How to forgive yourself? Understand that at that particular moment you could not have done anything differently. Your knowledge and skills, internal resources were only enough for what you did. However, all this is already a thing of the past, now you are a different person who has different tools to solve the same problem, which means you will no longer make that mistake. Now let’s look in more detail at why it is so important and difficult to forgive yourself, why unforgiveness is dangerous, and how to get rid of the burden of grievances from the past.
The essence of the concept
The saddest situation occurs when a person does not know how to forgive himself for mistakes, or more precisely, he does not know that he is in a state of non-forgiveness. This is a very serious psychological problem that is equivalent to an illness. And, like any illness, non-forgiveness has its own “symptoms,” which are as follows:
- Negative attitude towards yourself (you always try to take all the blame on yourself, even if you have nothing to do with it).
- No room for error (you do not allow yourself to make mistakes because you are a perfectionist who strives for the ideal).
- Denial of the essence of forgiveness. You cannot understand what forgiveness means because you do not see the meaning in it. For you, this is simply indulgence when a person gets away with everything.
- Condemnation. You always judge not only yourself, but also other people who commit unfavorable actions (in your opinion). This is an erroneous position, the basis of which is pride, which gives the right to feel like a world judge.
Why is it important to forgive yourself?
Guilt provokes an internal conflict that destroys the psyche. Mental discomfort affects physical well-being: chronic diseases worsen, autonomic disorders develop, and nerves fail. Internal self-torture can lead to:
neuroses; aggression, irritability, psychological breakdowns; painful self-control; unsuccessful attempts to fit oneself into social standards; self-pity, physiological and psychological weakness; development of apathy, depression; anxiety, inferiority complex.
Blaming yourself without giving a single chance for forgiveness, you live in the past. Trying to justify someone else's opinion, a person cannot be himself. He is deprived of the right to his own thoughts, tastes and views on life. Happiness gradually slips away, the ability to rejoice, to be sincere, to show real feelings and emotions disappears. What remains are masks and moral masochism. What else can you call the state of self-torture?
It is impossible to correct the past. You can't build the future by thinking about it.
He ceases to adequately assess himself, the situation and the people around him, becoming easy prey for manipulators. Guilt does not require action. Remorse does not end with attempts to correct the situation and leads to a personal impasse. Why is this happening?
Consequences of the presence of resentment
Forgiving yourself is of great importance, because without this action it is impossible to move on in life. If you don’t understand this, you can expect negative consequences that will become an obstacle to harmony both in your personal life and at the professional level. Not forgiveness means that a person is not fully aware of his mistake and considers it an absurd accident. And even if this is so, you need to analyze everything that happened to you, draw appropriate conclusions and try not to get into such situations again.
If you don’t know how to forgive yourself or simply don’t want to do it, you risk “canning” all your negativity, not allowing it to come out. This will be deposited in your mind as resentment, anger, jealousy, vindictiveness and other qualities that are recommended to get rid of. Moreover, non-forgiveness will certainly lead to complete self-destruction, when a person has nothing joyful left in life. There is even a proven theory that negative feelings lead to serious illnesses (including cancer).
How resentment manifests itself
How to survive a divorce from your husband - advice from a psychologist on how to get a grip on yourself
Self-resentment has its own specific signs of manifestation. For almost everyone it happens according to the same principle. In children and adults, the symptoms of the condition are the same:
- A person develops anxiety that does not give him peace.
- Insomnia occurs due to frequent thoughts about the past and feelings of guilt.
- Apathy and bad mood. Due to the inability to solve a past problem, a person gradually becomes depressed.
- Self-isolation and refusal to communicate with people.
- Dizziness and headaches occur due to lack of sleep.
- Confusion of thoughts in the head.
Birds fly off your hand
Self love
So how can you forgive yourself for mistakes? You need to start with self-love. This is not about narcissism and indulging all your whims. This refers to a sincere and kind attitude towards oneself as a friend, close relative or loved one. You need to forgive yourself absolutely everything, just draw the appropriate conclusions. You need to perceive life as a school that every person needs to go through. At the same time, it will be easy to compare yourself with a good student who sometimes makes mistakes, but knows how to quickly correct himself and always receives a reward for completing a task.
What prevents you from forgiving yourself?
