Forgiving Ourselves

Most of us believe that to forgive our fellow man is admirable and desirable. But forgiving ourselves may be a different matter. Some of us feel incapable of loving and forgiving ourselves because we are all too aware of our own mistakes and weaknesses. Sound familiar?

If you are familiar with EFT (Emotional Freedom Techniques), you will remember that an essential part of the process of clearing negative emotions or physical dis-ease is making the statement, “Even though I have [this problem], I deeply and completely love and accept myself.” Many people find it difficult to say these words; some simply cannot bring themselves to say it at all. And yet, some degree of self-acceptance is critical to success in EFT work. I find it to be the most powerful aspect of EFT.

Why it is so important to love, forgive and accept ourselves

According to best-selling author Debbie Ford, healing can only happen when we first accept all the parts of ourselves, the dark, the light, the good, the bad, and, as she puts it, “our story”—the experiences of the past that make us who we are today.

In her book, The Secret of the Shadow, she says, “I have come to understand that the core of healing is self-forgiveness. There is nothing—and I mean nothing—more essential to the healing process. Until we make peace and forgive ourselves for all aspects of our lives and our stories, we will continue to use our past to beat ourselves up and to sabotage our deepest dreams.”

Why it is so hard to forgive ourselves

How we feel about ourselves depends a lot on what we learned as a child. Some of us come out of childhood with the belief that we are fundamentally bad or flawed. Some of us believe that we’ll “never be good enough.” Some of us believe that we must always fit some ideal of what we “should” be and put on a façade to protect us from being “found out” by others. At the root of all of this is the thinking that it is unacceptable to be less-than-perfect—in other words, fear. Fear that others will not love us if they find out we’re not perfect or good. Fear on a deep level that we will be unlovable and unacceptable to ourselves and others if we find any perceived weakness in ourselves.

So, what do we do? We expend huge of amounts of energy pretending that anything we don’t like about ourselves isn’t really there. We deny it or we stuff it. But this does not serve our highest good. These shadow parts of ourselves long to be acknowledged and accepted and, most importantly, learned from. In Dark Side of the Light Chasers, Ford talks about how our shadow aspects (or weaknesses) serve us by teaching us. Our weaknesses can truly become our strengths when we accept and understand them.

For example, as a young child I somehow got the idea that I was stupid. I have spent most of my life trying to avoid letting anyone find out that this part of me exists, this part of me that is “stupid.” The gift in this is that I worked very hard in school, got a college degree, and have spent most of my adult life in self-directed learning.

How we can learn to forgive ourselves

Understanding and having compassion for ourselves opens the door to self-forgiveness. Realize that there is something to be learned from our weaknesses and our shadow parts. Again, Ford says, “When we are able to forgive ourselves we come to understand why we are the way we are, why we believe what we believe, and why we feel the way we feel.” We need to be gentle with ourselves and realize that we are all less-than-perfect. And yet, we also need to understand that our imperfection is actually perfect. In other words, our personal set of circumstances are exactly the lessons that we need right now. When we can stop rejecting ourselves and look for the gifts and lessons in our circumstances, we can begin to forgive ourselves and move toward true healing.

I suggest that you to try spending some quiet time by yourself. Make a list of things that you don’t like about yourself, things you regret or that cause you pain now or in the past. Then give yourself some space to consider how those things have actually served you. What lessons have they taught you? If you can find some good in them, then can you be open to releasing the anger or fear that you hold around that issue? Try saying, “Even though I have or am (fill in the blank), I choose to love and forgive myself.” Doing this while tapping on the EFT points can be very powerful. Give it a try!