Continuing our Self-Love alphabet today with one of those areas of self-love that requires a little more work and takes us a little out of our comfort zones…forgiveness.
How hard is it to say those three words sincerely? I. FORGIVE YOU.
Forgiveness is really hard and can take years and years to do, or sometimes never at all. But I believe forgiveness is a really important practice for our self-love journey. And there can be many reasons why we need to practice forgiveness…
First of all, let’s talk about forgiving ourselves. Right now. In the present moment. Forgiving ourselves for those everyday mistakes that we make, and more importantly for the things we think are mistakes, but actually aren’t.
For example, maybe we are running late to meet a friend. Maybe we miss a deadline at work. Maybe we forget someone’s birthday. We are humans. We make mistakes. It’s no big deal. The important thing is not to beat ourselves up over it, or we can really spiral into self-loathing and judgement. And then there’s those things that aren’t even mistakes to begin with, and yet we still beat ourselves up over it. Like eating an entire pizza to yourself, skipping a workout or cancelling plans with a friend. We feel so guilty about them, but we haven’t even done anything wrong! You didn’t kill anybody! Move on with your life girl!
Then things start to get a little trickier as we explore forgiving ourselves for our past. Maybe we need to forgive words that were spoken, decisions that were made or actions that were taken. These could be words or actions to someone else or words or actions to ourselves. I know in my past, I didn’t treat myself very well at all. I spoke unkind words to myself and treated myself very poorly from a place of fear and hatred. I can’t change these things, but I can forgive myself and free myself from the burden of carrying it around with me. By forgiving myself and letting go of my past, I am free and healing. Forgive every single past version of you. She was doing the best she could with the tools she had at the time. Accept her. Love her. Forgive her.
And then the most difficult part of forgiveness; forgiving others who you feel may have wronged you or not treated you right. I think this is the area of forgiveness that people struggle with the most. It’s really hard to forgive people, especially when you don’t agree with what they did or think what they did was wrong. I find the key to forgiveness is realising that it actually isn’t about them, it’s about you. Forgive others for your own self-love. Forgive others to set yourself free. They may not deserve your forgiveness, but you’re not forgiving them for their benefit. You’re forgiving them for YOUR benefit. So you can move on with your life and heal. This doesn’t make what they did okay or acceptable. But it sets YOU free. And remember, you don’t even have to let them know you forgive them. You don’t have to tell them at all. Remember this is for YOU. Why not try writing them a letter? You don’t have to send it, but you can tell them all the things you need them to hear and finally let go.
So, to summarise, forgive yourself for your everyday mistakes, forgive the past versions of you that were just doing the best they could and forgive others for YOUR OWN self-love.