How to Forgive Yourself

You can't hate yourself into becoming better.

Like when has self-hatred ever made you a better person?

When has beating yourself up actually helped you become who you wanted to be?

Yeah, never.

You don't heal through shame.

You heal through honesty and through compassion with yourself.

And when you can be honest, you can actually make improvements and you can do it without being cruel.

And this is important because let's be honest with each other.

Some people listening to this podcast right now are walking around carrying shame with you.

For things that you did five years ago or ten years ago, or maybe you did it two weeks ago, but you're carrying shame with you when it is absolutely unnecessary.

And what happens is it's heavy.

And it's keeping you small, it's keeping you quiet, it's keeping you tired.

And I just want to say this up front.

And be very honest with you, you can forgive yourself.

Forgiving yourself is honestly one of the most important things that you will ever do in your entire life.

Let me say that again.

Forgiving yourself, in case you didn't hear it.

Forgiving yourself is one of the most important things that you'll ever do in your entire life.

You have to learn to forgive yourself.

If you want to move forward.

In your life and have real peace and real power and create yourself into who you want to be, you need to forgive yourself.

Because otherwise, there's a part of you, there's a part of your mind that is stuck in that moment.

And it will never mature because you are choosing to stay stuck.

You are choosing to stay stuck.

And so today,

we're going to talk about how to actually forgive yourself.

So that you can stop being your own prison warden and you can start living from a place of freedom and not punishment.

Because it's it's honestly sad how many people I talk to that are still punishing themselves for something that happened years ago.

And because they're still stuck there, they're not able to grow and become better.

And so, why do we struggle with forgiving ourselves in the first place?

Like this is where we should probably start.

I want to talk about the difference between guilt and shame.

Okay, because these are actually two really important distinguish and like two things we need to distinguish in order for it to make sense for you, okay?

Guilt is a very human response.

It's your brain's way of saying, hey, I went against my values.

That's not who I want to be.

It makes you understand that you are out of alignment in that moment.

That's what guilt is.

It's a good sign.

It means that your heart's still working.

It shows that you know who you are.

And you were out of alignment.

Okay.

But here's where it starts to get tricky.

Guilt is supposed to lead to growth.

Hey, I messed up, I don't want to do that again.

Let me recalibrate so I can do something different.

That's what guilt is supposed to be there for.

It's not supposed to be a life imprisonment.

And it's not meant you stay there forever.

It's meant so that you can feel it, so that you can become aware of it.

So that you can change and you can say, okay, let's recalibrate from here.

So that I can make a better decision next time.

Some of you though, and we all do this in some sort of way.

When we're unaware of ourselves.

Have turned your guilt into an identity.

And so you say something like, oh, well, I'm a bad mom.

Or I always sabotage things.

Or I don't deserve love after what I did.

Or I'm not a good person.

At that point, it's not guilt anymore.

Guilt is in the moment a behavior.

At this point in time, where you're turning it into identity.

That's actually turned into shame.

And so, the difference is, and the way to distinguish it.

Guilt says I did something bad.

Shame says I am bad.

And shame will always keep you stuck in the past your whole life and make you repeat it over and over again.

And we will be right back.

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If you didn't know, I obviously have some coaching programs outside of the podcast to help you learn and grow and become a better version of yourself.

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Check it out.

And let's get back to the episode.

And once again, this is a really important distinction.

There is a really, really big difference between a behavior, which is something that you do.

And an identity, which is who you are.

And most people take their behaviors and say, oh, well, because I did this, this is who I am.

Because I yelled at my kids, I'm a bad mom.

No, no, no.

There's a big difference between your behavior and your identity.

You can still have a bad day and and yell at your kids on accident and still be a great mother.

You don't need to take your behavior and make it an identity.

And this is where a lot of people keep themselves stuck.

Just because you did something does not mean that's who you are.

And so, let me give you an example, right?

Because this is really important for you to see because now you can start to distance yourself from the moment.

And not take on this behavior and make it who you are.

Let's go to the example I was just giving you, like a parenting mistake, right?

Guilt would be something like, I yelled at my kid yesterday.

That's not how I want to show up.

Right?