Pride
The desire to be the best forces a person to set the bar too high for himself. Harsh criticism in assessing oneself and excessive loyalty to others is a sign of overgrown pride. It is born out of self-love, focusing only on your feelings and aspirations. Pride does not forgive one's own misdeeds.
Inferiority complex
Low self-esteem is born from self-dislike. Such a person does not accept himself, he forgets about his needs, does not care about feelings. He is dependent on those around him, and the feeling of guilt further alienates him from his true self. Condemnation in the eyes of others, unjustified expectations of a mother or significant other remind us of our own “inferiority,” forcing us to suffer under the yoke of guilt.
Elimination of negative factors
You can understand how to forgive yourself by listening to your heart. Try to analyze what exactly is pressing on your psyche. It could be another person who hurt you, negative events you were involved in and now regret your decision, or simply yourself for hurting someone. Once you identify the cause of your discomfort, you can take proactive action. Instead of guilt and resentment, you will make efforts to correct the situation. For example, ask for forgiveness from the person you offended, change your living conditions or social circle, or resort to meditation, which will be discussed below.
How to forgive yourself for past mistakes and begin to respect yourself. How to forgive yourself for past mistakes?
Do you know the unpleasant feelings that arise when just remembering some situation from the past? Most of us experience a feeling of shame or guilt for some actions committed in the past. And this happens because our past decisions no longer correspond to our moral beliefs in the present time. We have grown above ourselves, our views and principles have changed, and our sense of what is permitted has undergone a change. We evaluate ourselves in the past from the perspective of ourselves today. But these changes are a reason for pride. This means that we are developing and moving in the right direction. This means our moral standards today are higher than before. This means that we have made the right conclusions, have learned some negative experiences, and will no longer step on the same old mistakes. We need to leave the past in the past. It would seem that this is obvious, what was not changed, cannot be returned or remade. But in practice, every time we try to do the impossible and scroll through the same scenario in our heads. But it is impossible to repair something that has been gone for a long time; it does not exist. The only sane decision is to accept the past as it is. This is the only way to “get well.” There is one very effective psychological move for this: make a list of situations that you would like to change. As if you had the opportunity to go back and do it differently - not the way you did it originally. Think about what you would do, maybe choose a different profession, put an end to a toxic relationship, what would you say to the offender, or maybe you yourself tried not to offend someone, in general, remember all the things that you regret to this day day. This method will help you get rid of the burden accumulated over the years, let off steam, and relax. Allow yourself to step back and analyze your mistakes - this will help prevent similar situations in the future. The best way to leave the past in the past is to replace your negative thoughts with positive ones. By doing this, you will stop feeling guilty and realize that you can manage almost any situation as much as you need to. At the same time, you will receive satisfaction from the decisions you make and can be proud of yourself. To identify the reasons for your experiences, you will somehow have to go back to the past, although this can be very unpleasant and painful. Identify for yourself those moments that are most depressing for you. Try to look at the situation from the outside. As if you are not the hero of what is happening, but just a spectator. Leave your emotions aside and think about the situation as if it were someone else's abstract story, but not yours. It is likely that you will not be able to cope with some experiences the first time. And you will have to do some spring cleaning in your mind. You have to understand and accept the fact that you made a mistake. But this is normal, since you are a living person, not a robot. And you have every right to be wrong. You will be held responsible for your mistakes in the future. But you don’t have to carry it for the rest of your life. Next, you should let go of what happened. Now you should turn the page and move on with your life. What happened, no matter how unfortunate it was, made you who you are at the moment. Thank your life for the lesson, for the experience and for the fact that now you are better and smarter than you were then. You may need time to deal with your thoughts. But you didn’t learn to drive a car the first time. Now, having freed yourself from the past, love yourself again, learn to hear and trust your intuition. In the future, you will also make mistakes, but you should not blame yourself for everything and consider yourself the source of all troubles. There are factors that are beyond our control. Remember, you are today, better than you in the past. Believe in yourself and continue to live with the thought that you are stronger than your past mistakes. Your psychologist Anna Oleynikova. |
Positive attitude
Focusing exclusively on the positive aspects is the best solution to the question of how to forgive yourself for past mistakes. Try to completely get rid of sad memories, do not leave a single drop of negativity in your soul. It may be difficult, but only at first. If you learn to control your thoughts and direct them in the right direction, past sad events can never become an obstacle in your path. If you have a bad relationship experience, think about the times when you had a good time with this person. There is no need to remember quarrels and scandals, much less the reasons that gave rise to your grievances. Protect your soul from negativity, feed it with bright thoughts and memories.
