The Power Of Forgiving Yourself
The reason I’m writing about The Benefits Of Self-Forgiving Exercises. Is because through most of my life I was so hard on myself. Never letting me off the hook for mistakes or any setbacks. It led me on a downward slide and alienated me from people who cared about my future. This post is a guide to hopefully helping you to stay off the unforgiving path and looking at your mistakes as a positive, not something you had a divine right just to get.
When it comes to forgiving others I found it a lot easier to do. I found it hard to hold a grudge for too long and had to resolve the outcome one way or another. Whether that be opening up a line of communication to solve the issue of forgiving them myself in my way. To go to bed thinking about an issue with someone else was a clear habit I would not allow.
So why would it be easier and more apparent to forgive for but forget the power of forgiving myself? It’s a habit formed many years before realising the effects. Carved and ingrained within our childhood from the people we are closest to and societal factors we live in.
Looking back it’s hard to point out when any of this happened but for sure it happened. For instance, people who can’t forgive others over a long period of time, haven’t learned themselves to forgive others but can easily forgive themselves.
When it hit home for me is when I read about Jack Canfield’s Success Principles book – the chapter of Forgiveness, and understood it consciously for the first time. It made me realise how hard i was on myself, and for the first time in my adult life, it came as a shock – because I have always been forgiving of others, but not of myself. And that’s where the problem lie. After reading that chapter in the book, is when i started addressing the issue. A wave of emotions came to its surface, like it was compressed down in the deepest layers of my being, and only seeping out through my energy. Now it had awoken, and all the things that i didn’t like or wasn’t happy with was out. From there on, the book gave me a way to forgive myself.
How Do I Make This A Habit?
Once A Week Review
Falling back into old habits is so easy to do if there is no attention put on forming the habit. That’s why every week you should touch base with yourself and see how you’re feeling with the choices you have made that week. If you remember you didn’t hit one of your goals and you said to yourself I’m not good enough to do this but didn’t realise at the time. This is a great way to head back and forgive your self for not hitting your intended goal and reaffirm that you are good enough and list how you would change it for next time. How I perform this is by sitting somewhere alone,avoided from distraction and I close my eyes and deal with it within my mind.
Get A Journal
A great way to keep track of when you put yourself down is having a journal to track it. This can be done immediately after you have said and you recognised it or at the end of the day, It’s really important to find patterns to when and why this happens then you can put buffers in place so you don’t have to keep going through the same negative emotions.
Be Conscious Of Your Emotions
Most of the time we are running on autopilot. When it comes to good or bad habits our mind doesn’t care which it should focus on. So we need to make sure our subconscious mind has formed the right habits.
That’s why being conscious of when you are hard on yourself is important in addressing the issue. A great way to do this on the daily is to just ask yourself. How am I feeling in this moment? This will gauge where your at, be it happy or sad. Then if it’s a new emotion, ask again why do I feel this way? The positives of this exercise will allow you to connect with your emotions and start to understand them. This will lead to you having the power to control them, rather than your emotions controlling you.
Final Thoughts
Overall, when we can forgive ourselves that’s when a lot of our negative energy can go away. It’s like an anchor holding us down in our lives that we just can’t lift. If we can release it that’s when we can move forward.
We must understand it and have strategies to overcome it. Sooner rather than later. I challenge you after reading this post to sit down somewhere comfy, grab your favourite hot drink and spend some time with yourself and learn to forgive yourself and become a better and stronger person from your experience so you can have life-changing moments today and in the future.
FUTURE MINDSET
At Future Mindset, we are here to push the boundaries of our thoughts and actions. By chasing discomfort in our lives, it can lead us to unlock things inside us we never knew was there. Let’s change our mindset to change our future.
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Chase discomfort and have a great day wherever you are!
