Rise and Thrive Show

Rise and Thrive Show


The REWARDS OF FORGIVING YOURSELF

December 03, 2017

We all fall short in life. Feel really bad about something we've done or a decision we made. The shame, remorse and self-blame can be killers. Especially if we don't deal with it and try to bury it. Mary and Erin share candid and inspiring stories about the difficulty of facing into the pain, letting go of the disappointment and forgiving ourselves for our missteps and the wonderful wisdom and refreshing rewards that come from doing it.
Episode Highlights, Ideas and Wisdom

The most difficult, but most rewarding aspect of forgiveness is forgiving yourself.
We often cruelly punish ourselves for errors and mistakes. We beat ourselves up mercilessly.
Learning to meet yourself with mercy is important for your growth and your health and your sense of peace.
Self-forgiveness is the relief and the experience that comes when we get a glimpse of our human self the way God views us. In that moment, in that glimpse of the way God views us, the shadow and the pain just melts out of us. It's just gone. It's a shift that can happen in five minutes. It's a super powerful experiential moment that we can court with the self-forgiveness exercise.
The essence of the self-forgiveness experience is like the love and tenderness we feel towards a frustrated toddler who's trying to learn how to walk. They keep falling down and crying. That's how we are in our human lives. Struggling to master our tasks and lessons. Falling down and bumping our noses on the edge of the table on the way down and crying. God lifts us up and says, "Come on darlin'. Come here. You're okay. Your good. Let me hug you. Let me help you. Let's try that again."
Some of the things that we've done that need self-forgiveness, we just avoid because it's so painful to even think about and feel the shame of it.
We're human beings. We're flawed. We're here to learn. We're not perfect. We are going to make mistakes. We can face these mistakes and actually learn and grow. Or, we can be horrified, curl up in a little ball and let our mistakes stay with us and haunt us.
There are two sides to most stories. You know it's a bad story. It ended badly. Two people walked away hurt. You have this need to forgive the other person and you have this need to forgive yourself. Some people feel like they can't forgive themselves.
Its not easy being a person. It just isn't. Sometimes we just can't help what happens. We do our best and we fail, but we still have to be with ourselves. We still have to love ourselves.
Self-forgiveness is often something we're struggling with when what we really need is self-kindness.