Self-forgiveness is a super important aspect of emotional resilience that enables us to overcome past mistakes, hurts, and failures. It involves accepting and releasing ourselves from the guilt, shame, and self-blame that so often lead to our negative experiences. Self-forgiveness is vital for developing a positive self-image, improving relationships, and cultivating hope and positivity. Despite its importance, many of us struggle with self-forgiveness, particularly when facing challenging life situations such as relationship struggles or personal setbacks.
What is self-forgiveness?
Self-forgiveness involves acknowledging our past mistakes, taking responsibility for them, expressing remorse, and making a commitment to doing things differently in the future. Self-forgiveness is not the same as self-acceptance or self-compassion. Self-acceptance involves acknowledging our flaws and imperfections without judgment, while self-compassion involves treating ourselves with kindness, understanding, and support. Self-forgiveness, on the other hand, involves acknowledging the harm we have done to ourself and others and taking steps to make amends and move forward. And although it is not always the precursor to self-compassion, practicing self-forgiveness, healthily, will inevitably lead to fostering self-compassion.
Benefits of self-forgiveness
Self-forgiveness has numerous benefits for emotional resilience. Firstly, self-forgiveness improves our self-esteem by releasing us from negative self-talk, self-blame, and shame, which can really damage our self-worth. Secondly, self-forgiveness reduces stress by lowering cortisol levels in the body. Cortisol levels which can cause anxiety, depression, and physical health problems. Thirdly, self-forgiveness promotes hope and positivity by increasing feelings of gratitude, optimism and satisfaction with life in general.
In one study, researchers found that self-forgiveness was associated with lower levels of negative affect and rumination. But most interestingly, it found that self-forgiveness was actually a stronger predictor of well-being than forgiveness of others.
In a qualitive review of the currently available guidance on self-forgiveness, it concluded that individuals who practice genuine self-forgiveness experience increased belonging, healthier relationships, higher self-worth and self-acceptance.
Self-forgiveness can also promote feelings of hope and positivity, which can be particularly important when we are struggling with relationships and life in general. By releasing ourselves from the burden of guilt and shame, we can cultivate a greater sense of self-worth and self-acceptance, which can lead to more fulfilling relationships and that general feelgood factor in life.
Even neuroscience research has shed light on the neural mechanisms underlying self-forgiveness. A study using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) has found that self-forgiveness is associated with increased activation in brain regions associated with emotion regulation.
I am also a strong believer that when we are able to instil self-loving behaviours (i.e. self-forgiveness, self-compassion, self-awareness, self-acceptance, self-respect and self-trust), being forgiving, compassionate, aware, accepting, respectful and trusting of others becomes so much easier, helping us have more fulfilling relationships with others. And I believe the reason for this is because our relationship with ourselves is so much more personal than it could ever be with anyone else.
The Evidence that self-forgiveness works
I’d like to share my own experience which demonstrates the real challenge of, and the transformational benefits of practicing self-forgiveness.
In my mid-twenties I committed to an intimate relationship.. There were many red flags – illegal behaviour, immoral behaviour and his values were the complete opposite sides of the spectrum to mine. Now I was a super confident person at that time. Some may even have referred to me as over confident. And I had a tendency of scaring the shit out of men. I definitely didn’t’ scare this man. And he was a cheeky little rogue which I really enjoyed. I always used to say to him that his middle name should be ‘Chancer’.🙂 But he was so out of sync with my values, and they were good values, that had been instilled in me throughout my childhood, that I lied to my whole family and most of my friends, about many aspects about him. Because I knew, if they knew the truth, they’d say “why the hell are you marrying him…?” But he was also the very first man, very first person in fact, I felt any kind of emotional connection with and assumed that he must be the one. And there were many more red flags over the next 4 years before falling pregnant. But I stayed committed to the relationship because I so naively believed that, as long as you worked at a relationship, you could make it work.
It’s during my pregnancy that things really started to go pear-shaped. The cheeky little rogue started turning into an angry entitled bully. After the first physical incident, I only allowed him back for the sake of our unborn baby. Things deteriorated after the birth of our child and just over a year in, he did something that made me realise that there really was no hope and the only way was out. Nine months of careful planning after, we separated. My intuition told me I had to be careful. I was also a strong believer that a father is as important as a mother and so I ‘managed’ him for the next 6 years so that our daughter had the opportunity to develop a close relationship with her father. This also included consciously making a choice to not attempt a relationship with another man due to his aggressive approach just when another man showed me any interest. I believed that I was strong enough to withstand any challenge to allow our child to grow up without constant conflict between her parents. And I felt, as a parent, I was obligated to face those challenges and to make the sacrifices I did, for our child. I know now that that is obviously a load of bollocks.
