What if … it’s time for the great forgiveness?

I did wrong.
I hurt somebody.
I lied.
I was arrogant.
I was too much in that situation.
I didn’t take care of myself well enough.
I did lot’s of stuff to save him, to save the marriage.
I didn’t have the power to leave, until I was in pieces myself.
I was in a fight as a ten year old.
I tried smoking and drinking when I was under age.

What if it’s time to forgive ourselves? What if it’s time to embrace all of ourselves. Even the least love-able parts?

I often do a little meditation with my clients. When they have their eyes closed and focus on the breathing, I start out asking them to hold a hand on their hearts, and then, a bit later, I ask them to listen to the body, is there any part that needs extra attention for any reason? Being forgotten, disliked, having pain, being happy… whatever … And then I ask them to put a hand there, and breathe into that space.

Now, when reflecting over that, one interpretation of the meditation might be, that this movement of the hand could be seen as a sort of forgiveness. ”Forgive me for having forgotten you, stomach, now I am here for you… what do you need in this moment?”

I think that there is a connection between low self-esteem and feelings of guilt and shame. It’s like we give ourselves away to other persons judgments. And we might even have a tendency to expect ourselves to be judged.

And then our ideas are amplified by the ”inner judge”, ”the inner critic”, who is blaming us for doing or being wrong when we too things that might seem bold for these ”inner protectors”. And then we can let this run around in our system, and make ut feel like fakes, or misfits, or worthless beings.

I’ve done a lot of exercises where we aimed at forgiving. And we started out forgiving others for what we thought they had done to us. And in the next step it was time to forgive ourselves.

And my experience is that is so much easier both to be our own bully aka not forgiving ourselves, than to actually look at ourselves with kindness, and from our core say: ”I forgive me”.

Have I forgiven everything I’ve done to myself, my arrogance, my faults, my cowardness, my lies, my unfaithfulness, my inability to set boundaries, my longing for love, me being bewitched by a narcissistic person?

Well, not in totally. I’ve come so far as to not regretting what I have done in my life. I see it all like experiences that has brought me to where I am in this moment.

I wonder what would happen with my, my energy, my being, if I really, to the core, would forgive myself? (And as a flipside - isn’t mistakes, bad decisions etc part of the human experience, part of being a human being, a ”perfect person”, is it possible being a human?)

So I take a big inhale. But a hand on my heart. I look into the mirror and I say: I love me. I forgive me.

• What do you have difficulties forgiving your self for?

• How would it be to be you, when you don’t feel guilt or shame?

• Imagine that you are free to be you - how would that be?

The great forgiveness is, to me, the ability to also forgive yourself.