Self Forgiveness

[srfranci]

Self-forgiving is:

Accepting yourself as a human who has faults and makes mistakes.

Letting go of self anger for your past failures, errors, and mistakes.

No longer needing penance, sorrow, and regret over a grievous, self-inflicted, personal offense.

The act of self love after you have admitted your failure, mistake, or misdeed.

The spiritual self healing of your heart by calming self rejection, quieting the sense of failure, and lightening the burden of guilt.

The act of letting go of the need to work so hard to make up for your past offenses.

For me, self forgiveness means to not go back to your past: Clear your conscience, Become who you are not what life has made you, Teaching yourself it does not matter what others think of you, You are who you are this minute and not who you were yesterday..But always remember , You will always get the effects of what you cause. Regain your self worth and your self esteem ... and don't let nothing or nobody take that from you, and especially your self... If you want peace of mind you have to seek Gods wisdom to beat worldly wisdom...Gods grace is with us.

Does anyone know of any good self forgiveness exercises?

[Bruce M.]

srfrance here is my blog on forgiveness:
http://ors.greentangerinenetworks.com/?p=200#more-200

[Bette P]

I really like this saying; What other people think of me is none of my business.

[Bette P]

In response to "Does anyone know of any good self forgiveness exercises?" I would say the 4th & 5th Steps freed me from regrets. As I continue to work my program I've discovered new stuff and then begin doing a 4th step on that issue alone....it works

[Mark B]

Profound words of advice -- I'll commit this concept to memory and apply when needed (often).

[Hopes2Heal]

I like the way you put it: If you want peace of mind you have to seek God's wisdom to beat worldly wisdom....

I guess I've usually put Wisdom in one vessel. I can see the value in separating it into two, though, and then preferring God's wisdom over what we might have gleaned from life's teachings--dark or light.

You asked for exercises for self-forgiveness...this is complex. I struggle with this, too. I feel angry about the abuses of the past done to me, I feel bitter over feeling bitter about all of it, yet I have found comfort in trying to forgive some who have hurt me. In one unusual case, I have one relationship that was abusive--incestual--where I've been able to forgive and love again. He's my brother. I shut him out for so long because of the pain. Then I had to deal with the guilt associated with not staying close to my brother. Near my mother's death, she asked me to stay close to him and watch out for him. In a self-righteous moment, I rallied with "watch out for him?! He's the reason my life has been this way!". It's been tough and my brother and I have never been able to discuss this, except with a few others. He sees a counselor now and she tries to help him feel less guilt. I have had help from others, too, trying to support me....telling me it was okay to feel righteous anger. We did not ask for abuse or lack of self-efficacy for tasks that comes from feeling dirty and violated and weak. What has happened to us may have made us feel downtrodden and lesser. God does not want that for us. He loves us as we are, with all wisdoms, gifts and thinkings put aside. He loves our central person. If we take away life's regalia, we can find ourselves and know the person that He knows.

One excrcise: Draw a basic shape of yourself but large enough to write inside (maybe use a paper grocery bag). Write inside it all the things that you cannot share with others...these deep feelings, thoughts and memories that you really don't show to most people--list positives and negatives. Place a sheet of paper cut to fit the shape...sort of like a dress or cape. Now cut little paper strips out and stick them all over the shape. What do others see? Do they always praise your hairstyle? Your giving spirit? This is the outer you...the one the world knows. List all the outer world qualities that you let others see. Which ones do you prize the most? Which ones do you feel are not really representative of you but that you claim as your identity? Take these little identity qualifiers off the shape and put them into a bag labeled...Others think so, but I don't--really. What's left? Take some of the others and put them into another bag labeled: I like these and I agree. Then take what's left and try to figure out which bag they really should go into. If they won't go into either bag, put them into a bag labeled: "Do I really need these?".

Pray over these at the same time of the day every day for seven days. On the eighth day, ponder, when you are alone whether anything in any of the bags has changed. Then, in privacy, lift the cape of the shape and look inside. Has anything there changed? If so, remove it by laying a strip of paper over it and taping it on. You may want to look back at this one day when you keep comparing changes that occur.

On the note of self-forgiveness, sometimes we struggle with the feelings we have about abuses. We wonder why we were abused. We wonder why something did not happen to keep these things from happening. We wonder why no one was watching or why someone wasn't particularly concerned about keeping things pure and right for us. We wonder about a lot of things. We feel it might be our fault or that we should have done something to save ourselves. What can a small child do when someone older is forcing and threatening to kill you if you make noise or tell? Not much can be done except to endure and to survive. Many of us throw ourselves into other things and start over in new areas geographically. Sometimes that helps us to repress the negatives. This happened to me. I got so excited about a new start in life with college and then marriage and then children. It wasn't until my own daughter reached the age at which I was abused that the old abuses came back to me. It was shocking that it came back with such force and I was confused as to how I could have "forgotten" so much for so many years. My mind and body wanted to forget and wanted to be happy. I can finally say that after gaining an inch of better self-esteem and riding rough waters for years (when my marriage was under attack due to my husband's porn addiction), that I don't feel as much guilt as I once did over what was done to me. I still had to deal with my own guilt over decisions I have made that were based upon what was done to me, though. I'm still working on that part of it.

Another exercise to help with self-esteem and maybe even with self-forgiveness:

Sit back to back with a person you trust. Each take a turn saying something positive about the other. No negatives. We are looking to the positive here. It's okay to sit in silence if one has to think a while. The person may say something to you that you have a hard time accepting because you may feel badly about yourself and hearing good things may make you want to disagree, but you must not. Let the negatives sink and be squelched for now. Focus on finding the you that others see and then move to finding the you who really is. We can start with what others think because it is what others have told us that may have influenced decisions we have made in life. We need to face and accept those as real and as "offered", but then we must dig deeper. We need to look at ourselves as only God sees us. He claimed us before we were born. He knew the path might be rough for us, but He knew how we would be on the other side of things and how we might be able to reach out to others to help, just because of what we've been through. Was it all part of His plan for us to be hurt? God does not want us hurt. Because of someone's free will, we were hurt. Now, because of our free will, we will climb the mountain to see the top of all things and see ourselves as He sees us. When we descend the mountain and return to the valley of life, we can seek our true reflection in the Water of life. We need to remember that reflection and move forward. Oh, how easy it is to slip back into yesterday, but we need to wake up, claim the new day, forgive ourselves as God forgives us and keep moving forward. One thing that cements a good feeling for me each day is to wake up, spend time in prayer and then do something to help someone else before I launch into the dailies. Doing something to cheer someone else always makes me feel better about the day and the use of the day given to me.

Blessings as we work through things together....thank you for your sharing and your perspective.


...always a work in progress....

Hopes2Heal

[SHAUN SMITH]

Look myself in the mirror and say out loud,I AM DOING A FINE JOB,I MOVIN ON,I LOVE AND ACCEPT MYSELF TODAY,AND I AM GONNA PUT A SMILE ON MY FACE EVEN IF IT IS ON PURPOSE.