THURSDAY: FORGIVE YOURSELF

“The day the child realizes that all adults are imperfect, he becomes an adolescent; the day he forgives them, he becomes an adult; the day he forgives himself, he becomes wise.”

Canadian poet, novelist, playwright and journalist Alden Nowlan
 (1933-1983)

I have already written a lot on forgiving yourself. Now is the day to do it. Forgiving yourself and loving yourself are pretty much one and the same. Remember that you were doing the best you could at the time, with the level of skills and knowledge you had. You didn’t know any better, and if you had known better, you would have done something different.

Give yourself love, understanding and compassion. Imagine you are speaking to that little child that lives inside most of us—how would you forgive that little child? You would say to them, in a very loving way, “I know you didn’t mean any harm,” or “You made a mistake—that’s all,” or “You tried your best.” They would all be soothing and understanding heartfelt words. Say those things to yourself now.

Continue to work on forgiving yourself and if you can’t, right a wrong elsewhere to make up for it. Sometimes to forgive ourselves, we have to make something right. If you can’t make things right with the person you have in mind, then right a wrong somewhere else!

Ask for God to help you. ‘Put’ yourself in your heart and stay there until the alchemical work is done.

At the end of today, your goal is to have released un-forgiven moments from the past, given yourself a lot of grace and love, and have set yourself free to move into the future.

P.S. And when we forgive ourselves, we need to do it whether another person has forgiven us or not. What the other person feels is of no consequence for you to forgive yourself. You can only ask them through your heart to forgive you. And let go of whether they do or not.

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