Definition for forgive: to grant free pardon and to give up all claim on account of an offense or debt.  To excuse for a fault; to pardon; to renounce anger or resentment against.

There’s a wonderful definition of forgiveness: that to forgive is to give up all hope for a better past. If you are locked in regret over the past, you have less available to your life now.  Forgiveness allows you a fresh start… It’s like a rain coming to a polluted environment. It clears things.  Dr. Fred Luskin

From time to time I find myself figuratively “kicking myself in the butt” repeatedly for something I have done in the past or a fresh misstep.  That’s how I process mentally before being able to let go and forgive myself.  I know the tendency goes back to childhood where punishment was a regular part of life even for the smallest offense.  I learned early on to be very hard on myself.  Even today a bit of emotional self-flogging is a penalty often self-prescribed for my misdeeds, although little by little I am slowly learning to not be so tough on myself. 

I have forgiven the women who broke my heart and the people who stole from me.  I have forgiven the ones who have stabbed me in the back and the one who ran into my car and irreversibly changed my life and my health.    I have forgiven the company that fired me after 18 years and the friends who turned out not to be friends at all.  I have forgiven the adults who abused me as a child and an ex-wife who verbally abused me.  I have become proficient at forgiving everyone but one person:  ME!  

Some of the knowledge I have gained about forgiving others is well described in a book called “Heart Match Solution”: You’re not forgiving them for their sake. You’re doing it for yourself. For your own health and well-being, forgiveness is simply the most energy-efficient option. It frees you from the incredibly toxic, debilitating drain of holding a grudge. Don’t let these people live rent free in your head. If they hurt you before, why let them keep doing it year after year in your mind? It’s not worth it but it takes heart effort to stop it. You can muster that heart power to forgive them as a way of looking out for yourself. It’s one thing you can be totally selfish about. Now if only I could broaden that perspective to include myself! 

My tendency is to be harder on me and hold myself more accountable than I do others.  At times forgiving my self is not even a consideration because my thinking is I must hold myself in a state of constant remembrance, lest I forget.  There is this nagging deep down there is some price to be extracted from me, some form of long penance I have to pay.  I know better, but the practice of that knowing is inconsistent and irregularly applied.    

I once read that if you do not forgive yourself of past sins, it is a form of pride. The thinking goes, whenever I enact a different set of rules, a higher set of standards for my self over others that is pride. When I can find it within my self to forgive others, but not my own self, I am saying I am less capable of making a poor decision than others. Attempting to hold myself to some higher standard than others means I think somehow I should be more intuitive, wiser, more insightful, more careful than others, and therefore, I am without an excuse and should not forgive myself.  When viewed in that sort of light it is so easy to see how an over developed sense of pride can greatly hinder self forgiveness.

My ability to forgive me is improving.  I know forgiving my self is essential to growth and happiness.  No amount of stirring my pot of memories will make the past make more sense.  I have to “give up all hope for a better past” and just let things be so I can have a better today and tomorrow.  The unchangeable reality is that I cannot alter what happened in the past. I cannot restore lives to where they were before a particular event. For each indiscretion or mistake all I can do is forgive myself and let the healing begin. 

There is not love without forgiveness, and there is no forgiveness without love.
Bryant H. McGill