The “Easy” and Quick Process to Forgive Yourself
You may not realize it yet, but you have a lot to forgive yourself for
A necessary part of loving yourself is taking the time to forgive yourself.
You will have a hard time loving yourself if you are holding onto anger, shame or hatred because of something you did.
Like most people, you’re holding this unnecessary pain. Off the bat, a few things probably come to mind, but other things will pop up as you start the process.
What is the process you ask?
Let’s dive in!
Warning: you may cry doing it.
Why forgive yourself in the first place?
Before we get to the actual process, it’s important we talk about why you should forgive yourself. If you don’t understand why you should forgive yourself, it’s unlikely you will partake.
Throughout your life, you’ve done things you’ve regretted. With a lot of these things, you’ve moved on and it was all good.
But, some things still pop up in your mind now and then. They affect how you live your life and make decisions.
When I did the process, I realized there were a bunch of things I did as a kid which still affected me.
For example, I remember going for a walk with my sister during a snowfall when I was 4 or 5 years old. I was upset because it was cold and didn’t want to go.
A snowflake landed on my nose and I still remember seeing the beautiful designs. My sister pointed at it and my grumpy self hit the snowflake off.
The disappointment on my sister’s face made me sad every time I thought about that moment.
This sounds meaningless and for the most part, it is.
But, when I finally forgave myself, I found a deep relief. I could finally move on from the anger I displayed over 25 years ago.
This was such a distant memory and I would have never thought of forgiving myself for it if I hadn’t done the process. The process will bring up these old memories.
As I forgave myself for many things that made me feel shame from the past, I cried like a baby.
It was awesome and felt great. I could feel the unnecessary pain leaving my body.
That’s the whole point of forgiveness.
Not only do you become free of pain, but others do too.
It’s time to move on from the past and bring yourself back to the present.
The process of forgiveness
Full disclosure, I got this forgiveness process from the book, “Love Yourself Like Your Life Depends On It” by Kamal Ravikant (which I highly recommend).
I did my own version of it which worked well and that’s what I’m sharing with you today.
To start, you need to get a paper and a pen.
Don’t write this on your phone or computer. You need to feel the process of drawing out each letter you are going to write.
Now, write down everything you need to forgive yourself for.
At first, you’ll only have a couple of things. But, as you continue, you’ll find more memories popping up.
Example:
I feel sadness for knocking a snowflake off my face while on a walk with my sister when I was 5 years old
I feel shame for being mean to my ex-girlfriend during a fight when I was 23.
I feel angry at myself for giving up too easily.
Give yourself a good amount of time to do this. Chances are, you’ll pause to cry a few times. And, as you pause, you’ll think of more.
When you finally finish dumping all of your baggage on this piece of paper, write at the bottom, “I Forgive Myself”.
Next, you have to read everything on this paper out loud, let yourself feel it one more time and then say, “I forgive myself”.
Read “I forgive myself” out loud as many times as you need to until you really feel it.
To finish, rip the paper up, light it on fire, drop it in the ocean, or do what I did, put it in the paper shredding.
It was extremely satisfying to watch and hear the paper get torn apart. I could feel the pain I held back leave my body as the paper was destroyed.
When your paper is no more you need to say one more time out loud, “I forgive myself”.
To wrap it up
This is a process I’m going to try to do once a year. It’s a good way to leave all unnecessary pain in the previous year.
If you want to feel the full effects of the process, you need to make sure to be open emotionally to anything that is hurting you. You need to acknowledge how distant memories are making you feel.
Upon completing the process, please comment below and let me know how you feel!
If you’re feeling really brave, write something you forgave yourself for!
Thanks for reading