Forgive Yourself

Throughout our culture, especially if Christian, forgiveness is the gold standard. Christ asked God to forgive his persecutors for they knew not what they were doing. Presumably they didn’t know they were killing God’s son. Surely, they knew they were torturing and killing someone. In any case…

Forgiving, as I have previously said, is in my opinion highly overrated and potentially counter productive. The goal: escape victimhood. That can’t be done by forgiveness alone. All to often accepting excuses and apologies and forgiving just leads to more abuse and broken trust.

Instead, make your first step to forgive yourself. For what? For not having sufficient boundaries, for being powerless, for not keeping yourself safe, for not protecting yourself. Of course, you say: “I was only a kid. I was powerless. It was others’ responsibility to protect me.” Yes, but, we carry the shame and guilt of having been abused or wounded. More importantly, we need to recognize what wasn’t working then and insure we have made changes so as to not fall into the same trap. We need healthy boundaries to be safe. Not everyone who wants in gets in.

Next, we need to forgive ourselves for what we have done to others. It’s common to act out of our wounds in ego serving ways that are harmful to others. Dehumanizing. Make amends where possible. And then forgive yourself completely and absolutely for everything ever. Wipe the slate clean. Start anew being good.

Lastly, forgive everyone else for everything. You now have appropriate boundaries. Let them go. Come down off your cross. Maybe you choose to give them an opportunity to regain trust. Maybe you don’t. Maybe you believe the excuses and apologies. Maybe you don’t. You’re in charge. You decide.

Maybe there’s no excuse. So, we accept rather than forgive and move forward accordingly.