Self-Forgiveness – The Ultimate Charitable Act
Friday, April 9th, 2010
How often do you make yourself miserable with self-criticism and/or self-punishment over even minor faults or failings? Do you spend your time blaming yourself for this and that and feeling guilty for what you did or did not do?
That type of thinking keeps you in the past so that you are living your life in fear of the consequences of future acts and thus immobilizing yourself. When you are wrapped up in blame thinking, you don’t enjoy the present.
Self-forgiveness will restore inner peace. Forgiving yourself releases you from a part of yourself that would keep you in a loop of blame, shame, guilt and fear. If you learn to forgive yourself, you activate the law of attraction which brings to you that which you send out. If you wish to bring only forgiveness and love into your life, then you must send out only forgiveness and love which begins with yourself.
We all make mistakes. Sometimes mistakes are made, because we were never taught the appropriate action, and so we made an assumption of what was right. Sometimes mistakes are made because we are not focused or taking time and care with what we are doing. In reality, all happens according to a divine plan that brings us the lessons we need.
Ideally we learn something from our mistakes and don’t repeat the actions. Self-forgiveness requires self-reflection that helps you to find the lesson. Self-reflection helps you to see what happened and why along with what you can do to keep from doing the same things over and over. Acknowledgment of the lesson stops the mistake from having power over you.
Years ago while teaching, I had a student who would hit himself in the head each time that he made a mistake. Truly he felt himself deserving of punishment. I asked him what he had learned from his mistake and he explained. After a short chat, he never again felt the need to beat up on himself for his minor mistakes and learned how to forgive himself by focusing on what he had learned.
Taking responsibility for who you are and what you do allows you the opportunity to make more positive and lasting changes in your life and in your relationships. You can resolve to change your behavior and act differently in the future, thus becoming self-responsible which leads to self-respect and self-love.
Self-forgiveness includes self-reflection on the lesson learned and self-responsibility for changing behaviors. Self-forgiveness helps you to focus on the positive parts of your actions and restores your inner peace, thus allowing you to love yourself no matter what. It also helps you to manifest forgiveness and love from others. When you master self-forgiveness, then your heart will be more open to forgive others, too. Thus, with self-forgiveness you heal the world and yourself.