That's a behavior.

Shame is I'm a terrible mother.

That's an identity.

Guilt can lead to repair and growth.

Shame leads you feeling like shit and keeps you stuck in that moment as that person.

So, let's let's give another example.

Let's say that, you know, you did something wrong in a relationship, right?

Guilt would be something like, I wasn't honest with them.

And I need to own that.

See?

Behavior.

Shame is I'm unworthy of love, I always ruin things, I'm a liar.

That is an identity.

Guilt is about the action.

Shame makes it about the identity.

Let's say you mess something up in your career, right?

Guilt would be like, I missed a deadline, I let the team down.

That's a behavior.

Shame is I'm a failure, I'm not good at this, I always screw things up.

That's an identity.

So guilt invites responsibility, shame creates paralysis.

And makes you more likely to repeat it again because you're turning it into your identity.

And so, let's last example I'll give you, let's say that you you have a, um,

you know, you said you weren't going to be drinking for a while and you started drinking.

Or there's some sort of addiction.

It's like guilt is I screwed up.

And that was a choice that I regret.

That's behavior.

Shame is I'm broken, I'll never change.

That's an identity.

Guilt leads to guilt leads to growth in some way.

Shame keeps you in the cycle.

And so identifying it as a behavior and and actually saying like, this is a behavior.

Allows you to notice it, not take it on.

And then forgive yourself and be able to grow from it in the moment.

Making it an identity makes you feel like shit.

That makes you feel small, and it makes you more likely to do it again in the future because you're telling yourself, that's who I am.

And if that's who you are, guess what you're going to do.

You're going to take actions that align with your identity.

Forgiveness, when you look at it.

Let's let's clear it up really more than anything else.

Forgiveness is taking accountability.

Yep.

I messed up.

I own it.

Learning the lesson from it.

I'll learn from it, it won't happen again.

And then releasing yourself from the past so that you can grow.

If you don't release yourself from the past, you will not be able to grow.

You will stay stuck in that moment and not be able to grow from it.

That's what forgiveness is.

Forgiveness is not, um, like pretending it didn't happen.

Forgiveness is not saying like, oh yeah, what I did was okay, because sometimes what you did wasn't okay.

And you need to take responsibility for it.

Uh, forgiveness is not waiting for somebody else to forgive you first so that you can have permission to forgive yourself.

And so, when you look at it, you're not erasing it.

You're not denying it.

But you're also not making it a part of your identity.

What you're doing is you're reframing it, you're going, there was a lesson in this.

I'm going to extract this lesson.

I'm going to grow from it.

You're saying like, hey, I was doing my best that I could with the level of awareness that I had.

But,

now that it's been two years, I've outgrown that version of me.

I've learned more.

And hindsight is always 2020.

And so, I'm going to do better next time.

One thing I really want you to understand for yourself, but also for other people, is believe it or not.

And it's hard to believe for some people.

Everyone is doing the best they can with what they have at every moment of their life.

Even if they completely screw up.

And some people you're just going to have to realize, they're doing their best.

Even if it's not really good.

But, they're doing their best.

But when I say everyone is doing the best that they can at any moment, I'm also saying that includes you.

You, if you would have known more, you would have made a better decision.

Well, now that you know more, let that version of you go.

And make it a better decision next time.

And so, let me give you the the four-step process to actually start to forgive yourself.

Uh, the I want to break it down into something that feels like a little bit more actionable.

Versus just saying, forgive yourself, right?

So the first thing is this, you need to name the thing.

Like bring it to the surface, even if it's painful.

You have to bring it to the surface.

Say it out loud or journal through it.

Write it down.

And you can say something like, you know, I keep replaying the moment that I snapped at my children.

Or I stayed in a toxic relationship way too long.

Or I really messed that up.

Like, just bring it to the light because there's a a phrase that I love that says, shame breeds in the dark.

Which means that when it stays in the dark, it grows.

When you bring it to the light, you can work through it.

So you need to learn to call it out, you need to learn to bring it to the light so that you can work on it.

So that you can grow from it and then you can let it go.

And stop holding on to that thing.

So that's the first thing.

The second thing you want to do is take appropriate responsibility.