Forgiving ourselves: practical advice
Action.
Decide why forgiveness is important to you and what you need to let go of. Remember all the painful moments that cause feelings of guilt. Analyze the situation. What awakened your conscience? If these are unjustified expectations, feel free to forgive your own sins. If it was an act that caused pain or harm to another person, you can apologize or try to make amends.
The past should not interfere with the future. Let yourself go for a clean slate. Change your outlook on life. Mistakes are the engine of progress. Experience is more important than safe consistency. Action will not let you get hung up on the past; it is aimed at the future, and the path to it lies through the present.
Are your friends successful and wealthy, but you are not? Don't be self-deprecating. What is the reason for other people's success and your failures? Make an action plan, change, find a new job, get a good education. Live and move forward, and don't wait for someone to take the first step and ease your conscience.
Letting go of the past.
The world is imperfect. There are no perfect people. There are no exceptions to this rule. Why blame yourself for all your personal and other people's failures? The actions of many people, not just your personal efforts, lead to one mistake. There is no need to return to the failures of the past. If they bother you too often, analyze the painful situations. Conscious conclusions will help you avoid making repeated mistakes in the future and will correct your behavior. Forgiving yourself is the beginning of a new life. Think about whether something can be fixed at the moment. If not, move on.
Analyze the past. Sometimes feelings of guilt arise for no apparent reason. Find your starting point. For example, you have a few extra pounds, and you blame yourself for your weakness and inability to get rid of them. But why do you need to lose weight? Think about when this idea was born in your mind, who put it there. Most painful thoughts are suggested to a person from the outside. Some thin, beautiful classmate pointed her finger at a plump girl and laughed. She planted a seed that grew into a huge inferiority complex. It puts pressure on the psyche, forcing a person to strive for other people's ideals.
When an attempt to change oneself according to another person's standards ends in failure, a feeling of guilt awakens. And beauty doesn't come in weight. It is complexes that make a person ugly, not extra pounds. Each girl has her own structure. What suits a beauty with an asthenic physique will not look good on a beautiful lady from a painting by Rubens, and vice versa.
Forgive others and ask for forgiveness yourself
Forgiving yourself is more difficult than forgiving another person, but you should start with an easier step. Let go of negativity caused by other people, do not accumulate resentment. Learn to apologize when you're wrong. When you are forgiven, it is easier to let go of guilt and not reproach yourself for what you did.
You need to ask for forgiveness in simple words, backed up with actions. Don’t hide your apology behind ambiguous phrases, don’t evade or hide, then your conscience will have fewer reasons for “punishment.”
If you had a fight with a close friend, do not reproach yourself in vain. Look at the situation from the outside. What do you feel guilty about? Apologize. Try to correct the situation.
Be responsible
Admit your mistakes. But only them and no one else! Learn to be honest with yourself and admit to ulterior motives. It's stupid to make excuses to others, but making excuses for yourself is even stupider. Accept your role in events that make you feel guilty. Leave negativity in the past.
If guilt torments you for hidden desires and thoughts, admit them to yourself. Embrace them fully. Hidden motives come to light during the development of internal conflict under the guise of other aspirations. For example, a husband in a family constantly yells at his wife, specifically looking for reasons, but in reality he has an unbearable desire to hit his boss.
Accept yourself
Be aware of your beliefs and characteristics. Decide what is important to you, what your values and aspirations are. Separate your desires from the expectations of others. Whatever is legal and does not harm other people is right and should not be condemned. Don't try to fit into other people's standards. Some people like broccoli, some like pies, some like noisy companies, and some like quiet evenings in the company of a pleasant book. Be natural and listen to yourself and your desires. Don't let others impose their opinions and tastes on you. Your value is your uniqueness.
