Saturday 30 October 2010

It's National Forgiveness Day. How to Forgive Yourself

It's National Forgiveness Day. How to Forgive Yourself

Forgiving yourself can be much harder than
forgiving someone else. When you're carrying
around a sense of blame for something that has
happened in the past, this bundle of negativity
burrowing deep into yourself can cause a
never-ending, pervasive sense of unhappiness.
Forgiving yourself is an important act of moving
forward and releasing yourself from the past.
It's also a way of protecting your health and
general well-being. Here are some suggestions on
how to forgive yourself.

!! Steps !!

You can't patch up your heart foreverUnderstand the importance of
forgiveness. Living in a state of being unable to forgive
requires a lot of energy. You are constantly chewed up by fear of
your vulnerability, burning with anger with the source of pain,
and living with the constancy of sadness, hurt, and blame. This
energy deserves to be put to better use, so that your creativity
and abilities are fed, not your negativity. Forgiveness also
allows you to live in the present instead of the past, which
means that you can move into the future with a renewed sense of
purpose focused on change, improvement, and building on
experience rather than being held back by past hurts.

* Some people are afraid to forgive themselves because they fear
losing their sense of self that has been built on the back of
anger, resentment, and vulnerability. In this case, ask yourself
if that angry, easily hurt and reactive person is the identity
you're keen to show the world and live with. Is the security of
this mode of thinking worth the effort and harm it is causing you?
It's better to have a small time of insecurity as you find your
way again than to continue a lifetime bogged down in anger.

* See forgiveness in a positive light. If you're bothered that
forgiving suggests that you shouldn't experience strong feelings
such as resentment and anger, try viewing it as the chance to feel
strong positive feelings, such as joy, generosity, and faith in
yourself. Switching it to thinking about what you'll gain rather
than what you'll lose has the benefit of keeping you positive
while minimizing the negative emotions.

Anger shows; and leaves frown linesTake into account the
challenges raised by not forgiving yourself. Not only do you
allow yourself to remain stuck in the past, but not forgiving
yourself takes a huge toll on your emotional and physical
health. Inability to forgive is sourced from anger and
resentment, two emotions that can wreak havoc with your health.
Numerous studies have shown that people stuck in constant anger
are more prone to disease and illness than people who can learn
to forgive both themselves and others.[1]

* Always remember that forgiving doesn't equate with forgetting.
You're entitled to learn by experience and be guided by that
experience. It's about leaving aside the resentment and
self-inflicted berating that comes with remembering.

* Don't hide from your feelingsAccept your emotions. Part of the
struggle is often being unable to accept that you are experiencing
such emotions as anger, fear, resentment, and vulnerability.
Instead of trying to avoid facing these negative emotions, accept
them as part of what is fueling you lack of self-forgiveness. A
problem named is a problem ready to be tackled.
Is perfectionism clouding your strengths?Reflect on why you're
trying to hold yourself to a higher standard than anyone else
around you. Perfectionism can cause you to hold too a high a
standard for your own behavior, a standard that you wouldn't
hold anyone else to. And if your perfectionism causes you to be
too hard on yourself, you are caught in a situation where self
forgiveness is very hard to do because it seems like acceptance
of a sub-standard you. Remove yourself from this vicious cycle
of thinking by doing what Martha Beck called "welcoming
imperfection". Beck claimed that "welcoming imperfection is the
way to accomplish what perfectionism promises but never
delivers." It allows you to accept that all human being are
imperfect, and you are human, and imperfect too.

* If you are really struggling with perfectionism, consider
counseling or therapy work to reduce its impact in your life. Read
How to control perfectionism for more tips.

Stop listening to the nags in your life!Let go of other people's
expectations for you. If you're stuck in a spiral of self-hate
and never feeling good enough because of things that were once
said to you, self-forgiveness is essential. You have no control
over what other people do and say, and many things people are
said and done unconsciously, often motivated by the other
person's own shortcomings.[2] Living your life in self-loathing
because you don't feel you lived up to someone else's
expectations is based on making too much of another person's
mixed-up feelings. Forgive yourself for trying to live a life
according to other's expectations and start making the changes
needed to follow your own purpose instead.

* For every person who has been hard on you, remember that someone
was hard on them. Break the chain of harshness by being kind to
yourself, not trying to live up to someone else's expectations for
you.

* Whenever someone criticizes you for how you are and what you have
done, realize that they have just made it that much harder for
themselves to err lest they be caught out not fulfilling their own
perfection implicit in their criticism. Seeing it this way can
ease things for you because you just know they'll slip up
somewhere and that being someone who feels entitled to criticize
constantly is a very painful (and lonely) way to live.

Stop being your own worst enemyStop punishing yourself. There is
a frequent misunderstanding that forgiveness equates to
forgetting or condoning. This misunderstanding can lead a person
to feel that it is not right to forgive oneself because in the
process of doing so, it's akin to an act of forgetting or
condoning the past wrong. If this is the factor preventing you
from forgiving yourself, keep in mind that forgiveness is a
process of mindfulness in which you continue to remember what
happened and you do not condone something that was "wrong" as
suddenly "right".[3]

* It's perfectly fine to say: "I hate what I've done (or how I've
devalued myself) but I'm moving on for the sake of my health, my
well-being, and those around me." Affirming this is healthy and
allows you to break the cycle of self-harm you've fallen into
because you openly acknowledge what was wrong and the intention to
set it right from now on.