Now, I use the word appropriate very specifically.

I don't want you to take all of the responsibility.

There's sometimes where you do need to take all the responsibility.

But there are certain situations where you don't need to take all of the responsibility.

You just need to take your part of the responsibility.

Did you mess up?

Cool.

Name it.

Where did you mess up?

But don't carry everybody else's behavior on your back.

You can let them deal with that.

You need to let that go as well.

But also at the same time, don't name everybody else's behavior and blame everybody else's role in it.

Because that's not what we're here to do.

That doesn't matter anymore.

All we're here to do is to just start owning your part in whatever it was that happened.

Okay?

So the second thing, you're going to make sure that you take appropriate responsibility.

The third thing is that in order to really forgive yourself and to be able to let go of this.

You need to be able to extract the lesson from it.

You need to pull the lesson from this.

This is why having your journal is important.

So you ask yourself questions like this.

If this situation happened today, how would I respond differently?

So that you can now know how you can recalibrate next time it happens.

Like so if this situation happened today, how would I respond differently?

Or what was I supposed to learn from this?

Or how can I do better next time?

This is where you can take that moment of guilt where yeah, you did mess up.

And you can turn it into growth.

If you're growing from something, it makes it way easier to forgive yourself for it.

If you learn something, and I mean like really learn something from it.

Then that pain was never wasted.

Every version of you is a stepping stone to the next version of you.

None of them are final.

It's like the visual that I always have when I think of people constantly growing is like a rose that's constantly in bloom.

Like it's always blooming.

And when it's when a new pedal is coming up, what happens?

Old pedals need to die off and fall off.

In order to make space for that new pedal, you know, you have to let go of the old ones.

You have to stop holding on to certain old pedals that have needs to fall off.

Like let them fall off.

So that you can grow.

So that's the third thing.

And the fourth thing is create closure on purpose.

And so it might look like a couple different things.

Whatever works best for you because some people like different things.

You can write yourself your your past self a letter.

Hey, dear past self.

I know that you were going through some rough times, blah, blah, blah.

Whatever it is.

Write yourself a past letter so that you can actually just let go and create closure of that.

It could be that you say, I forgive myself out loud or you write it down and say it out loud.

It could be, you know, visualizing yourself walking away from the memory in peace.

So it's like, hey, I'm leaving that.

Like you don't have to wait for some big moment in your life or some big spiritual moment.

Like you can create one.

You can just say like, hey, I release myself from this chapter.

It taught me what it needed to teach me.

And I forgive myself for what I did.

That's it.

It's simple.

And so, you know, I want you to have a a a reframe on what forgiveness is.

And what you're supposed to do and how you're supposed to use this.

Because what if the version of you that made that mistake wasn't trying to ruin your entire life?

I'm going to make a guess.

Do you think that version of you was trying to ruin your life?

No.

Maybe that version of you wasn't evil or selfish or dumb.

You know, maybe they were just afraid.

Maybe they were confused.

Maybe they were unhealed in certain places in their life.

Maybe they were imitating what they saw growing up.

Maybe they were, um, desperate for connection.

So that's why they acted the way they did.

Maybe they were operating in survival mode.

And what if you could look back right now and say like to your older self, like, you didn't know better.

It's okay.

But like, I know better now.

And I'm going to do better from here on out.

That's how you actually forgive yourself.

That's what leadership for yourself actually looks like.

And when you start to lead yourself in ways like that, that's where you really start to step into your power.

And so I want you to understand, you are allowed to forgive yourself.

And if you're listening to this episode and you're still here, you know, you probably need to forgive yourself in some sort of way.

What does that look like?

What does it look like for you to forgive yourself?

What does it look like for you to move on and to stop punishing yourself?

And keeping yourself in this invisible prison.

Like you're allowed to be free.

Believe it or not, you're allowed to change.

And I want you to understand that the real you, the version of you that you're growing into, the version of you that you're becoming.

Needs you to let go so that you can now step into a new version of you.

That old pedal needs to fall off so that you can grow a new one.

And so the real you, the version of you that that you're becoming, need you to let go.

And the first piece of that is forgiving yourself.

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