Dear Meli,

I’m having a problem with forgiveness. It’s not forgiveness of someone else I’m having a hard time with – it’s forgiveness of myself. In my last relationship, I cheated on my partner. Looking back, my ex and I both now acknowledge that our relationship needed to end, and my cheating helped us both see that. But still – I cheated. I haven’t been able to forgive myself, and I think its getting in the way of my being willing to get in another relationship. Any ideas about how I can move on and forgive myself? 

Frustrated Forgiver

Dear Frustrated,

I think it’s safe to say we all have regrets in our lives – things we wish we had done differently. Forgiving ourselves is a tremendous gift to everyone, when we can successfully do it.

I once heard Fred Luskin say that when we’re having a difficult time forgiving, it’s connected to fear. Specifically, fear that the experiences or events that we can’t forgive are too much for us to bear emotionally.

I have found this to be true for myself. I can see a pattern in my own experience that aligns with this. When something has been particularly challenging for me to forgive (of myself, or someone else), I can see that behind the resentment or anger (or self-recrimination) lies grief. Grief that seems like it may break me if I feel it. I have had this experience when I realized the grief I was resisting was about my own actions. I had an unconscious idea that if I were to really be present with what I’d done, and feel the feelings, I’d never be able to rise above the emotions. I’d never be able to function again. Because the mistake I’d made – the action I took or didn’t take – was evidence that, at the core, I am unworthy.

What I have found in these situations is that when I’ve allowed myself the time and space to feel all my feelings about the event, things started to shift. For me, I’ve taken the following steps in this process:

1. Sit comfortably and relax.
2. Remind myself (all aspects of my inner being) that I am here now, not actually in the past.
3. Remind myself that in this here and now, I am safe.
4. Invite the aspects of my being that are most afraid to be held by my Higher Power, aka Love Itself.
5. Remind these scared parts of me that, within the Divine Itself, the Quantum Field, the Mind of Spirit (or however you conceive of The All), there is no judgment. Spirit has only love and complete acceptance of me and for me.
6. Immersed in this safety, I invite myself to begin feel the feelings that came from the experience I’ve struggled to forgive.
7. If I imagine myself rising out of my own identity (the little me, if you will) and floating above myself, what can I see about the time and the circumstances that shed light on what happened?
8. Allow myself to feel, and see – and feel and see – and feel and see…

This practice usually allows the mortar of judgement to loosen enough that some of the bricks of stuck emotions can begin to move. I can take them from the wall of stuckness, even if one brick at a time. I can do this again and again, until I can find peace. My emotions were not too much after all!

I do want to add here that trauma can complicate this. It can add to the stuckness. Trauma is heavy-duty mortar. For that, I like to bring in the big guns of professional support in the process.

There are endless modalities that people have found useful in the healing of trauma. I particularly like EMDR, but everyone is different.

I will say this. We can step back from an experience after the fact and judge it. But, in reality, at the time of the action – it was you doing your best. Maybe you needed to “cheat” in order to step back from your own fear of disengaging from a relationship that wasn’t working. Do I think that’s a great thing? Not really. But I can understand it and have compassion for the thinking.

Bottom line: Do we learn from our mistakes? Do we learn from the things we’ve done that we wish we’d done differently?

If so, it has served a purpose.

And have we done what we can to take responsibility and ask forgiveness (unless doing so would cause more harm)?

We do all we can to evolve so that we won’t continue to harm others, or ourselves. That’s sometimes the best we can do.

We are going to continue to learn. Sometimes this means doing things we wished we’d done differently. As much as you’re evolving and growing into a better version of yourself, you will still have days in which there are things you could have done better. This is good! It’s evolution.

You are a divine child of the infinite power of love. And you can’t ever get it wrong enough to make this not be the case! You. Are. Loved.

Blessings and Love to you in all you do!

In Joy,

Melissa

What is your experience with self forgiveness? Share your comments below!

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