Are you
still wallowing in the blame game because of mistakes you made in the past?
Forgiving yourself of your past mistakes and errors that seem not to allow you
to move on in life is a seemingly difficult choice. However, it’s something
that you have to do if you must be free.
As I said in
the last post, I was suffering from
a serious addiction sometime ago in my life that always left me wondering why
my life was so bad. The feeling of guilt that overwhelmed me every time I
looked at what I had just done made it so hard to forgive myself. I sometimes
cried long into the night, starved myself, even to the extent of hurting myself
physically. I couldn’t justify my addiction in any way and neither could I
forgive myself of the mistake of addiction that was ruining my life.
My addiction
was no longer my problem, but the cycle of hurt, I was going through every time
I failed to follow through with the resolution of “I will never do it again!” And what was making this so was
because, I was telling myself the horrible things I will do to myself if I
don’t follow through with a particular resolution. All of it was negative and I
actually did those things that I promised to myself! I couldn’t forgive myself.
Now, looking
back at those times when I was struggling with my addiction, I saw the need of
forgiving myself every time I failed, as the attitude of unforgiveness made it
even more difficult to overcome my addiction. How? I will tell you just be
patient.
There is
every need for everyone to learn the attitude of forgiveness not just towards
others but towards oneself no matter the mistakes you have made in life in time
past and no matter how bad things have been because of the decisions you may
have made in your life. No matter how
bad you have wronged yourself, you must learn to forgive yourself.
Are you
asking why you should forgive yourself? Am going to tell you how if I had
forgiven myself then, how much I would have done to better the whole situation.
1.
UNFORGIVINESS HINDER YOU MOVING ON:
When you
cannot forgive yourself of the things that have gone wrong because you blame
them on yourself, you find it so hard to move on with anything in life. It
leaves you in a state where you feel as though everything around you has come
to a stop and there that there is nothing you can do to remedy yourself from
that situation.
There is
this couple I have had the opportunity of meeting with sometime ago, as I
watched them every day, I realized that their relationship was going bad because
they where both living in a state where everything in their life made no
meaning anymore to them. As I came to discover later, the both held a high
degree of unforgiveness towards themselves after every fight they have had. And
it wasn’t helping but nobody cared! When you cannot forgive yourself of
something you have done wrong, it’s hard to make corrections. You just can’t
stop blaming yourself.
2.
IT DOESN’T ALLOW YOU SEE THE LESSON
IN IT:
Unforgiveness
blinds you from seeing every negative situation as a lesson. As I use to tell
people that life is a succession of many
different lessons. And until you see life that way, you are actually yet to
make any positive difference in life.
Unforgiveness
do not allow you see things this way. It tells you something different about
yourself. You hear yourself cursing your own very self. Telling you how
incompetent you are. Telling it happened because you caused it. You just can’t
seem to get those thought out of your head. You cannot learn from your from it
and so, you end up making the same mistake in the future.
3.
IT DESTROYS THE DESIRE TO TRY AGAIN:
When you
cannot forgive yourself, it destroys the desire to try again. This is what I
meant when I said, “it made even harder to overcome my addiction.” If you blame
yourself for a failed relationship or the death of someone by an accident which
was caused by you, whatever it is, you may never want to be out there to try
again. You may never want to be in a relationship again. You may never want to
drive again.
When I
struggled with my addiction, every time I failed and couldn’t forgive myself, I
never wanted to get up and try again. I just lost all hope that it will ever be
possible to overcome my addiction. Being unable to forgive yourself puts in you
a fear that things will be the same should you try them again. Therefore, you
never want to try again ever.
4.
IT MAKES YOU OPEN TO ABUSE FROM
OTHERS:
Did you
realize that when you cannot forgive yourself of your mistakes you make
yourself available to abuse from other people? You open up your heart to abuse,
curse, dejection and all manner of negative vices from people.
You consider
yourself deserving of such humiliation when you cannot forgive yourself you
your mistakes. I read the story of a local boxer who always allowed himself to
be beaten in the ring by another boxer because he was caught sleeping with the
corps of his late wife for the love he had for her. After, he was caught he
couldn’t forgive himself of what he had done, therefore, he allowed himself to
be humiliated every time in the ring for it because he thought, he deserves it.
You let yourself hurt because you cannot forgive yourself of that mistake.
When I was a constant failure in primary school, I never always got the same
attention as everyone else. That made me unforgiving towards myself and I didn’t
fight back when I was mocked by other mate of mine. Why? Because I thought,
every failure deserves that.
See the need
to forgive yourself of your of your mistakes. There are nothing but lessons.
You may also
like to read “Forgetting The Past And Moving On”
