This topic has come up in so many conversations this week that I thought I'd write about it here too, and have a chance to go into more detail.
Make A Practice of Forgiving Yourself
Part of being human is that we all make mistakes from time to time. Depending on our experience, habits and learned behaviours, we might also be really hard on ourselves whenever we do anything that's a mistake, or even just 'not perfect'.
In most cases, this serves very little purpose and usually compounds the problem into something bigger than it is.
Start Small
Imagine then, if we all made a habit of allowing self-compassion and forgiveness for even the tiniest things.
This might feel wildly unfamiliar, so it's easier if we start small… a silly comment that you instantly regret? Forgive yourself. Forgot to hang the washing out before you went out for a beach day? Forgive yourself. Forgot to take a pen and paper to your meeting and had to ask for help? Forgive yourself.
Save your energy for something more productive than self-critique.
Self-Criticism is Everywhere
Since I’ve been thinking about this for myself over the last few weeks, I’ve also begun to also notice how many others around me are being hard on themselves for very tiny, normal, human mistakes.
When a friend or collegue does it, you can probably see the thing in perspective and would encourage them to go easy on themselves. You can see that rather than agonising over what went wrong, they would be better to let that emotion go, and spend energy thinking about how it could be different next time.
Turning the Compassion on Ourselves
A powerful practice would be developing the ability to do this for ourselves as well as those around us. If we can get comfortable forgiving ourselves for the mini things that aren't exactly as we'd like them, it will be so much easier when the bigger things happen too.
This is all part of creating habits of self-acceptance, which in my opinion is one of the most powerful positions to be in. If I'm busy resisting what actually 'is' then I'm using up valuable energy than could be used for making change and progress.
Carl Jung said: “The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change.”
Self-acceptance and self-forgiveness fit seamlessly hand in hand. They free up space for evolution.
A Word of Warning...
An important distinction I'd like to make is that forgiving and accepting yourself is not the same as giving up on yourself: 'well I'm stuck like this I might as well accept it' , or being in denial about your own self-responsibility: 'whoops that happened again, never mind I forgive myself.'
I see self-forgiveness as a stepping stone to growth, not as an excuse to carry on doing the same unhelpful behaviour again and again!
A lot of the time, you can forgive yourself and also make a resolve not to do the same thing again. This is a subtle but important difference.
Most humans respond better to positive reinforcement than to fear of punishment. Following this theory, we'd be better to forgive ourselves and then put a reward or accountability system in place for doing better next time. Self-punishment is literally a waste of energy - especially for the sensitive souls and recovering perfectionists that I know to be the majority of my readers and community!
Back to Basics
With this overview of why forgiving yourself might be a good idea, let's strip it back to simple, implementable ways that you can practice this habit. It really does come down to metacognition and noticing your own thoughts. Next time you catch yourself self-criticising, ask whether it's helpful and productive or not. Most of the time, it's not. To solidify the new way of responding, you could even write down 'I know I didn't do as I wanted with xyz, but I forgive myself.' Or just say it aloud in your head.
Keep it simple.
Try it out.
Let me know how it goes...
I'd love to hear your experiences with self-forgiveness in this linked Instagram post, and if you'd like to find out more about the general topic of self-compassion, I have a blog post about it here.
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