If we made a list of people we should forgive, we would have to be in the first place. It is difficult to understand and accept this statement, but it is so… The first person we should forgive is ourselves. Understanding it, making the decision and knowing how to do it, is not easy. It is a task of inner work, which leads you to personal growth and a release of tremendous psychological burden.
Forgiveness is a valuable psychological resource
Forgiveness lets you free yourself from limiting beliefs and attitudes. Release your mental and emotional energies, so you can apply them to create a better life. And it is that we benefit enormously when we decide to forgive ourselves, and the same thing happens with everyone around us.
Think about the following thought: Do you have a hard time forgiving others? If the answer is yes, it means that you don’t know how to forgive yourself either.
We have all been harmed at some time in our lives. We all live daily situations in which we are the cause or victims of an offence. They are usually so small that we try to forget them so as not to disturb our emotional balance. After all, we trust that they will not be repeated, or we suppose that there was no malicious intent or, simply, that they will not affect the psychic stability.
Now, when the damage exceeds our tolerance level, the suffering becomes more intense; and if it is prolonged in time, it tests our mental and physical resistance. So, returning the damage suffered, hoping to regain balance, appears to us as instinctive. But revenge only makes the victim an aggressor and does not ensure inner peace.
The secret is in that inner journey of assuming that we are not perfect, that mistakes can be made, that we learn from those mistakes. It is at that moment that the guilt vanishes and we begin to really accept ourselves, with our good things and our bad things, knowing and feeling that we have the option of making mistakes and forgiving ourselves.
Forgiveness helps us achieve even our most practical and immediate goals
If you haven’t forgiven, a part of our inner life energy is trapped in resentment, anger, pain, or suffering of some kind. This trapped life energy will limit us. It makes it difficult to move forward, frustrates us, and slows us down in our personal development.
Understanding that we can all make mistakes will also help you to free yourself from guilt, which is the one that does not allow you to accept a mistake but to blame it for that mistake, but that takes away your power and causes you to carry negative feelings with you.
Practicing forgiveness strengthens the goodness within you so that we are more active in our lives. Learning to forgive can only help you; It can’t hurt you. You will accept yourself as you are and overcome guilt.
Forgiveness is immensely practical and useful. There is nothing vague or impractical about it. Forgiveness sets us free. It will be as if you can see your life from above and you can see the easiest way to get where you want to be. Life opens up in front of you.
As you learn to forgive, the skills that had been dormant within you will emerge, and you will discover that you are a much stronger and more capable person than previously imagined.
