How to Forgive Yourself Especially When Dealing with Anger
5 Steps You Can Take If You Have Messed Up and Move On Without Hanging Onto Unhealthy Emotions
If you know how to forgive yourself, especially if you have the habit of being self-critical, you can let go of negative feelings that can affect your ability to enjoy the present moment.
Forgiving yourself can take time if you have guilty feelings or if you have anger towards yourself or others, which is a reason to practice it regularly.
1-Minute Summary Video
What Does It Mean to Forgive Yourself?
To forgive yourself means to:
- To acknowledge you made a mistake.
- To take responsibility for your choices and actions.
- To accept you could have done better.
- To release emotions such as guilt, anger, shame, or sadness.
- To do what you can to make things right.
- To learn from your experience and grow as a person.
Whenever you feel anger towards yourself because of a negative event, if you don’t deal with it, you will experience mental stress, which can affect your health, relationships, and ability to stay focused.
Why Is It Important to Forgive Yourself?
It’s important to forgive yourself because:
- It will reduce any intense stress or anxiety you may have.
- It will allow you to move on.
- It will help you set better standards for yourself.
- You will not live with regret or guilt.
- It will help you have more empathy towards yourself and others.
- You will learn to forgive others when they make mistakes.
- It will give you peace of mind.
- It will improve the relationship you have with yourself.
- It will deepen your sense of compassion.
- It will increase your sense of humility.
Why Is It Difficult to Forgive Yourself?
You may find it difficult to forgive yourself if:
- You believe you should not have done something you did.
- You feel you violated your values.
- You think you caused someone pain.
- You have not learned tools or techniques to forgive yourself.
- You keep reminding yourself or keep reliving what you did.
The Costs of Not Forgiving Yourself
If you do not know how to forgive yourself, the costs include:
- Not experiencing inner peace.
- Poor mental and emotional health.
- Issues with your physical health.
- Not expressing yourself genuinely.
- Not being true to yourself.
- Putting on a mask that becomes your false identity.
- Wanting to hide or protect yourself.
- Living with shame or guilt.
How to Forgive Yourself If You Have Messed Up
Here are five steps you can take if you have messed up, so you can heal and move on without hanging onto unhealthy emotions.
- Acknowledge what happened or what you did. Do not deny or pretend something did not happen if it did. Reflect on the lead up to the event, the signs you may have missed, and what actually happened.
- Accept your part in creating that event. Take responsibility for your role in creating what happened. If you experienced it, then you had a part to play. What outcome did you want? Identify the need you were trying to meet. Evaluate the belief you had about the situation. Determine if you can make amends if given the opportunity.
- Allow yourself to experience the emotions coming up. If you’re experiencing negative emotions, do not ignore them or submerge them. You can use releasing techniques to process them and move on.
- Amend your approach or pattern of behaviour. Extract what you learned from the experience. Identify your new standard that you will hold yourself to. Determine how you will grow because of that experience.
- Assess your conduct against your new standard often. Review how you interact with others. How has your approach or communication style improved? What can you improve? Who can hold you accountable?
Final Thoughts
You will make mistakes and do things you wish you wouldn’t have throughout your life. If you don’t know how to forgive yourself, you will affect your relationships and your well-being.
When you become better at forgiving yourself, you will learn to accept yourself fully and enjoy your life more.
Action Step: Recall an event that occurred that you wish you could have handled better. Identify the steps you took to deal with the event. Go through the steps of self-forgiveness if you need to, so you can deal with similar events differently.
Question: If you learn how to forgive yourself, what benefits do you believe it will bring you?
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