In this week’s journaling prompt we are going to focus on the topic of forgiveness; mostly on forgiving yourself. We tend to bring up the topic of forgiving others so that we have a better perspective on the relationship with that other person, however, it’s just as important to remember to forgive yourself too. That being said, today’s prompt is:
“What do you need to forgive yourself for?”
Let’s think about it.
It could be a big issue, or something as simple as a quick occurrence. Yet, you’re still thinking about it. Why?
If you’re not sure what to write down or forgive yourself for? Here are some ideas:
-
Staying somewhere or in a situation that wasn’t serving you any good.
-
Being hard on yourself when you were trying your best.
-
Not putting yourself first in important situations.
-
Being impatient.
-
Not appreciating yourself or being self-deprecating.
-
Ignoring good moments or the good people in your life.
These are some situations and thoughts that I personally struggled with when I was answering this prompt. Specifically, I know I have struggled in the past with being way too hard on myself, even when I was truly trying my hardest and doing my best. As someone who tries their best to be kind and caring to everyone, I was burnt out and I wasn’t aware of it. I tried to be everyone’s healer, but not my own. I was always saying yes to everything, giving my energy towards those who never reciprocated it, and overall I tried to be a people-pleaser.
Acknowledging these actions and getting comfortable with saying “no” as much as I did with saying “yes” helped me tremendously in the long run.
I wrote about this when answering this particular journaling prompt, but I also made a point to forgive myself for that. I will continue to try my best not to repeat this mistake.
Everyone makes mistakes. It’s a natural occurrence that happens. Instead of waiting for someone else to forgive us, we need to forgive ourselves first.
*This writing prompt is inspired by @calmerrecords on Tiktok*