I am a huge fan of Maya Angelou & wanted to share this:


"I don't know if I continue, even today, always liking myself. But what I learned to do many years ago was to forgive myself. It is very important for every human being to forgive herself or himself because if you live, you will make mistakes- it is inevitable. But once you do and you see the mistake, then you forgive yourself and say, 'well, if I'd known better I'd have done better,' that's all. So you say to people who you think you may have injured, 'I'm sorry,' and then you say to yourself, 'I'm sorry.' If we all hold on to the mistake, we can't see our own glory in the mirror because we have the mistake between our faces and the mirror; we can't see what we're capable of being. You can ask forgiveness of others, but in the end the real forgiveness is in one's own self. I think that young men and women are so caught by the way they see themselves. Now mind you. When a larger society sees them as unattractive, as threats, as too black or too white or too poor or too fat or too thin or too sexual or too asexual, that's rough. But you can overcome that. The real difficulty is to overcome how you think about yourself. If we don't have that we never grow, we never learn, and sure as hell we should never teach.”

-Maya Angelou

JumperGirl, That was a great post. So many times all of us have a real tendency to be super hard on oneself more than even on others. Learning to forgive yourself may be even harder than forgiving others. Thank you for reminding us of that.

Wow, Jumper...that was so deep and true! Thanks for sharing!

This pulls at my heart strings.....so beautiful and so true. I am a firm believer that forgivness along with love cannot be given to others unless you are willing to give it to yourself

I knew of a dynamic Catholic priest who wrote incredible literature on forgiveness, and he suggested that 95% of all sickness in humans is a result of unforgiveness.

Question for ya...do you think that applies to unforgiveness of self? Yeah, I think so too.

Humdinger

This is somethign I've been struggling with for so long.
'well, if I'd known better I'd have done better,'
What if you did something, and knew the range of possible outcomes, and yet did it anyway, just hoping for the best? I mean, yah, looking back on it I wouldn't have done it because now, after the fact I know better. I know the outcome was not optimal IMO (altho yes, it was God's plan). How do I forgive myself for doing something so stupid? I KNEW what could have happened, and it did. How do I forgive myself for the pain and suffering I've caused myself and others? It happened when I was 15, and I'm all teared up as I teype this. Sorry, don't mean to threadjack, it's just what numerous shrinks have told me, and I just don't understand how I'm supposed to get there.

Learning to forgive ourselves is very hard. I struggle with it, I don't let go very easily. I am still learning as well. I have learned to forgive others which is a step in the right direction. Forgiving ourselves is finding peace with our mistakes. It's not easy ... but we will get there.

For me the beginning of forgiveness starts with getting complete with myself and then with others that may have been involved in the situation if needed. Look we all have 20/20 hindsight. no matter your age 30, 40,15 when we make a choice to do something or not we can only make the best choice that we are emotionally integrated enough to make with the facts that we have in front of us at that time. If that choice turns out to be not the best one or even the wrong one we have to ask ourselves did we make our decision the best we could at the time and with good intentions and motives. If we did and it did not turn with good results and someone was hurt then we need to get complete with ourselve about it or the other person involved. Sometimes for me that means writing to myself an explanation or appology. I know this may sound funny but it works for me. Then if others are involved I talk with them and let them know what my real intention or motive was behind my decision. Even if it wa many years ago if it is bothering me then i need to get complete with them so I can move on. For me this starts a process of healing so I can let go of the regret, the pain, etc and thus find forgiveness for me.

I have been taking several courses over the past two years to learn how I could forgive myself for my past choices because I did not know how and now I have this process to follow that walks me thru the process. Just thought I would share in case it helps you.

God Bless ~ Annissa

The past 2 years I spent 2-3 times a week working with drug and alcohol guy's with 12 step work. Resentment is said to be a huge offender when people are not able to get clear of those, but I think the big one is self-pity which comes from not forgiving ones self.

When i was experiencing non forgiveness for myself I was just that in "self" as selfish which is tied into self-pity. For me it was just allowing my self to feel sorry for all the bad decisions I made that got me in the mess I was in.

Once again (sorry if this is a little hardcore) when all else fails get off your butt and go help someone and I promise you all the can't forgive, self-pity, selfishness will vanish. If you get into a habit of 1 or 2 times a week all of it will go away.

God has a great sense of humor in the way of using us to get out of our self and out of his way so he can heal us as we work for him in helping others.

The best way not to forgive yourself is set in your own "stuff" trying to figure it all out, believe me I have been there.

Coach-Stoney

I used to be a very judgmental person, and still have to bite my tongue sometimes...but if you dig hard enough I believe that you can find good in anyone out there, and most people are actually well or at least neutrally intentioned in life. As much as I can try to be philisophical about it, though, I think I've been so judgmental of others because I have been so harsh on myself for mistakes over the years.

I can find even stupid little things that I can rehash in my head and get really angry or depressed about. I can tear myself apart for all sorts of things, some of which I knew better than to do, and others I didn't. It's all a learning experience. We all screw up and have things that we can hold against ourselves or others can hold against us forever. I think this is such an important thing to address, because unless we try to reframe our thinking so we see our mistakes as valuable lessons and work toward forgiveness of ourselves and others, the weight that bogs us down will be more detrimental than any physical weight we are struggling with.

I just loved what you wrote. It is very true....Im dealing with some issues right now on that subject. . I do not regret the past nor do I wish to shut the door on it. I'll get back to this.

~ Bobby Grimes

Bobby when you start working with guys on taking them through the steps you will experience a whole new life but until then your in the danger zone and its not a safe place to be, the disease is mean and ugly and it wants to kill you. But you know the solution you just have to take action and quit talking and worrying about issues that will go away when you get busy. God has a great life for you and its up to you to take advantage of it. You can find 100 people that will tell you what you want to hear but you need me to tell you the truth.

WHen you are in the service of others you are in the service of God.

Stoney, So very true. You can't have self pity or even resentment when you are in the service of your fellow man. Your heart is too full of love and pure charity to even be concerned with self.

Wow had not read this this till today, still catching up on all the forum subjects extra and I find this one which reflects the one I just started.
Ah like minds.......
Just sorry for the doubling up