How to Forgive Yourself: Getting Started

This is a big one, forgiving yourself is something that people don’t really talk about that much. When it comes to forgiveness, you may think about other people you need to forgive.

You might think of events or people from your past, like an old boss or maybe a friend who wasn’t sensitive to your feelings.

But they’re not the only ones in your story, don’t forget about yourself.

Sure, the people around us affect us.

People say and do whatever they feel is right in the moment, sometimes at our expense, and then we choose if we are going to forgive them or hold on. If you’re anything like me, sometimes holding on can feel like the easy choice, or the only one. 

I’m sure you’ve heard it before; we are not responsible for other people.

It’s true, the actions, thoughts, words, and feelings that someone else experiences, are not your responsibility. Someone chooses to act in a certain way, and we can choose how we respond.

It’s entirely possible that we can bypass this whole thing and choose to not engage or direct our attention to that area – ideally.

But for all the moments where it’s not that easy, let’s try to sort it out and find our way to forgiving not only them, but ourselves – so we can move on. 

Forgiving yourself is a very broad goal, with lots of specifics and nuances and strings and all kinds of stuff attached to it.

Since there is no one strategy to just suddenly forgive yourself and be done, I’ll take you on a journey of how I got used to the idea of forgiveness as it applied to myself and steps that I took to allow forgiveness in other areas of my life. 

I’ll start with saying I needed to forgive myself for
not being perfect.

I lived my whole life under the pretense that I had to be a certain way. I would receive messages from other people that said I was nice, so I decided I was nice. People would comment on my demeanor and energy and call me innocent and sweet, so I decided I was innocent and sweet.

I became accustomed to receiving certain feedback from folks, which in turn became the feedback I understood to be desirable. I got on the hamster wheel; constantly going back to that feedback loop and only doing things I knew I would get approval for. It became a part of who I was, and I didn’t even realize it.

Just wanted to point out here, this is the part of the process where I took a look at the data on how I was behaving and saw patterns that I did not like. I had become a people pleaser. I was abandoning myself, but now I could do something about it. 

The issue of authenticity is where I started on this part of my journey.

In the spirit of going on that same journey once more, I would encourage you to take a moment and answer the following questions. Write them down and spend a little time with them. If there is another topic that applies to you more appropriately – by all means, create more appropriate questions!

How do people see you?

How attached are you to the opinions of others? 

What do you expect of yourself?

How are you ‘supposed’ to be?

What rules or criteria are you comparing yourself against?

Once you have answered those questions, I want you to question your answers.

How do you feel about how people see you? Do you know why they feel that way? Assign responsibility accordingly. Do you really want what you expect of yourself? What do you want?

How does it all make you feel?

Seriously, sit there and take inventory of your body – how do you feel about it?

I was able to ease up on the perfectionism and begin toying with the idea of giving myself grace.

I am not perfect, I am human – we are all human and we all make mistakes.

I began to forgive myself for not being perfect, which made space for me to forgive others for not being perfect. I realized that not only had I idealized myself, but I idealized others as well. I would be constantly offended or disappointed because I was judging myself mercilessly, not realizing that I was judging those around me the same way.

When you are open and easy with yourself, it allows you to be that way with other people as well. 

Once I was comfortable with the idea that I needed my forgiveness too, I was able to find more ways to apply this new concept. The action I took always went hand in hand with how I was feeling. If something happened and I noticed negative feelings present – I knew that was an area that I needed to look more into.

Generally speaking, when you find that you’re judging or criticizing yourself – those are opportunities for forgiveness. They are also opportunities to look at the judgements you make of yourself to see what the message they’re trying to tell you. 

• Why do I feel inadequate?
• Who am I comparing myself to? 
• What do I expect from this moment?
• How do I feel?

These questions all work together to help you figure out where to begin, and they also encourage you to dive deeper into understanding the stories you tell yourself. From there, you can change the narrative.

Getting curious is the first step, figure out what you need to forgive yourself for and you’ll see more opportunities to forgive and understand both yourself and those around you.

It may even lead to having a little compassion for yourself.