How To Forgive Yourself
So. You did a bad thing. You made out with your best friend’s SO, it was YOU who let the dogs out, you lifted $20 from your dad’s wallet, you cheated on a test (or a person), you hurt somebody and you wish you could take it back.
And now, in the wake of what you have done or left undone, you are finding it rather hard to meet your own gaze in the mirror. Your posture is becoming stooped like a Dickensian villain under the weight of your guilt, and you are searching for a way to forgive yourself.
Well congratulations! Because someone on the internet discovered One Weird Trick to dissolving guilt and…nah, I’m just messing with you. This isn’t one of those easy fix situations, though it is not entirely without a silver lining. Here is a road map, forged by a writer who has walked it many times.
1. Apologize (probably).
I know it seems obvious, but admitting what you’ve done is a crucial first step, and it can yield astonishingly good results. When I was 17, a girl who had wronged me more deeply than anyone in my life (even up until today) approached me at lunch and declared that she was immensely sorry. And out of shock, happiness, and a desire to seem like a benevolent and generous human, I freely forgave her. It is a miraculous facet of the human condition that most people would rather forgive than stay mad. (And you don’t have to wait until you get caught to apologize; that just prolongs your current guilt-stricken agony.)
But there is a major caveat! If apologizing would inflict further damage on an innocent party while assuaging your own guilt, it will actually add to your karmic burden. Ask yourself: am I merely easing my conscience or am I making a genuine attempt to atone?
2. Find Some Context
Have you ever seen a three year-old howling with existential horror at having stolen a cookie? To a child, the slightest sin is cause enough to wonder if they’ve lost their spot in heaven, while to adults their distress is precious. Well, not to patronize your angst, but in time, your current transgression might seem as trivial to you as that cookie. Generally, one’s misdeeds are commensurate with one’s ability to deal with them. So unless you going around whispering Harry Potter spoilers into the ears of toddlers, in the grand scheme of things, you’re probably okay.
3. Buck Up
Okay, so here actually is a weird trick for forgiving yourself: pile more guilt onto the guilt. What I mean is, at a certain point, you’re not actually doing your conscience any good by obsessing over how bad you are. You are just wallowing, and that is unproductive and adolescent. Note that, despite the fact that Katniss Everdeen committed acts far more horrific than you, the second and third books of The Hunger Games are not titled Weeping Softly and Heavy Journaling.
4. Rock Your Scars
If by “forgive yourself,” you mean “return to a time when your soul was as unblemished as the new-fallen snow,” I’m afraid I can’t help you. The truth is, most fully-formed adults carry around some lingering regrets. In fact, if you meet an adult who says they are totally fine with every decision they’ve ever made, you’re not talking to the one faultless person on earth, but to someone without the insight to learn from their mistakes.
Much like burning your hand on the stove teaches you a healthy respect for fire, so regrets can act as an early warning system that reminds you not to make the same mistakes again. (Make new, exciting ones!) Forgiving yourself isn’t about undoing your past wrongs, but in letting them make you a better person. Let your cruelties teach you to be kind, your lies teach you to be honest, and your bangs teach you that you cannot, in fact, pull off bangs.
So how do you forgive yourself? (It was you who let the dogs out, wasn’t it?)