Embrace who you arePractice self acceptance. You don't need
forgiveness for being you. Forgiving yourself is about targeting
the specific things that you feel bad about, not about the
person you are. As a forgiveness technique, self acceptance
allows you to acknowledge that you're a good person, faults and
all. It doesn't mean that you ignore the faults or stop trying
to improve yourself but it does mean that you value yourself
above those elements and cease to allow your faults to halt your
progression in life.[4]

* Love yourself and give yourself permission to heal.

* Laugh more; it'll give you more freedom to stop taking it all so
seriously.

Document your everyday changesThink about what will improve in
your life if you can release yourself and how to bring this into
fruition. As part of forgiving yourself, it's usually not enough
to simply resolve to forgive yourself. Doing things to confirm
the forgiveness process will help you to realize your
self-forgiveness and to give you a new sense of purpose. Some of
the things you might like to consider doing include:

* Taking up meditation. Meditation is an ideal way to find inner
quiet, spiritual, self-realization, and physical relaxation. It
will allow you to take time out, to tune into and appreciate the
moment, and to get in touch with your inner self. Done regularly,
meditation will improve your well-being and sense of self.

* Affirm your self-worth. Remind yourself regularly that you are a
valued and beautiful person and say simply: "I forgive myself" or
"I will no longer let anger eat away at me", whenever the negative
thoughts reappear.

* Keep a diary. Write down your journey to forgiveness. Having the
writing space to share your thoughts and feelings with, one that
nobody else will ever read, is a liberating and self-enlightening
way to breaking through negative approaches to your life.

* Seek therapy. If you've tried hard to get over anger, resentment,
and other fearful, out-of-control emotions but you're still
struggling, connect with a therapist who can help guide you
through to a better state of being. If therapy's not your thing,
at least find a friend or more to talk to, and who will help to
affirm your worth.

* If you have a faith, draw strength from its teachings to support
you.

It takes time to put these back the right way; be sure to enjoy
the journeySee forgiveness as a journey, not a destination. If
you're liable to thinking that you're unable to "get to"
self-forgiveness, you may be sabotaging your chances of even
starting the forgiveness journey. It helps to accept that
forgiveness is an ongoing process and that you'll have your up
days and your down days, as with most feelings and experiences
in life. You may feel that you've reached a point of
forgiveness, only to have something happen that causes you to
feel it was all a wasted effort and that you're back to square
one, angry and annoyed with yourself. The best approach is to
let the slip-ups happen and see them as minor setbacks in an
otherwise more forgiving self. In addition, realize that
forgiveness has no timetable; instead, you can do your very best
to prepare yourself for the process and to get it started:[5]

* Self-forgive in gradual stages. Start with valuing yourself and
making a resolution to stop letting the past continue to haunt the
present and direct the person you are now.

* Learn from what you've done in the past but value your whole self
(see step above on practicing self-acceptance).

* Enjoy positive experiences consciously and don't seek to downgrade
them.

* Be grateful for what you do have – great relationships, a home,
a family, an education, abilities, interests, hobbies, pets,
health, etc. Look for the good in your life.

* Be self-compassionate. Shift your thoughts to more fulfilling,
value-focused things when negative reproaches arise.

* Apologize if others have been involved and you have not already
done so, or you have not done so genuinely. Only do this when you
have changed your negative outlook.

!! Video !!

!! Tips !!

* The person we are is the result of both good and bad things
happening to us in life, as well as the good and bad things we
have done. The manner in which we respond to negative events is as
important as the way in which we respond to happy events. A person
who is inclined to ruminate and make large of a negative event
will be more prone to living in anger and resentment and expect
future negativity than a person who sees bad things as isolated
incidents that don't impinge on who they are as a whole.[6]

* Think about how you have forgiven others in the past. Take the
lessons from these experiences and apply them to your own
situation; the reassuring aspect of this is that you know you have
the ability to forgive, you just need to point that forgiveness in
the right direction.

!! Warnings !!

* Stay away from people who have a tendency to sabotage efforts at
self-improvement. Most of the time these people are focused on
salvaging their own insecurities and are threatened by seeing
someone else making the effort to overcome negative pressure in
their life. Accept that forgiving yourself will sometimes lose
certain relationships where your negativity was a source of the
other person wielding power over you. Ask yourself if you'd rather
continue the unhappy relationship or move on as a whole, and
renewed person able to connect with healthier people.

* Don't force yourself to hang around people who bring back the past
for you in a negative way; people who push your buttons, devalue
or belittle you, and who are thoughtless about your
vulnerabilities are best left behind.

* Forgiveness is the hardest quality to shape and yet it is the most
essential. In learning about your own ability to forgive both
yourself and others, your personal growth will be great, and
that's a reward worth the hard work forgiveness requires of you.

* Avoid talking about your wrongdoings and how bad a person you are
around other people. You will create this reality in their minds
too. Get therapy to get this negative thinking out of your head
and back into the Pandora's Box it came from.

!! Things You\'ll Need !!

* Journal or diary

!! Related WikiHows !!

* How to Forgive a Girlfriend

* How to Forgive Someone Who Has Hurt You

* How to Forgive After an Affair

* How to Forgive Someone Without Using Religion

* How to Find Forgiveness with a Friend

!! Sources And Citations !!

!! Article Tools !!

* Read on wikiHow

*

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