How to Forgive Yourself: A Practical Guide to Mindful Self-Forgiveness
Self-forgiveness can be tricky. How do we forgive ourselves? When are you just letting yourself off the hook? Are you taking accountability for your actions? And what are we actually seeking to do?
We all make mistakes, carry guilt for certain things, and have places where a little self-forgiveness may be useful. The way we judge ourselves are often harsh, harmful, and overly critical. We become stuck in the past, experience low self-worth, and may find it difficult to move forward.
What is Self-Forgiveness?
When we think of forgiving ourselves, we often think of an emotional experience. Although self-forgiveness can be emotional, I think it is important to recognize that it is more of an intention and commitment than an actual emotion. Self-forgiveness means meeting the guilt and shame with self-compassion rather than judgement or beating yourself up.
Self-forgiveness is not endorsing any harmful behavior or mistakes we’ve made. Instead, it is recognizing the reality of the situation without such harsh negative self-talk. This gives us some room for a more stable growth and learning process rather than wallowing in the guilt.
Learning to forgive yourself doesn’t mean you’ll be perfect all of the time or never make mistakes. It also won’t free you from remorse or guilt when you do make a mistake. What it will do is allow you to feel an appropriate amount of remorse, take accountability, and move forward. And moving forward is essential to self-forgiveness.
Why It’s So Hard to Forgive Yourself
Many of my students share that self-forgiveness can feel too permissive. There’s a worry that if we forgive ourselves, we might be endorsing the behavior in the future. In reality, self-forgiveness keeps us in the past and prevents us from moving forward. Sure, if we are super critical of ourselves we might feel we are less likely to do that harmful action again, but at what cost?
Outside of self-punishment, one of the primary reasons self-forgiveness is difficult is rumination. When we constantly return to the past events with guilt, it keeps that emotional experience present. The experience is tied deeply in our brains with guilt or shame. Breaking that connection and moving toward emotional healing takes time and effort.
We feel, consciously or nonconsciously, that staying angry with ourselves helps keep us from making that same mistake. Or, the self-resentment serves as a type of penance for whatever we did. In reality, research has found self-forgiveness to actually be more effective af lowering unethical or harmful behavior. Punishing ourselves really doesn’t work as well as we think it does.
The Mindful Path to Forgiving Yourself
We don’t like when someone keeps bringing up the past, yet we often do it quite harshly to ourselves. Working toward a more forgiving attitude toward ourselves takes time and effort. Here’s seven steps I recommend to work toward forgiving yourself.
Acknowledge What Happened
First, we have to acknowledge what happened with some clarity. We can’t address our relationship with the past if we don’t investigate the actual behavior or experience. You might do this through a jorunaling practice, during a walk, or however you best like to process your emotions. I recommend giving yourself a set amount of time so you don’t end up floundering in rumination.
Look at what happened, seeing if you can take an objective look as much as possible. Clarify the facts here, not your feelings. Maybe you made a mistake and forgot something, said something harmful in the heat of an argument, or didn’t prioritize something important to you. Recognize whatever it is that has led to this lack of self-forgiveness within you.
Recognize the Feelings
Next, tune into the emotional experience that is present for you right now. It may be tempting to return to the past, but forgiveness is much more present and future oriented than past-oriented. What do you feel now about it? Is there some shame or guilt present? Sometimes we feel unworthy of self-forgiveness, or maybe quite angry with ourselves.
There’s no right or wrong here. Be honest with yourself and recognize whatever is present. The task here is to familiarize yourself with the entire experience and get to know the emotions. We don’t need to fix or change any emotions. Often, the anger or self-resentment is layered on top of deeper emotions like guilt or low self-worth.
Don’t Create an Identity
It can be hard to look at what happened and how we feel about it without creating an identity. The problem lies in making mistakes and then identifying as a bad person in some way. What happens when we hold onto resentment toward ourselves is we begin to create an identity around it. We see ourselves through the lens of the harm we’ve caused.
Instead, we can learn to observe the thoughts without judgement. Work to recognize the harsh self-criticism without fully buying into it. One way I like to do this is by explicitly naming it. When you notice yourself feeling like you are a bad person because of something you did, label it “identifying.” Begin by recognizing this tendency where you can. The simple label can help us touch it without getting sucked in.
Make Amends Where Possible
Any time we cause harm, making amends is an important step to consider. When discussing making amends, we have to recognize that this doesn’t just mean saying sorry. Yes, an apology or taking accountability is part of the process. We should seek to both take accountability if we harmed someone else and be willing to hear their experience.
Beyond just apologizing, we have to work to actually amend the behavior. Amend means to improvements. Whatever it was that is filling us with guilt, we can put some energy forth to improve. This may mean practicing Wise Speech, meditating more to act with mindfulness, or making a change in our organization or planning. You cannot change the past, but you can consider what you can do to improve upon the behavior moving forward and take steps to do so.
Learn a Lesson
This sounds punitive, or like something a parent might tell their child. But the truth is that these experiences are learning lessons if we engage with them mindfully. By looking for the lesson and growth, you are actively working to forgive yourself. Finding a new perspective helps us move forward, and keeps us from staying stuck in the past.
I really like a mindfulness journal for this. You can write freely about what you learned, or you can use these prompts below to help investigate.
Replaying the situation, where did things go off track?
What could I have done differently?
What part of the situation am I actually responsible for?
What does my guilt want me to learn?
How is holding onto this guilt impacting my life?
What can I do moving forward to make this better?
Practice Self-Compassion
Finally, I encourage you to practice some self-compassion with these experiences. Any time we are experiencing some suffering or pain, self-compassion is called for. Beating ourselves up is a painful experience, and rather than meeting it with more judgement we can work to meet it with care and kindness.
Self-compassion is a direct act of self-care. We work to change our relationship to the suffering, bringing care and presence rather than further aversion or resentment. Below is a short introductory self-compassion meditation I recommend trying. With time, we can train the mind and heart to respond to these moments of self-criticism with a little gentleness and patience.
Be Ready to Let Go Again
This is something I tell my students regularly in mindfulness coaching sessions. Just because we feel a letting go in a moment and find some forgiveness doesn’t mean the work is done. That’s just not the nature of forgiveness. We don’t forgive ourselves once and for all and we’re done. Self-forgiveness is an attitude, and a quality we continually cultivate.
Think about it like mindfulness. We don’t meditate a few times and then we’re mindful always. We have to keep up with it, check in with ourselves, and do the work. In this same way, self-forgiveness requires us to let go over and over again. We may need to move through these steps repeatedly with the same incident. Be ready for this, recognizing that forgiving yourself is a process and not an event.
Self-Forgiveness Meditation
Finally, I want to offer a direct meditation with self-forgiveness. This is a practice similar to the other heart practices in which we offer phrases silently in our heads. The idea here is to work to open the heart, not to experience full-on self-forgiveness in one sitting period. It takes time, repetition, and commitment.
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Matthew Sockolov is a Buddhist meditation teacher who trained at Spirit Rock Meditation Center in Woodacre, California. Completing the Dharma Leader training program in 2017, Matthew was given power to teach in the Insight Meditation tradition by Jack Kornfield, Kittisaro, Thanissara, and others. You can learn more about Matthew here.