World Mental Health Day 2022: 6 tips to forgive yourself

Making peace and moving forward is often very difficult. In order to forgive yourself, one needs to have empathy, compassion and kindness. You may feel like a total jerk or a loser. You have got a lump in your stomach and you can’t stop regretting your act. Deep down, you know you are better than this, but you get a feeling as if you are the worst person in the world. And you have no idea if you will ever be able to forgive yourself. There are things in life that are worth bearing the pain so that you can move forward, and forgiving yourself is amongst them.

Here are some tips to help you forgive yourself:

1. Be kind to yourself: Be kind to yourself. Life is not perfect and that is true for us as well. Going with the flow is usually tough and things don’t always happen as per the plan. People who indulge in self-compassion remember this. They acknowledge imperfection and are caring and loving to themselves.

2. Learn from your mistakes: Learning from your mistakes is the key to moving forward faster and more consistently. Remind yourself that you did the best you could with the resources and time you had. It will become easier for you to forgive yourself.

3. Take responsibility: You can’t forgive yourself if you don’t take responsibility for what you did both to yourself and the person you wronged. Learn to be accountable. Learn to fully accept that you did what you did.

4. Write yourself an apology: Your note should Include how you gave remorse to others and how you plan to amend it. Ask yourself how you will do things differently next time, and then, if you want, read the note aloud to yourself.

5. Move on: It’s human nature to spend time and energy on the same things again and again. While some processing is crucial, going over what happened again and again will not allow you to take proper steps and forgive yourself.

6. Don’t be shameful but guilty: Shame is accompanied by defensive feelings like denial, avoidance, and violence. It is not helpful to tell yourself that you are a bad person. Rather you should be guilty as that helps you to avoid your mistake.