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Belongs to: Shane Told from Silverstein talks on forgiveness
Myself. 
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Yeah, carrying unforgiveness towards ourselves is so hard. Because we can’t escape the guilt, the shame, and - honestly sometimes - the self-hatred. It’s easy to get swallowed by the regret. To get fatigued when you’re trying to move forward in life because all of these feelings towards yourself just weigh you down. It’s hard to hope when you feel you don’t deserve it. It’s easy to fall into a pit of self-pity - half because you are lamenting and half because you hope someone would offer you compassion, on the off chance that you might be able to see in someone else a fraction of love or worthiness you wish you had for yourself.
It takes a lot of courage to share about the difficulty of forgiving ourselves, regardless of if the reasons behind this need. We can really be our worst judge, critic if not enemy, can’t we? Most of the rime, forgiveness is something that seems conceivable as long as it is meant to be applied to someone else. When you are not the one whose actions (or lack of) may require forgiveness, it feels easier to see the situation as it is and make decisions appropriately. But when it is about ourselves, it is a whole another story… Strong emotions such as guilt, shame, self-deprecation enter in the picture and completely derails our perspective. The standards we apply on others can be so much more gentle and accepting than the ones we apply to ourselves. When it’s about what we do and who we are, it becomes almost a comfort zone but to not give in any sense of acceptance or forgiveness. If you feel guilty or at fault for something, not forgiving yourself keeps that narrative alive. It provides a licmve justification for the negative things you may think about yourself. “I’m a monster, I’m not worth it, I’m not deserving of good things”… It’s a tough spot to be in.
Forgiving yourself is surely an intimidating decision, one with a strong impact as well. It holds the potential of reframing the narrative in your mind that lay be belittling you or keeping you in a corner, isolated. With forgiveness, you would give yourself the message that it is okay to not be perfect, that failing is part of any life experience, that being a human being is at times about looking at our flaws or the things we wish we did differently. As weird and scary as these statements sound, they are okay to acknowledge and to learn to see as true over time, including through actual self-forgiveness.
Obviously, I don’t know what it would entail for you to get to that point practically or what it implies regarding your own story. I can say without hesitation though, that you are absolutely worthy of forgiveness, first and foremost from yourself. At the opposite, you do not deserve to live a life held behind personal barriers that would limit your right to be at peace, to simply be. There is so much more to this life, and you my friend have all the right to have access to it. I hope that, with time, this journey od yours will lead you towards the next level of self-acceptance, growth and healthy accountability. You are good enough just as you are.
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