But then there was a physical incident that made me realise I was in big trouble. This time I hadn’t been able to recognise the warning signs. I knew that he was no longer safe to be around. Thereafter, restricting his access to me, my life became hell, and so did our daughter’s. If I gave him a hand, next time he’d demand an arm. When I refused the arm, there were usually threats of applying for full custody and “destroy my face so that friends and family wouldn’t recognise me”. When it got to my daughter’s 14 birthday, I asked her what she wanted to do for her birthday and her response was “Nothing. I don’t even look forward to my birthday anymore because you and Dad always make me feel torn between the two of you.” That is when the feelings of guilt and shame came full force. The shame of making a choice to commit to a man I knew, even at the time, wasn’t good enough for me, and the guilt I felt for the impact my choice was having on our daughter.
I ended up suffering with depression, entering into another relationship with a completely different flavour of toxic and after allowing this new man to whittle my self-worth down to non-existent with deceit that, for me, was fare worse than infidelity, I became suicidal. For the first time in my life, I couldn’t see any light at the end of the tunnel. Psychotherapist after psychotherapist and not only was I not feeling any better, suicide ideation was becoming more and more frequent. But I was extremely lucky. One of the things that I think had been instilled in me as a child, was that every problem has a solution. If you could see my book purchases at that time, you will see that I was reading just about every self-help book under the sun. And all these books seemed to be referencing the necessity to nurture this funny thing they called “self-love”.
Now, if you’ve been suicidal you will know, knowing the solution is not going to motivate you towards working towards it. My saving grace was that I was still able to feel some kind of unconditional love for my daughter. When I started seriously planning how I was going to bring my life to an end, I would visualise it, including having entered the point of no return. Now, the state I was in, a yearning to experience the rest of my child’s life was most definitely not keeping me alive. But every time I visualised her trying to come to terms with me committing suicide, the heart-breaking thought that came to me every time was that she might think that she wasn’t worth living for. This seemed even more unbearable than trying to stay living.
So one day I made a choice. I was going to choose to live and I was going to try work towards this thing called self-love and hope, with all my fingers and toes crossed, that is was going to work. And as I still hadn’t been able to recognise the professional support I needed by this time, I made a pledge to myself to be fully committed. I know you may be asking “Why didn’t you reach out to friends Chris?”. The problem is that this was a big gap in my self-love and it was only as part of the work that I did, that I learnt how to be vulnerable and ask for help. Sadly it’s a bit of a catch 22.
Eighteen motherf#@%ing painful months later I entered into this funny space of euphoria. Like the world was permanently filled with sunshine and rainbows. I know now, through my own experience and the experiences of my clients, that this is not unusual when doing the deep self-love work. And neither are the ‘crashes’ of reality that can come after. If I’d had the right professional support, they could have warned me about this. But those crashes showed me that I still had some work to do in forgiving myself. Forgiving myself for the choice I made when I should have known better; forgiving myself for my choice creating a challenging childhood for my daughter; forgiving myself for being such a fool in not challenging the little signs of deceit in my second significant relationship. But luckily the self-love that I’d built up to that point, helped me out of those phases. And it has helped me repair the damage my guilt and shame caused in my relationship with my daughter. The self-trust I have built through self-loving behaviour continues to give me the confidence to know that, in the future, I will be able to make good choices, most of the time . . .😊 And any bad choices I make? Well, now I know that, the sooner I commit to being self-forgiving, the sooner my days will be filled with far more joyful moments.
So now that I’ve shared part of my story, let’s explore self-forgiveness a little further to help us understand why it is so super important. And how it can help you start transforming your life like it helped me recover from a deep depression and ending up in a place that I never could have imagined existed.
Common Barriers to Self-Forgiveness
Despite the benefits, self-forgiveness can be a real challenge to achieve. People may struggle with forgiving themselves due to various reasons. For instance, people may feel that they do not deserve to be forgiven. They may feel that the wrongdoing was so severe that it cannot be undone, or they may fear that forgiving themselves will make them appear weak or diminish their sense of self-worth. Additionally, some people may be reluctant to forgive themselves as a way of punishing themselves for their wrongdoing or to maintain a sense of control over the situation.
Another barrier to self-forgiveness is a lack of understanding of what self-forgiveness means. People may think that forgiving themselves means excusing or condoning their actions, but this is not the case. Forgiving oneself means acknowledging the wrong that has been done, taking responsibility for it, and making a commitment to do better in the future. It is about releasing ourselves from the burden of guilt and shame and allowing ourselves to move forward.
But the thing is, choosing to stay stuck in feelings of guilt and shame, stops us from being able to share the better parts of ourselves. This not only hinders our own potential for happiness but it also undoubted negatively impacts those that we care about.
