeling bad about things you’ve done in the past can create a prey painful present. So while you’re learning how to forgive yourself and move on, give your mind and body a break from all the shame and guilt by replacing them with gratitude, and as you wake each morning, give thanks for your breath and the gvei of your life.
After all, it’s so much better to do good than to feel bad.
