Why is Forgiving Yourself so Important?
Because forgiving yourself changes your energy and opens you to conscious reality creation.
The number of times I have fucked things up in my life is pretty impressive. I mean, when it comes to doing it wrong, choosing poorly, and generally screwing up in some way or other – I am a pro.
How many of you can make the same statement? Do you also believe yourself to be a professional fuck-up? Or maybe you haven’t reached the level of fuck-up, but are a professional screw-up?
Here’s the thing – this is true of EVERYONE. Every. Single. Person. On. Earth. Screws-up or fucks-up stuff. Everyone.
Some people cannot admit this to anyone, themselves included. I give you exhibit ‘A’ – Donald Trump. As far as he is concerned, he is always right and certainly never screws-up or fucks-up in the least. Unless you are part of his cult followers – you know that nothing could be farther from the truth.
But this is not the point of this article – so let’s move on.
You are going to get it wrong, mess up, fail, screw-up, unintentionally cause hurt, and fuck-up from time to time. Likely, you already have. No matter what you do, odds are you’ll do so again.
Recognizing this, you have a choice. Hold onto the idea that you ARE a fuck-up when you get it wrong – or that you fucked-up but are still just a person trying to live your life. The difference is huge – because when you personify that negativity it will interfere with your life on many levels.
On the other hand, when you see it for what it is – a human error – you can let it go and move forward. And that’s where forgiveness comes in.
Congrats, you’re a human being
Unless you are, in fact, an alien posing as a human – or one of the legendary lizard people – you’re a human being. As such, you are perfectly imperfect and prone to any and all emotional states you can conceive of.
It never ceases to amaze me how many ways we strive to move past human nature. It’s almost like we are ashamed of who and what we are. Thus, we build technologies that give us abilities no other animal has. That you are reading this is a perfect example.
Rather than embrace our human animal, though, we try to surpass it. While I am all for the medical technologies that let us replace joints and heal bones (hey, I am here and whole after receiving a skin graft, a bone graft, and titanium plates), other augmentations people take on might be unnecessary.
Reconstructive surgery is an outstanding thing to have after trauma. But some people take it to the point where they look plastic and unnatural. The whole idea of cyberpunk is augmenting the human body to expands its capabilities into super-human.
Hey, to each their own – but what’s wrong with just being human?
All these notions can be used to deny your humanity. But instead of denying it or trying to overcome it – we should embrace it.
That means embracing the good, the bad, the perfect, the imperfect, and everything in between.
But more than this, one of the things we tend most to avoid about being human is our inner selves. Our thoughts, feelings, mindset/headspace/psyche. But the truth is that THIS is who you are.
More human than human
The bodies we occupy, and all their constituent parts therein, are how we interact with the world at large. But they are not who we are. We are who we are within.
Your perception of yourself and the world around you – and your reality – are what make you the most human. Who you are is not the body you present to the world – it’s the intangible things you think, feel, and act upon that create your reality, and make you who you are.
As Albert Einstein told us,
“Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.”
How you perceive the world around you – your take on reality – is of your own making. You build it from your experiences, interactions, environments, growth, change, good and bad things inside and outside of your control, and more. Your beliefs, your habits, the choices and decisions you make and don’t make are your reality.
Lots of people seek ways to escape this. But we should be embracing it. When we do, we gain control over ourselves, where we are, and where we’re going.
This also gives us control over change. At the least, the ability to resist it, direct it, redirect it, and so on.
But that means you need to be able to look within. For many people, this is challenging because of all the past fuck-ups, mistakes, errors, failures, and other ways in which you hurt yourself and/or others. But since absolutely everything you desire in life – tangible or intangible – comes from within – you need to forgive yourself for the wrongs.
The outside things are all manifested from within. ALL of them began as a thought, got blended with feeling, action, and intent – then were created.
Forgiving yourself changes your energy and opens you to conscious reality creation.
Forgiving yourself takes time and effort
I am not going to sugar coat this because I can’t. Forgiveness tends to be challenging in general. When someone wrongs you, hurts you, makes a mess of your plans – forgiving them can be hard.
When that someone is YOU it’s often even harder.
It takes time and effort, but it is the key to controlling how your life is and where it’s going. Forgiving yourself matters.
How do you do this? There is no one-size-fits-all quick fix for this, but in my experience, you need to work with the following:
- Acknowledge the error. Straight to the point, recognize that screw-up, and don’t avoid seeing that you did it.
- Be accountable. We live in a society that delights in placing blame. Don’t do that. You need to be accountable for the error/mistake/fuck-up. Even if it’s something that you shared with someone – you must be accountable for your part in it.
- Apologize. You need to apologize to yourself. I’m sorry I screwed-up is the first step in opening the door to forgiveness.
- Release the hurt. Whatever negative feelings come up because of your error, YES, you need to feel them. But you don’t need to define yourself by them (i.e. I am a fuck-up). No good comes from holding onto negativity regarding mistakes. Release it like a pressure cooker releasing steam.
- Take new action. When you fall off a bicycle or a horse the best thing to do is get right back on. When you fuck-up, it’s tempting to avoid a new decision. But the best thing to do is to make one.
Acknowledge, be accountable, apologize to yourself, release the hurt, and go for it again. Often, you learn from the mistakes/errors/screw-ups/fuck-ups in your life. Hence why forgiveness is necessary.
Forgiving yourself is a conscious reality creator
You are always creating your reality. That’s part of human nature. Often, we do this subconsciously. That’s a societal matter – because the world we live in is fear-based and discourages critical thinking and reasoning.
The mixed messages can be super confusing, too. Be incredible – but within this box. Show your best – but don’t rock the boat. Kick-ass and take names – but mostly, keep it to yourself. Is it any wonder we have so many people suffering from depression, anxiety, and other mental health issues? Especially now, in the middle of a pandemic?
Because you are human, and you are going to get things wrong along the way – forgiving yourself is essential to living the fullest, most connected, contented life possible. To get the most out of your life experience, you need to let go of the hurt and negativity that you experience – especially that which you cause yourself.
Forgiving yourself is not forgetting the issue. In fact, it’s acknowledging it – which then allows you to work with it and/or alter or change it. Forgiveness raises your vibrational frequency so that you have better energy – which, in turn, empowers you to be a better creator.
Everything you experience in life is a lesson. Some are more subtle than others. But we humans can shape our worlds unlike any other beings on this planet – for good or ill. But we WILL get it wrong sometimes.
Forgiving yourself lets you move forward and, from the here-and-now, use mindfulness for conscious reality creation. That, in turn, will open you to be, do, or have just about anything you truly desire.
Can you see how important forgiving yourself is?
This is the four-hundred and sixty-ninth exploration of my Pathwalking philosophy. These weekly essays are ideas for – and my personal experiences with – mindfulness and walking along a chosen path of life to consciously create reality.
I share this journey as part of my desire to make a difference in this world along the way. Additionally, I desire to empower myself and my readers with conscious reality creation.
Thank you for joining me. Feel free to re-blog and share this.
The first year of Pathwalking, including expanded ideas, is available here. My additional writing, both fiction and non-fiction, are available here.
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