True Forgiveness
The main task is to understand the process of the most sincere forgiveness. This means that the person has identified the essence of his guilt (or the guilt of another, which you voluntarily took upon yourself) and honestly admitted to himself that this negative aspect still exists in his life. Forgiveness will become complete relaxation, restoration of the soul, and a transition to a new level of life. After this realization, you will understand that you are ready to bring dramatic changes to your life and the lives of your loved ones. Try to look at yourself from the outside through the eyes of a loving person. Do you deserve to bear the burden of your mistakes for the rest of your life? Isn't it time to cut this rope that's holding you in place? If you analyze everything, you will understand that the time has come to finally let go of all the grievances to yourself and everyone else.
How to forgive yourself for a bad deed. Where does the feeling of guilt for one's own actions come from?
Everyone has an ideal idea of society and themselves. This image is an impeccable picture that says what a person should be. The ideal determines what is permissible and what is not allowed, what qualities a “good” person should have and what qualities a “bad” person should have. He paints images of a respectable family man, a successful worker, a loving mother, and a skillful lover. Sigmund Freud called this part of a person’s personality the “Super-Ego”: shame, conscience, morality and the inner inquisitor, a merciless judge who punishes without investigation or trial.
The “Ideal-I” hides in the depths of the subconscious and is formed from childhood. First by parents, then by educators and teachers, and by the social environment. The feeling of guilt, which was supposed to help a person get comfortable in society, destroys the personality from the inside:
It punishes, but not for “bad” or “good” actions. Conscience pronounces a verdict for the discrepancy between reality and the ideal idea. Feeling guilty is unreasonable. It does not allow you to think and analyze the situation, but only corrodes from the inside, sweeping aside all justificatory arguments. Internal conflict gives rise to aggression. Negative emotions come out, allowing conscience to continue its execution for new “misdeeds.”
Technique with ash
There are many ways to understand how to forgive yourself and let go of all grievances. Surely each person will have his own recipe for solving this issue, which seems most effective. One of these options is a simple and constructive way to get rid of information that is weighing you down. Find a place in your home or somewhere outdoors that makes you feel most comfortable. Take a blank sheet of paper and a pen. Try to describe all your negative thoughts that haunt you. This could be a description of some life situation, a list of people who hurt you, or simply repentance for your mistakes. Putting information on paper will help you concentrate negative energy on the sheet. Then do whatever you want with these notes. Tear into small pieces or crush as hard as you can, and then simply burn and scatter in the wind or throw the ashes into running water (a river or a toilet).
Useful practices
If you don’t know how to forgive yourself for past mistakes, psychologists will tell you the right solution to this problem. They insist on carrying out useful practices that help get rid of feelings of guilt and improve relationships with others. And since the main part of the “suffering audience” are women, they are the ones who need these classes. Representatives of the fair sex are more sensitive and vulnerable; they can hold a grudge against themselves and their beloved man for many decades (for men this goes away much earlier). To get rid of self-flagellation, you need to master the basic rules of meditation:
- It is not necessary to imagine the image of a specific man (ex-lover, father, brother), you can simply let go of your thoughts and allow them to move in any direction. Don’t be alarmed if an exact version of the negative events that happened appears in your head with all the details, right down to what your ex-lover was wearing that day. Also, don’t be afraid if some rather strange images appear in your mind. This can be not only people, but also animals, objects, cities, etc. Allow yourself to relax and draw all the strength and power of this cleansing.
- Don't be afraid to cry during meditation, as these are tears of forgiveness. You help your mental pain, which is felt on a physical level, come out. This state often happens not only during personal practices, you can fall into it in a temple, in nature, in unique places, while listening to your favorite or sad music. Don't let the tears stop, let them flow as much as your soul requires. And if this happens during meditation, try to continue the sessions until you feel better. When you don’t feel like crying during your next session, you will understand that the pain is behind you.
How to get rid of guilt and forgive yourself - advice from a psychologist. Reasons for feeling guilty
The same situation can cause guilt, shame, or both feelings at once in different people.
Freud believed that the main reason for the feeling of guilt is the conflict between instincts and reason, that is, biological and social in a person. A similar reason is the conflict between egoism and altruism, personal and public.
Shame is often born out of an internal desire to live up to the parents’ ideal, but at the same time the need to be an independent person, the discrepancy between the individual’s desires and the parents’ beliefs. Guilt is rooted in a person's need to control internal aggression.
