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welcome to this video on self-forgiveness this is part of the cognitive behavioral
therapy nuggets series and I'm your host Dr Donnelly Snipes
forgiveness and even self-forgiveness doesn't mean that you agree with or condone the situation
you may look back on it and go what I did was not right but you're choosing to stop
using your energy to beat yourself up you did what you did it's in the past okay the benefits
of self-forgiveness include improved health improved mental health and improved relationships
if you are holding on to anger and resentment and guilt at yourself you are carrying around
a load of bricks basically think about it that way every resentment and every guilt you have is like
a brick in a backpack that you are carrying around with you every day and it makes life harder and it
uses a lot of your energy that you could be using to work towards your rich and meaningful life
the four r's of self-forgiveness number one look at the situation that you feel guilty about
take responsibility only for those aspects that you are responsible for
most of the time you know and we talked about this in perspective taking most of the time
the onus is not a hundred percent on you other things were going on
so take responsibility for what parts were within your control
but also recognize that there are some parts that other people may be responsible for
Express remorse for what you did you know that that's going along with you know apologizing
apologize to yourself apologize to anybody that you hurt you know this in order to forgive
yourself it's important to express remorse and then a lot of times because people feel
guilty for things that they did it's important for them to rectify the situation if possible
or make amends when possible it's not always possible to do this but doing things that can
um help fix the situation are certainly helpful if you can't Rectify or make
amends then at least figure out how to learn from the experience so you don't do it again
the fourth aspect you've taken responsibility you've expressed remorse you've done what you
can to rectify the situation and learn from it now it's time to release past hurt and accept
your imperfection accept that you're lovable for who you are imperfections and all and that can
take a while to wrap your head around because you probably hold yourself to a much higher standard
than you hold other people to it's important to forgive yourself from mistakes you made for
things that you didn't do for choices whatever it is that you are still beating yourself up over
is that is is beating yourself up helping you move towards a rich and meaningful life
what would happen if you decided to take these steps in order to let go of that grief and
that guilt over things that you did in the past that you wish you hadn't yeah think about that