If anyone knows me, they know how often I say “I’m sorry,” trying to make up for any wrong I have done, never letting myself forget what mistakes I’ve made. For a long time, forgiveness was not an action I felt towards myself, but something I automatically gave to others. From either a place of trauma or fear, I have never allowed myself to feel the “it’s okay” or “you’re forgiven.” Most of my life, I have lived with a boulder on my shoulders, and no matter how many times I try to get over the hill of truly forgiving myself, I have often let myself go back to the beginning.
Something important that I’ve learned recently and continue to learn is that you can’t rely on the feeling of being forgiven, but more on the action of being forgiven. Sounds a bit odd that going from feeling to action can make that much of a difference, but I’ve done a lot wrong and have had a lot of trial and error.
- Acceptance
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Not to be existential (it’s the being raised by hippies part of me), but in the world we live in, everyone obsesses over time. How often do you spend time thinking about certain moments as time lost, not time to learn? We spend our school years thinking about how to get an A the quickest, even if we don’t remember the information long-term. We get a job where all that matters is how much money we can make as quickly as possible, all while dealing with struggles and challenges in our personal lives. With the constant motion of day-to-day life, it can be difficult to find time to look back on mistakes and forgive yourself.
I’m one of those people, as many of us are, that stares off into the distance, whether I’m driving or showering, pressing myself on past mistakes. I also believe it’s just as hard to move on and forgive yourself when you no longer can speak to the people you’ve wronged. But, there has to be a moment, an epiphany if you’d like to call it, in which the boulder becomes too much of a weight to carry. Where your past mistakes don’t just affect how you feel, but claw on other pieces of your life: the moment of “I’m ready.”
I love to beat a dead horse; it’s part of who I am, but I can no longer define myself by past mistakes, especially ones from years ago. This is where acceptance comes in. One must look at oneself in the mirror, bones and all, and accept what one did.
The reason I bring up the concept of time is that there is no time limit on this stage because it’s crucial. Before you are ready to apologize or write that letter you might never send, you must fully accept the situation and the part you played in it. Now, I’m not trying to say you no longer blame yourself and believe everything you did was just and fair; it’s about accepting the opposite. You inflicted harm on another human being: not physically, but emotionally. Understanding what you did might have changed the trajectory of your life. Let that soak in, and most of all, breathe it out.
One exercise I learned from my middle school theater teacher, Mrs. Olivera, as a process of letting go: you lie on the ground, eyes closed, listening to some old Ed Sheeran song, and imagine all the dark parts of who you are, like gunk and goop, and finally you push it out of yourself. I used to think it was that “woo woo” stuff, but it works.
- Forgiveness
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Finally, you’ve accepted your mistake and are ready to see if you can be forgiven. It’s time to either apologize face-to-face, over text, or, in some cases, simply to your journal, because the person is no longer in your life.
It’s as simple as this: Dear my ex-best friends in high school or my ex-boyfriends, I’m sorry. I’m sorry I didn’t do better for you. I’m sorry for hurting you, and most of all, I’m sorry I let the part of me with its faults, the most human part of myself, decide to hurt you, and I take accountability for what I did because it was wrong.
You see how easy that is. Next, they will decide whether or not to forgive you. Either way, you can’t let this change how you view yourself at this point. Whether they choose to or not is not a reflection of who you are, because you are not your mistakes.
All of this prep of working on yourself has gotten you here, and it’s important not to let yourself forget that. Don’t forget the great parts of yourself, the better parts of what make you, you. Even if you’re alone with yourself, oneself can be great company. But in the case you have other friends or relationships, lean on them. Tell them who you are if you are ready or what has happened, and let them see you as you are. We like to keep a lot of secrets; it makes things fun and mischievous, but what is it worth to have people surrounding you if they don’t actually know you?
- Moving On
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I still can’t decide whether acceptance or moving on is harder because I’m constantly in the process of both with my endless list of mistakes. Moving on, I believe, is the scariest part. Realizing that holding onto that mistake might have been the only connection between you and that person or people, and that when you let go of this mistake, the love you felt for them will also be gone, is daunting.
It’s terrifying to remove this constant guilt you feel, but it’s needed. It’s not fair to hold onto parts of yourself that are no longer there. Back to the time theme I got going on, take time to let go. You can do scary things with time and learning.
When letting go, I learned this lesson from my mom: write down all of the lessons you learned, so when you have moments of ruminating on the mistake, you can realize what you learned. I mean, as someone who hopes to be a professor one day, learning is what this life is all about. Again with my existential thoughts: mistakes are lessons needed to be learned, and they are experiences needed to be a human being. This process will probably take the longest, and there might be times you look back at the situation with pain or guilt, but they are just moments, not this cloud that has been over your head.
To be honest, I was scared to write this article because I’m still learning and forgiving myself. I don’t know how to move on from things with no explanation, but I’m working on myself to do better. I want to be better for the beautiful friends I have around me; they deserve it. If you have been under this era of pressure on yourself for a mistake you made that hurt someone, take this as your sign to start forgiving yourself.