The four steps to forgiving yourself
“Like most men I am amazingly good at forgiving myself.” John Simpson.
In May I devoted a podcast episode to the importance of forgiving yourself triggered by the above Guardian headline. It really got me thinking about myself and the women in my life. Are we amazingly good at forgiving ourselves? Are you?
I’m aware that not everyone who reads the blog listens to the podcast and as it’s such an important topic I wanted to share it here too.
What is self-forgiveness?
According to an article in verywellmind.com by Kendra Cherry, “Forgiving yourself is about more than just putting the past behind you and moving on. It is about accepting what has happened and showing compassion to yourself.”
It’s very hard to believe that someone else can forgive us if we haven’t forgiven ourselves. And that’s one of the reasons that self-forgiveness is so important.
It’s also really important because according to an article published by Stanford Medicine, “Research has shown that those who practice self-forgiveness have better mental and emotional well-being, more positive attitudes and healthier relationships.”
If there are so many benefits why do we find it so difficult?
This could very well be tied into our genes. We all have an inner critic and she lives in the primitive part of our brain, the part that has been around since early man. It’s this part of our brain that is designed to keep us safe. It developed when safety was paramount – wild animals were a real and present danger, being rejected by the tribe meant death. This has made us programmed to try to avoid mistakes at all costs. This is hardwired into us despite the fact that most mistakes we make now are not life threatening. And it’s possibly one of the reasons why we find it hard to forgive ourselves despite the benefits of self-forgiveness.
Another reason we find it hard to forgive ourselves is this mistaken idea that unless we’re self-critical we’ll never improve. The fact is though, we learn through mistakes, from things going wrong, from failures. We learn and grow but it’s so much harder to learn and grow when we are stuck in a cycle of berating ourselves. When we’re able to treat ourselves with compassion, to learn from our mistakes and move on then we grow, mature, develop and become better for it.
And finally, our temperament can also affect our level of self-criticism. Some people can be really upset by events that wouldn’t bother someone else, and others are more likely to blow up a small mistake into huge issues -- a tendency called "catastrophic thinking."
Before we move on I think it is important to point out that self-forgiveness does have limitations. It’s not the model for people who blame themselves for things for which they aren’t responsible. I’m thinking particularly of women who have suffered abuse, trauma or loss and are feeling shame and guilt. You aren’t to blame for what happened to you and therefore self-forgiveness is not necessary. Please seek the necessary external help to assist you in healing.
What can we do to become better at self-forgiveness?
We usually feel the need for forgiveness when we feel guilt or shame about something we’ve done or said. Guilt is our awareness that we’ve done something wrong, whilst shame is about who we are. So, I may feel guilty about forgetting about a promise I made to meet someone. But, I’d feel ashamed if I deliberately left someone waiting for me and lied saying I’d forgotten because I didn’t have the courage to let them know I’d changed my mind. Letting either of these feelings fester can make us unhappy and really undermine our confidence, but the shame is particularly damaging as it is undermining our self-esteem.
Step one - acknowledge what we have done. Own it and take responsibility. This can be the hardest step if you’ve been making excuses to try to avoid feeling guilty or to justify yourself because you are feeling ashamed.
Step two - show remorse. It’s okay to feel guilty or even shame at this stage. It’s part of the process and these feelings can act as a springboard to help us move forward, to learn from this mistake and become a better person for it. The problem is when we get stuck here and don’t move forward.
Step three - restore trust. This is about making amends if we can. About fixing our mistake if it can be fixed. If there is someone else involved this is the point you are going to apologise. If there is no one else involved there is nothing to stop you apologising to yourself. I’ve written myself a letter before now either in my journal or on a piece of paper I know I can shred later. I find it quite cathartic to get all my guilt and or shame out onto paper. It’s at this point in the process you can begin to work out what you can learn from this situation.
If there is someone else involved and you apologise to them and they choose not to accept your apology you can and should still forgive yourself. You don’t know what is going on in their head. You don’t know what else is going on in their life. You don’t know their full life history, all their past hurts. Their unwillingness or inability to forgive you doesn’t mean that you don’t deserve forgiveness and that you can’t forgive yourself. This incident may be the final straw for them in a long succession of things that have absolutely nothing at all to do with you. Don’t let their reaction stop you from working through the process of self-forgiveness.
Step four – focus on renewal. Here we really focus on the moving forward bit. You’ve acknowledged what you did. You’ve shown remorse and said sorry and done what you can to make amends in order to restore trust and now you choose to think positively about moving forward rather than getting stuck in rumination about what has happened. And when I say positively I don’t mean you have to pretend everything is sunshine and roses, I mean that you need to look for the real ways you can grow and move forward. What have you learnt that means you will try to avoid being in the same situation again?
Remember, behaviour changes take practice. If you’ve been stuck in a cycle of guilt and shame it takes practice to learn to forgive yourself and move on.
If you work through the steps and are still struggling to feel that you are worthy of forgiveness I want you to think about this. How often are you really gracious and quick to forgive others, telling them to stop apologising as everything is okay? If you’re struggling to forgive yourself I want you to imagine that this was one of your children or your very best of friends and she was standing in front of you telling you that she couldn’t possibly forgive herself and all the reasons why. What would you say to her? How would you comfort her? How many times would you tell her that she can and should forgive herself? Say those things to yourself.
Self-forgiveness is something that we should all be amazingly good at – not just John Simpson! We make mistakes and we need to be able to move on from them in a healthy and timely way. So take responsibility, show remorse, restore that trust in yourself and renew and move on as it will lead to a happier, healthier and more confident you.
