August 9: The Things I Forgive Myself For

August 9 — The Things I Forgive Myself For

Write down every mistake you're still carrying and offer yourself forgiveness.

Being a forgiving person is one of the traits I'm most proud of, because forgiving isn't easy. It isn't easy for me, at least, and yet here I am, living among people who have truly hurt me. Not only was I able to forgive them, but to love them and embrace them. I was able to have compassion and empathy for them and for the choices they've made. I was able to make sense of their behavior, and to put myself in their shoes. Of course, there are those I forgave and still cut off. And those I still haven't found the strength to forgive. But some people are a part of you; you can't just sever the tie. You have to find a way to cope, to forgive, to coexist, because you'll never be happy knowing they're out of your life, no matter the harm.

With those people, I found ways to enforce my boundaries, the boundaries I spent years weaving and insisting on and putting into practice, because I was always afraid of losing them until I lost me. At first, holding those boundaries was excruciating for everyone: me, withered with fear and insecurity, and them, enraged at the newness of it all. But then something beautiful happened. The love we shared wasn't lost… it improved. A quality revamp. I felt loved andrespected, which in the past had been a rare pair. It wasn't easy to get here. It took a lot of therapy and self-discovery, and mining compassion and empathy from the depths of me. But here we are. I forgave. I'm a forgiving person.

I said all that to say: my journey with forgiving myself has not been as prioritized as it should have been. This prompt awakened something in me. There was so much I blamed myself for and carried the burden of, only to discover it was never mine to dwell on — that I was absolved, and free. And there's still a lot I feel I need to work on forgiving. There are so many things I'm too harsh with myself for. How did I get here again? How did I let it get this far? Why did I do that? Say that? Why didn't I speak up sooner?

This prompt made me realize that I don't grant myself the same empathy and compassion I grant the people I love. I don't speak to me like someone who loves me — which is so far from the truth. I do love me, of course. But the way I criticize myself and speak of myself is no longer a reflection of how I actually feel; it's a force of habit. And now I've been awakened to break it. I need to make this a priority, to put real effort into forgiving myself for the not-so-me decisions I've made.

Of course I have a list of mistakes in my head, one or two that are more visible, that take up more space as I write this. But I don't think I want to share them here, and that's okay.

This post, conservative as it was in what I shared, helped me see so much. I hope the prompt does the same for anyone reading this.