Personal Power (2 Forgiveness)

“The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.”
― Mahatma Gandhi

 

Forgiveness of others comes pretty damn easy for me. It could be as a writer I am truly empathetic to peoples' dilemmas and can usually reason out the mishaps of other folk. Or, it could be that I mess up so much myself I let a lot slide... who knows?

 

I do know this...

 

I am the absolute last person to forgive myself for everything.  Everything!

 

From simple mistakes, to life altering fuckups, I give myself no love!!! I've always been this way. One of my earliest memories is of me ripping up my coloring book because I couldn't stay within the lines. After I made confetti out of five year old art, I pouted in the corner for an hour or two and refused to color for days after. I'm a black belt in kicking my own ass, and all evidence shows that I came out the womb this way. I always believed that I shouldn't screw up. I know I'm not perfect, but I could never shake the feeling that I ought to be. My father used to tell me that there is a line of people outside waiting to hurt me, and that I should get my ass out the line. I get what he was saying, but I never figured out how to do it.

 

Webster Defines Forgiveness (forgive)

to stop feeling anger toward (someone who has done something wrong) : to stop blaming (someone)

 

How do you stop beating yourself up for your mistakes?

The people at WikkiHow has answered this question pretty succinctly and with pictures :-)

 

How to Forgive Yourself

Forgiving yourself can be much harder than forgiving someone else. When you're carrying around a sense of blame for something that has happened in the past, this bundle of negativity burrowing deep into yourself can cause a never-ending, pervasive sense of unhappiness. Forgiving yourself is an important act of moving forward and releasing yourself from the past. It's also a way of protecting your health and general well-being. Here are some suggestions on how to forgive yourself.

Steps

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   Practice self-acceptance. You don't need forgiveness for being you. Forgiving yourself is about targeting the specific things that you feel bad about, not about the person you are. As a forgiveness technique, self-acceptance allows you to acknowledge that you're a good person, faults and all. It doesn't mean that you ignore the faults or stop trying to improve yourself but it does mean that you value yourself above those elements and cease to allow your faults to halt your progression in life.^[1]  

 

 

Click the link in the tittle of the article for the rest of the steps... and then follow the damn steps... I am. Nothing beats a failure but a try, and nothing is worse than constantly kicking your own ass for your bonehead mistakes!!!

 

And now we turn to Oprah and her friends for simple advice for forgiving others

 

 

Check back with me next week for Personal Power (3 Action)