Forgiving....yourself?

[Robyn]

Hi,

was just wondering how do u forgive yourself? Im not even sure what i need to forgive myself for, something in my past maybe...i just dont know how to find out what it is, i think i need to forgive myself for something, its manifesting in horrible physical forms inside me (psychological problems, anxiety etc.....

[dulaney0330]

Forgiveness is a nice word but it does not come so easily. It can be hard to forgive especially if we have a tendency to be self-critical and harsh toward ourselves.

But, you are getting ahead of yourself. It would be a good idea to pinpoint WHAT you want to forgive instead of asking HOW to forgive. We will cross that bridge when we come to it.

Can you think of a specific example that is needed for self-forgiveness?

[Lauxa]

I think the best way is if you can separate your sense of "self" from your actions and thought-patterns. If you think of your "self" as pure consciousness -- the "observer" of your thoughts and actions -- then there is nothing to forgive your "self" for.

[JimOfferman]

I don't normally think in terms of forgiving myself, but rather in terms of accepting myself for all that I am and all that I am not.

Accepting is better than forgiving, I think, because the latter suggests that you were somehow wrong and thus need to be forgiven. You weren't wrong, you did not deliberately screw things over... your actions - whatever they were - simply did not had the effect you intended them to have. That's alright. You're not perfect. Nor do you need to be.

Accept yourself - all of it, good and bad.

[Anand Dhillon]

I concur with Jim about accepting yourself. To me, it comes down to realizing that whatever you did at that time was the best you could do given your level of consciousness at the time. You can then accept whatever happened, take whatever lessons you can from it and move on.

[NightSpirit]

It helps to accept yourself if you are aware that all that we really have is this moment right now. If you make an attempt to be present in your thoughts in this very moment as much as possible, you will see the past is gone and the future may never come. Whatever happened in the past to you and by you is still there in the past and it is possible to seperate yourself from those feelings, just as you are seperated from the actual event by the time that has passed.

There are meditation exercises that will help you do this. Most of them say to focus on the feeling of the air moving in and out of you, or on something in your surrondings and think of nothing else or nothing at all for as long as you can. If you decide to try this don't give up on yourself because the first few times, your thoughts will keep taking you somewhere else. By just acknowleding those thoughts instead of being miffed that they interfered, if you just recognize them they will float away much easier.

This is very important to acheiving the peace you are seeking. Once you accept your life is going on Now, that the essense and the best of life is happening right now and focus on what you are doing with right now, you will be more free to look at the past as just memories. You can do this without meditating if you can get it on a conscious level but once you have a taste of that one free moment you will want more.

EFT, emotional freedom technique, Gary Craig's website, is a good tool to take the emotions out of your memories and help you accept yourself. There is enough free information on the website to work the process. Like anything else, the worst part is the beginning; seems silly to tap yourself on those places.

But if that feeling you have of a nagging something in your past goes from a 10 to a 2 or 3 on a scale of how much it bothers you, it will be worth it. You don't lose your memories but they lose the power to make you feel what you don't want to feel and make you free to feel more of the good feelings.

So, stop several moments a day to experience where you are and what you are doing that moment without any thought of the past or future and try the EFT and that feeling may go away.

[Remiel]

For myself I know that God has forgiven me when I ask for forgiveness. So if he's forgiven me why should I continue to not forgive myself? Also... I've given myself permission to fail. As long as I learn from failure I've gained something and I don't have to worry about it anymore.