Learning How to Forgive Yourself

I've been raised under the belief that spirituality and religion were not synonymous. It's a tricky subject, and I'm not going to delve too deep into it but, more into what happens when those aren't a part of your life anymore and the guilt that follows. I couldn't care less what religion someone is, who am I to say anything about who prays to who? No one. I believe everyone should be able to worship how they want and not have another religion forced down their throats.

Anyway, I choose to worship in nature, that's how I want to be spiritual. I don't have a name for it, or a box to put it in or check. I just want to be free to do what I wish and worship in my own way. There's something about nature that makes me feel closer to “God” if that makes me a heathen, so be it. Being from the Bible Belt that seems impossible. This is one of the many things I’m trying to forgive myself for.

What do you need to forgive yourself for? There are many things I need to forgive myself for. For not being the wife and mother I feel I should be, or the mother and wife I was raised to be. For not taking the opportunities the universe tossed my way. For not putting myself out there and allowing myself to be vulnerable. Turning my back on the religion I was raised in because I no longer shared those beliefs, or raising my children that way.

I was raised a wife should serve her husband, have dinner on the table every night, and always keep the house as neat as a pin. That was what my mother always did, and she raised me to believe that's the way it should be. Even in the churches I had been to preach it in the pulpit. After twenty years of marriage and almost forty years on this Earth, I believe now that is unrealistic. Sometimes I’m busy and we have to get dinner on the run. Sometimes I feel like shit, and we eat out-again. There are dirty dishes in my sink right now. Some days I don't get to it, and I have to forgive myself for that because it makes me feel guilty when I don't do those things.

I don't fix breakfast most of the time for my husband and kids. Most times he does it himself. I don't need to feel guilty for that. He is a well-bodied capable man that can do things for himself. That thinking is outdated, and I am trying to overcome it but sometimes it’s difficult to do.

There are many things in my life I feel guilty about, but that doesn't mean I should feel guilt, but that doesn't stop my mind from running wild about the things I feel I should be doing rather than what I am doing at any current moment. Why do we feel such guilt for not being everything? For being someone/something that is impossible. Who came up with this idea that we had to be everything all the time anyway? Why are we striving to be someone/something for other people anyway?

One way to help forgive myself I have learned is to have more compassion and empathy for myself. Like most people, I am extremely hard on myself but I have the same capacity as everyone else to make mistakes and deserve to not beat myself up for them. When I find myself being overly critical toward myself I ask would I say the same thing to a friend who just made the same mistake? If I wouldn’t, then I say stop treating yourself worse than your friends, or maybe even strangers. Give yourself grace to make mistakes. Like anything in life forgiving yourself is a journey, and giving yourself grace and being patient is a stepping stone in that journey.

Changing my attitude toward my guilt will help, and I will have to work hard to overcome the thoughts of shame that automatically pop up when I fall short. Just knowing my shortcomings, and trying to do better is a start and could lead to better strategies to one day not feeling guilt or shame about my true authentic self or how I choose to live my life. Do you have any strategies you use to help forgive yourself when making mistakes? Please let me know in the comments.