Feelings of guilt can be justified or unjustified. The latter is more difficult to combat, since the individual himself rarely realizes the true reasons, and they lie in childhood and the style of education, in which parents demand a lot, scold and punish the child, forbid and shame.
The feeling of guilt and shame is brought up in people from childhood. This is a favorite way for parents to influence their child’s behavior, although it is not entirely correct. Abuse of this method leads to an unconscious feeling of guilt.
So, the main reasons for feeling guilty include:
- An actual action that has dangerous or harmful consequences for other people.
- Thoughts about such an act.
- Violation of social norms.
- Infringement of one's own interests and needs for the sake of someone else's personal or social ideas, a feeling of life being wrong, potential being squeezed.
- Destructive style of family education.
- Unjustified expectations, failure to meet other people's or one's own requirements.
- Inaction leading to negative consequences.
- Manipulation from the outside, instilling guilt. Suspicious, modest, lack of initiative and undecided people without their own worldview succumb.
- Characteristics (prevalence of suspiciousness, sentimentality, highly developed empathy).
Breath of Satori
The question of how to forgive yourself for past mistakes will be resolved on its own if you use a radical method of getting rid of negativity. To do this, you need to retire to a separate room, lie down on the bed (you can turn on your favorite music, preferably rhythmic). Then begin to breathe actively and energetically. This procedure should last at least half an hour. At the same time, you should imagine how the negative leaves your body and leaves room for new life-affirming good energy, which you will now emit. Do not try to increase your breathing as much as possible if you feel discomfort. Try to choose the optimal rhythm and depth of inhalations and exhalations for yourself.
Alternative method
An alternative method to the breathing method will help those who want to forgive themselves for the mistakes of the past. To get rid of negative energy, you need to turn on loud music or sound with physical actions. You can simply scream, sing, hit pillows, break objects (for example, dishes), tear paper. All this allows excess emotions to come out and get rid of discomfort. Some people prefer to simply go out into nature (so as not to scare others) and shout loudly. In order to become stronger and healthier, you can use all available methods. Just don’t get used to doing this all the time. You should allow yourself to do this only as a last resort (if we are talking about breaking dishes or other objects). If you do this constantly after each of your mistakes, you can cultivate in yourself a feeling of aggression and the need for destruction of this kind.
The final stage
Another important question: “How to ask for forgiveness from yourself?” This can also be done using the methods described above. If you have spent a lot of energy getting rid of negativity (breathing heavily, screaming or breaking dishes), it is recommended to completely relax. After active actions, turn on calm music, mentally ask for forgiveness from everyone you have hurt, forgive them yourself. Try to understand that all the evil and resentment that had been accumulating all the previous time has now left you. There is nothing left that can throw you off balance or continue to torment you. Your soul and thoughts are bright, a new path is beginning, which must be perceived with optimism.
Forgiveness Meditation by Louise Hay
This practice of experienced psychologist L. Hay is universal because it can be used for any occasion. Your offenders can be not only representatives of the stronger sex; it is quite possible to imagine familiar or abstract women in this image (sometimes there are cases that a girl, even in an unfamiliar person, constantly sees her rival). Practice once a month and you will soon feel relief. It won't matter if you were wronged or offended. All troubles will be a thing of the past, as it should be ideally. If you resort to this method, the thought that life does not forgive mistakes will leave you forever. The sequence is:
- Find yourself a comfortable place where it smells of your favorite aromas, with quiet music or pleasant sounds of nature, take your favorite meditation position.
- Completely relax your entire body (especially your face), let go of all thoughts and visualize the theater stage and yourself in a dark, crowded theater.
- There is a person on stage who is your offender. He is very happy because he is experiencing a joyful event. Try to feel his positivity, recharge from his joy.
- Now imagine yourself next to this person. You are also in a state of joy, you are both happy, but each in your own way. You are not partners, but you enjoy spending time together.
This ten-minute session will help you learn to experience positive emotions again. You will see a dramatic increase in positivity in your life.