Cultivating Self-Forgiveness
Fortunately, self-forgiveness is a skill that can be fostered through practice. Here are some practical tips and strategies that can help foster self-forgiveness:
Reframe negative self-talk: Negative self-talk is a common obstacle to self-forgiveness. Instead of berating ourselves for past mistakes, we can try to reframe negative self-talk in a more positive light. This can involve challenging negative thoughts and replacing them with positive affirmations. Reframing negative self-talk can help us replace self-blame and self-criticism with self-compassion. Here are some examples that can hopefully help you create your own affirmations:
- Instead of “I can’t believe I made that mistake,” reframe to “I made a mistake, but I’m taking steps to learn and grow from it.”
- Instead of “I’ll never be able to forgive myself for what I did,” reframe to “I’m working on forgiving myself, and it’s a process that takes time and effort.”
- Instead of “I’m always making mistakes,” reframe to “Mistakes are an important part of life. I realise why I made this mistake and next time I will do [this] instead.”
- Instead of “I’m a terrible person for what I did,” reframe to “I made a mistake but I did what I thought was right at the time I am now committed to making things right by [action].”
- Instead of “I’ll never be able to make up for what I did,” reframe to “I may not be able to undo the past, but I can take steps to make amends and move forward.”
- Instead of “I’ll never be able to forgive myself for hurting others,” reframe to “I’m taking responsibility for my actions and doing what I can to repair the harm I caused.”
- And very often it can quite simply be “I didn’t know any better at the time. Now that I know, I can and will make better choices in the future.”
Our inner critic is always going to be there trying to scupper our plans in being self-loving. I believe that by nurturing a ‘healthy’ relationship with our inner critic, we can better manage its toxic nature. This could be similar to the unconditional acceptance of our inner critic as we would have for a loved one. And just like we should be doing with those loved ones, we need to try instil healthy boundaries when interacting with them and compassionately sharing with them when they have overstepped those boundaries. For me my inner critic is like a cheeky little rascal always playing tricks on me. Sometimes I even end up playing a game of dodgeball with mine where I feel like I’m constantly dodging balls it is throwing at me. When I dodge a ball, I chuckle; when my inner critic hits me with a ball, I chuckle. Ok, I’ll be honest, when I’m short of sleep that chuckle can be hard to come by.
Practice self-compassion: Self-compassion involves treating ourselves with kindness, care and understanding. We can practice self-compassion by being mindful of our emotions, acknowledging our pain and suffering, and being kind to ourselves. If a situation requires self-forgiveness, if done in a healthy way, the self-forgiveness itself will foster self-compassion. But sometimes things happen over which we have no control e.g. flooding caused by excessive rain, destroying many of our personal belongings. At that moment in time, when we sense the feelings of anxiety, fear or anger, we can try to stop and think how a caring friend would speak to us. And very often it just means speaking to ourselves with a kinder tone. Having the ability to be self-compassionate will help make practicing self-forgiveness far less challenging.
Seek support: Talking to loved ones or seeking professional support can help us process our feelings of guilt and shame and gain a new perspective on our situation. Mental health professionals can provide us with a safe and non-judgmental space to explore our emotions, gain insight into our thoughts and behaviours, and develop coping strategies.
A takeaway . . .
We can see what a significant impact self-forgiveness has in fostering emotional resilience and maintaining our well-being. By acknowledging our past mistakes, taking responsibility for them, and making a commitment to do better in the future, we can escape from that noose of guilt and shame and foster the self-worth and self-acceptance that allows us to live a fulfilled life. While self-forgiveness is not always easy to achieve, it is a skill that can be fostered through practice and is essential to building a love for ourselves to enable us to face life’s challenges with resilience. This resilience requires the self-loving elements of self-compassion, self-awareness, self-acceptance, self-respect and self-trust. But if you’re going to choose one place to start, there is no better place to start than by practicing self-forgiveness.
You may have noticed, in my account of my story, that my journey leading me to contemplating suicide started with a choice that didn’t align with my values. A choice that caused me to waste twenty years struggling through life. It was at that time that one can see I needed to do the self-love work. Most people are making really bad choices every day, choices that too often have a long-lasting impact, purely because they’re not self-loving enough. If you haven’t done the self-love work yet (and if you’re no 100% sure about what I’m talking about, it means you haven’t done it) it suggests now could be a good time to start. Just because you feel you’re coping just fine with life right now, doesn’t mean you’re going to be coping fine in the future. To wait until you realise you need it, only means the self-love journey is going to be so much more painful and take so much longer. Don’t wait to end up in a situation like me and so many others, where doing the self-love work seems like the only option to staying alive. If it could happen to me, it could happen to just about anyone.
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