Last October (2011), in a post called Forgiveness Frees, in which I talked about forgiving others, I said I might talk some time about forgiving the self.
When I was going through my initial journey of self-discovery, in the portion where I was writing down the names of all those people that had hurt me - and what they did to hurt me - I thought I'd exhausted the list when that little Voice inside said, "You forgot someone." Asking whom He meant, the response came - ever so quietly and gently, " ....... you."
Yes. Yes I had done so much to hurt myself - ignoring myself, hating myself, talking trash about (and to) myself, and much more. It was hard to write it all down and see it all on paper. Yet it was one of the most useful exercises I had ever done to come to a knowledge of myself. And yes, I had to come to a place of forgiveness for the person who had done all these things: me.
Weird, huh.
It was a process which began with realizing that damage had been done - and that it was wrong! To allow myself to get angry at that - legitimately. To look at all the areas that those wrong things had affected. There were a LOT. And then to realize that I couldn't make up for the past ... and regret and remorse could only go so far. So at that point, I could let myself off the hook. That - my friends - is forgiveness. Forgiveness doesn't make what was wrong, "okay." It isn't carte blanche for the abuse to keep on happening, either. But it is a process that begins with a decision to become willing to forgive, and ends (after a whole pile of stuff in between) with another decision to not punish the person for whatever that wrong thing was. (For more information see the post I referred to, above - I put a link to it.)
Anyway, I did eventually get to that point of being able to decide not to punish myself for hurting me.
And ... to make restitution to myself (wow that still sounds weird) ... I started to treat myself differently. I'd stop myself from putting me down (either in the mirror or in public - well, the mirror part still needs a bit more work). I'd make a little bit of time to do something I wanted to do, rather than putting everyone else's needs ahead of mine ALL of the time.
Slowly I found little ways to say to myself, "I'm worth being nice to." One of the things I started doing was smiling at myself in the mirror when I saw me "in there" in the morning. Even if only briefly! (Guess what ... people look better when they smile! even if they have no teeth!) Something that simple - and it felt so awkward at first - helped lay the groundwork for getting to know myself ... and starting to like myself. To encourage myself. To take care of myself. To accept myself.
It's a funny thing about forgiving yourself, hard as that is sometimes. It's not optional, because it's a gateway to having healthy relationships with other people. Lots of folks try to have healthy relationships with others but if they can't stand themselves, the relationships they have will be superficial at best, and totally dysfunctional at the worst. I can say this because this is how I lived my life for decades. (And then I wondered why emotionally healthy people didn't want to have anything to do with me... Du-uh!) It's like I had this built-in 'abuse magnet.' With rare exceptions, I ended up attracting people as friends who wanted to either control me or fix me. This wasn't good for me - or for them.
When I learned to forgive - not only others but myself - the magnet slowly reversed its polarity. Instead of attracting abusers, or being attracted TO fixers, I started being repelled by them - and if they got close, it didn't take long for me to repel them (okay, sometimes I had to tell them to go away, because they didn't get it the first, or twentieth, time.) And I started being attracted to - and attracting - those who are accepting, confident without being cocky, honest with themselves and others, and sincere.
I can barely believe it - if you'd have asked me four years ago if this was possible, I would have said no. But it's true. Forgiveness really DOES free.
When I was going through my initial journey of self-discovery, in the portion where I was writing down the names of all those people that had hurt me - and what they did to hurt me - I thought I'd exhausted the list when that little Voice inside said, "You forgot someone." Asking whom He meant, the response came - ever so quietly and gently, " ....... you."
Yes. Yes I had done so much to hurt myself - ignoring myself, hating myself, talking trash about (and to) myself, and much more. It was hard to write it all down and see it all on paper. Yet it was one of the most useful exercises I had ever done to come to a knowledge of myself. And yes, I had to come to a place of forgiveness for the person who had done all these things: me.
Weird, huh.
It was a process which began with realizing that damage had been done - and that it was wrong! To allow myself to get angry at that - legitimately. To look at all the areas that those wrong things had affected. There were a LOT. And then to realize that I couldn't make up for the past ... and regret and remorse could only go so far. So at that point, I could let myself off the hook. That - my friends - is forgiveness. Forgiveness doesn't make what was wrong, "okay." It isn't carte blanche for the abuse to keep on happening, either. But it is a process that begins with a decision to become willing to forgive, and ends (after a whole pile of stuff in between) with another decision to not punish the person for whatever that wrong thing was. (For more information see the post I referred to, above - I put a link to it.)
Anyway, I did eventually get to that point of being able to decide not to punish myself for hurting me.
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| From Ten Quick Ways to Get Happy, http://lifestyle.aol.co.uk/2011/11/15/watching- too-much-tv-makes-older-women-depressed/ |
Slowly I found little ways to say to myself, "I'm worth being nice to." One of the things I started doing was smiling at myself in the mirror when I saw me "in there" in the morning. Even if only briefly! (Guess what ... people look better when they smile! even if they have no teeth!) Something that simple - and it felt so awkward at first - helped lay the groundwork for getting to know myself ... and starting to like myself. To encourage myself. To take care of myself. To accept myself.
It's a funny thing about forgiving yourself, hard as that is sometimes. It's not optional, because it's a gateway to having healthy relationships with other people. Lots of folks try to have healthy relationships with others but if they can't stand themselves, the relationships they have will be superficial at best, and totally dysfunctional at the worst. I can say this because this is how I lived my life for decades. (And then I wondered why emotionally healthy people didn't want to have anything to do with me... Du-uh!) It's like I had this built-in 'abuse magnet.' With rare exceptions, I ended up attracting people as friends who wanted to either control me or fix me. This wasn't good for me - or for them.
When I learned to forgive - not only others but myself - the magnet slowly reversed its polarity. Instead of attracting abusers, or being attracted TO fixers, I started being repelled by them - and if they got close, it didn't take long for me to repel them (okay, sometimes I had to tell them to go away, because they didn't get it the first, or twentieth, time.) And I started being attracted to - and attracting - those who are accepting, confident without being cocky, honest with themselves and others, and sincere.
I can barely believe it - if you'd have asked me four years ago if this was possible, I would have said no. But it's true. Forgiveness really DOES free.
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