Liberation from grievances against representatives of the stronger sex using the Sviyash technique
The practice of forgiving men by A. Sviyash will allow you not only to free yourself from the burden of negative memories of past relationships, but also to easily allow you to build new, positive ones. This session will relieve you of sad thoughts, give you the opportunity to treat the stronger sex more leniently, restore your self-confidence and allow you to enjoy life to the full again. This meditation will also help you let go of a dead man who hurt you (or you hurt him) and you did not have time to sort things out with him. The session takes place in the following sequence:
- Imagine an image of your offender and ask for forgiveness, remembering him in the third person (this can be done out loud or silently). For example: “I forgive (name or status) with sincere gratitude and love, accept him as the Creator created him, and also ask forgiveness for my negative thoughts, feelings and actions towards him.” Repeat this until you feel a comfortable warmth in the heart area. In relation to the deceased, say that you are letting him go.
- Eight times (this is an approximate number) say the phrase: “With gratitude and love (name or status) forgives me for negative thoughts, feelings and actions towards him.” These words will help erase all the negative thought forms sent to you by a man during your conflicts. Don't focus on counting the number of phrases you repeat, do it until you feel the warmth of relief. Imagine this person. A signal of complete self-forgiveness will be that he appears before you with a good-natured face and calmly leaves, waving his hand to you in a friendly way goodbye.
- It's time to ask for forgiveness from your own life. Do it this way: “I forgive my own life and accept all its manifestations. I apologize for the negative thoughts, feelings and actions on my part. Life forgives me for thoughts, feelings and actions that were negative.”
Telling someone else, “You offended me,” is okay.
— How to translate this unconditional forgiveness into the realm of practice? Is it right for a wife to constantly forgive her walking or drinking husband, who has already promised to improve a thousand times and every time again and again betrays her and the family? After all, many priests and psychologists today say that it is better to run away from such people...
— If we translate all this into a practical plane, then everything here is very, very difficult. Yes, of course, if the husband is a chronic alcoholic, if he is a master at acting, if he is a skilled manipulator, and the whole family is his hostages, then, most likely, in this case a divorce is necessary. But forgiveness is about something else. Spouses can divorce, but the “offended party” can forgive the offender. Overcome this pain, have no complaints, forgive. But simply transfer this person from the category of the closest, dearest to the category of “others”.
- Let's dwell a little on the state of resentment. Psychologists and psychotherapists say that you cannot accumulate resentment in yourself, that if you have been offended, you must, firstly, admit it to yourself, and secondly, tell the offender about it. Is this even Christian?
— Telling a person: “You offended me” is normal. Because “I was offended” does not mean “I stopped treating you well.” After this phrase, it’s not at all necessary to shout: “Get out of here so I don’t see you again!”
Therefore, I always tell my children, and my parishioners: if someone is dissatisfied with something, they should not be shy to express their dissatisfaction. There is no such virtue as shyness; there are virtues of humility, meekness and modesty. But any shyness indicates the presence of a serious internal conflict in a person. There is one thing inside and another outside. Therefore, frankness in any matter, openness and honesty, especially if it concerns family relationships, is, I think, a fundamentally important attitude. Because it’s not normal when family members are in a state of extreme alienation from each other, and everyone carries a whole bag of grievances and complaints in their bosom - while everyone can smile sweetly at each other, thinking that they are thereby maintaining peace in the family.
But in trying to be frank with each other, it is important not to go to the other extreme and not turn the family into a concentration camp of kindness and openness.
This is when everyone does nothing but rummage around in someone else’s soul, in their mind, in their heart, and as soon as someone doesn’t like something, they begin to find out: “Why are you offended? Perhaps we offended you somehow? Let's sit down and talk. All situations must be discussed carefully so that nothing accumulates!” Naturally, in such an environment, a normal person would want to send everyone to hell. And in order to avoid this extreme, first of all, we need an internal attitude to respect a person, to understand that he has the right to be different from how we want to see him, to have his own inner space.
One day a man came to confession to the Reverend Father Porfiry Kavsokalivit in order to check whether this priest was perspicacious or not. He confessed everything and did not tell only the most important thing - that he had a mistress. The elder listened to his confession, said something to him, and read a prayer of permission. And only when they began to say goodbye, the elder named the hotel where this man met his mistress, and asked him not to meet with her there again - because his daughter now works there, and if she sees this, it will be a great trauma for her . He, of course, was dumbfounded. I see two very important points here. Firstly, the elder could say: how dare you, scoundrel, scoundrel, come to confession and trample on the Holy Sacrament with lies! He didn't say anything like that. And secondly, he said this only in order to prevent an even greater disaster in this man’s life than the one into which he had driven himself through his lifestyle. And here I see great respect for a person - precisely Christ’s respect and unconditional, boundless love.
