Doc, I know I need to forgive myself but how? How do I forgive myself? I can't even
tell you how many times I've heard that question. Let's dive in. First of all, see
your relationship with yourself as just that. It is a relationship. We think of
all of our other relationships as relationships. What about this one?
Sometimes we'll go out there and be so kind and compassionate and tolerant and
forgiving and loving with everyone except for one. Where we are cruel and
demanding and harsh and judgmental right here at home. See it as a relationship
because that will start to inform you about what you can do to improve that
relationship. What is it that's working in all of your other relationships?
Compassion, forgiveness, respect, love, right? What is it that's not working?
Criticism, judgment, defensiveness, huh! I wonder if we could learn something from
that about how to treat ourselves. Now, I'm going to let you in on something that
I've learned as a psychologist and in about a half a century on the planet. Its
pride. Its pride that gets in our way and keeps us from forgiving ourselves. Here's
what I mean. Everybody's got an opinion right? Yeah, so you have an opinion of you.
Don't you? Yeah, you do and I have an opinion of you. You didn't know that but
I do. You're one of my audience members here at YouTube and I have an opinion
about you. Maybe or somebody that I know a little more closely. Well, I have an
even stronger opinion of you then. I've got an opinion, you've got an opinion. Now
do our opinions match? Probably not then who's right? Oh, see? You think you're
right about your opinion about you. Don't you? I got a PhD and you're taking my
opinion and just tossing it out the window
as if it's nothing and you're hanging on to your own. See we do this. Our own
destructive pride has us believing our own opinion above all others. Even a
professional psychologist. So just notice that that's happening and you've
developed an opinion about yourself. Maybe some mistakes you've made in the
past. Whoa, whoa, pause, hold on. You've made mistakes? What is wrong with you? Nothing.
You're human. Welcome to earth. That's how we roll here.
How many human beings do you know who make mistakes? Do you want to just add
them up real quick? How about every last one of them?
Yeah, it's universal. We all make mistakes, right? Now, you can say that. Maybe you
give it lip service. "Yeah, we all make mistakes." But then
secretly, you hang on to this opinion in your own mind that maybe you are a
special case. That maybe you aren't supposed to make mistakes. That maybe you
don't deserve forgiveness. Can you see how prideful that is? Like you're some
kind of special case. In my book, I call this the special case syndrome and we
all suffer from it, so do I. I get a good case of it from time to time. Notice that
it's happening and maybe be humble enough to give up your need to be right
in exchange for being open because if we're open, that's going to open up some
possibilities for us. It's important to see the pride because most people don't
understand that beating themselves up is a sign of destructive pride.
In fact, that feels counterintuitive. It feels like, "No, if I'm beating myself up
I'm being humble." No you're not not, unless you're willing to beat everybody
else up too because if you're beating yourself up, what it means is either
you're worse than all those other people or you're just a special case and you
deserve it when they don't. We got a problem with pride going on and when you
see it that way, it's easier to forgive yourself from a place of humility. I'm
saying you know what, I am a human being and check it out. One common factor to
every human being on this planet is that we all, I know that's a bold statement
but just roll with me here for a minute. We all have strengths and weaknesses.
Don't we? Yeah, we all do. Question for you. Is that a temporary thing nope? Permanent.
Isn't it? What is your life experience taught you so far? Your weaknesses don't
just go away, you know just overcome them and suddenly you don't have them anymore.
Neither do your strengths. You are permanently endowed with strengths and
weaknesses, one big package that makes up you. Notice that and accept it. When I can
get rid of our weaknesses. You don't have to get rid of your weaknesses in order
to forgive yourself. Is that news? I hope that you know this
and understand it. Because if you're waiting to get rid of your weaknesses,
it's going to be a long wait and I don't think we're ever going to get there. Except
that they're there. You get to forgive yourself with your weaknesses. In the
contact stuff, your weaknesses and our weaknesses
have us making mistakes. Let's visit that for just a moment. What
is the purpose of a mistake? Does it have a purpose? Is it useful at all? Yeah, I've
interviewed a lot of successful people. I've been doing my podcast Live on
Purpose radio since 2007. At the time of this recording,
that's almost 12 years and I've interviewed a lot of people who are very
successful. Here's what I found in common. Every one of them has stories that they
can share about mistakes that they've made. Hard things that they've been
through adversity that they've faced. They all have it every inspiring story
has a hard part right in the middle and it doesn't mean that you're done. You're
going to continue to make mistakes and have hard things happen. That's how it is.
Those inspiring stories are even more inspiring because of the hard part. In
fact, if there's not a hard part, it does not have the power to inspire me. You
ever heard a story that's all about just fluff? Yeah,
no inspiration there. You got to have the hard stuff in there.
Mistakes are there to teach us important things. Robert Kiyosaki said it this way.
He said, "If you really want to succeed, start failing faster." John Maxwell wrote
a book called Failing Forward. Are you getting the theme here. It's part of the
deal. If you're not willing to forgive yourself for mistakes, you might not be
willing to learn what you need to learn from those valuable mistakes. Let's put
them into context. They're not there. So that we can beat ourselves up over them.
They're there to teach us important things and to illuminate the hero that's
inside of every one of us as you rise to the occasion and face the adversity in
your own life, it illuminates the that you are. You can tell I get fired up
about this stuff it's because I believe in people. I believe in the resiliency of
the human spirit. I believe that our mistakes are there for a purpose and
that we're all going to make them. What if we just do it on purpose?
Experience this life. Allow yourself to make the mistakes. Be quick to forgive
and practice the same level of compassion and empathy and tolerance and
forgiveness that you would for any other human being on this planet.
Quit discriminating against the one most important person in your life. You've got
this you're an amazing human being and as you accept that, you can make a choice.
Let's address that directly. Choose to forgive yourself.
Wait a minute Dr. Paul, is that easy? I can just choose it... Yes, you can choose it.
In fact, try this. Get your journal out, go grab your journal or a notepad or
something that you can actually physically write this down and write
down these words. I choose to forgive myself. Write it down. How's that feel?
Is that amazing? It actually is a choice until we see it as a choice, it's not. I
want you to make that choice right now once and for all
that you will forgive yourself. I choose to forgive myself and then move forward
with power and humility. There's some real power in understanding your own
mind. I've created a course just for that purpose. It's called the Positivity Power
Up. 6 modules that will help you know how to operate the equipment. positivitypowerup.com
check it out.