Having come into contact with such love, a person will change - not immediately, but it will be real, saving, and not hypocritical, repentance - which is what happened in the case of this man after some time.
Photo used in collage by Y'amal, CC BY 2.0
Kosarskaya technique
Many people are interested in the question of how to forgive themselves for past mistakes. Psychologist Kosarskaya is ready to share her unique methodology. The specialist claims that past grievances lead to severe physical ailments that have a detrimental effect on our physical health and mental balance. To get rid of them, you should do the following:
- Seclude yourself in a separate room, take your favorite pose, surround yourself with everything you like.
- Try to focus on the memories of your destiny, taking into account all the grievances and sorrows, even from the most distant childhood.
- Replay all your thoughts, feelings, sensations. Don't be afraid to experience the physical pain that may be present when remembering. Experience it again, let it affect all your cells and every segment of nerve.
- Visually transport yourself to a huge cinema and imagine yourself in front of its big screen.
- Transfer all your memories of grievances to the screen, make the image bright and voluminous, watch a film about your own destiny.
- When you see people on the screen who have hurt you, talk to them (mentally or out loud). Recall the hurt they have caused you (or simply summarize it in the form: “You caused me a lot of pain and tears.” Say that despite this, you forgive them and let them go. Then ask for forgiveness for your actions, say that you didn’t they wanted to cause harm intentionally and that this would not happen again.
- Move from one “character” on the screen to another, from one offender to another. Don’t forget those people who were offended or underestimated by you.
Forgive yourself. Stop cutting sawdust!
Today we would like to talk about how to forgive yourself. Where to find the very forces that will help you get out of a vicious circle, where to find the strength to accept your past. After all, if a person accepts everything that happened to him, he accepts himself, he accepts his Fate and his Experience, even if the meaning (negative, not positive) of it is not entirely to his liking.
By forgiving ourselves, we accept ourselves. We accept as we are. Year after year, no matter how “righteously” we live, a huge number of mistakes, large and small, still accumulate, which we, like a heavy bag, pull on our own back. You can't get far with such luggage. So wouldn't it be easier to sit down, untie your burden and look into the bag? Isn’t it easier to take out of it everything that has already happened a long time ago and what has happened cannot be changed? Isn’t it easier to look all your fears, resentments and guilt in the eye, telling them: “I see you. I know about you. I accept you. I thank you."
Experience. Our whole life is an experience. NLPists say: “There is nothing uniquely bad and nothing uniquely good, but everything is experience.” If you think about this phrase, we will agree with it, because it is so.
Living with your head turned back, trying to move forward in this position, a person does not go far. In his life, at a minimum, nothing simply happens. Absolutely nothing, as if he doesn’t live at all, but just exists, simply dragging out his days, in painful anticipation of that very last day, which, as it seems to him, will become a deliverance from everything and everyone.
Guilt blocks the flow of life. It's like dirt is eating away from the inside. Slowly but surely. And only a person can decide whether to continue to live with guilt or by working on mistakes to gain freedom and a chance for happiness.
Those who suffer, or even those who suffer, who adore to suffer forever, raising their hands to the sky, every now and then theatrically say: “How? How can I forgive myself? I can't! No, I can't do this! This is beyond my strength! I don’t even know what to do!”
When a person who eats himself is told, “You need to forgive yourself,” he immediately says, “Ohhhh, no, I can’t! This is not for me at all! you need to understand it something like this: “No, what are you saying, it’s so nice for me to feel poor, it’s so nice to feel sorry for myself, it’s so nice to be a victim of circumstances, and in general to be unhappy.”
Well, all those who do not want to forgive themselves, who do not want to work on themselves, remain, as Radislav Gapdapas says, “in the ass.” Sorry in advance for his French.
For those who are tired of sadly wandering through life with a backpack of unnecessary junk on their back, everything that will be discussed below is dedicated to them.