You may have expected the person you most need to forgive is the parent who misshaped you during your formative years or the school bully who gave you an inferiority complex. Yes, they and all who offend you need to be forgiven, but you also need it as a lack of self-forgiveness significantly impairs your ability to live a fulfilling life.
Please note the use of “have been” in the title. You need to come to the table of forgiveness having sincerely committed to understanding and ceasing your transgressions. If not, stay unforgiven, but continue reading to see what you are missing.
Why?
For the same reason you forgive others, you need to forgive yourself. Instead of being imprisoned by anger toward others, you are incarcerated by guilt and shame. They create a feeling of unworthiness robbing your peace and preventing you from you reaching your potential for yourself and those in your sphere of influence.
Self-forgiveness goes beyond feeling better because you are relieved of guilt; it releases you to do good for yourself and others. Who serves better? The guilt-ridden spouse/parent or the relieved one?
As with forgiving others, self-forgiveness will not eliminate memories of your past offenses nor make you feel good about them. Rather than allowing the painful memory to justify inaction (unworthiness) or lead us down to a reoccurrence, the recognition and release provided by self-forgiveness can inspire our reformation and resolve to perpetually avoid the offense.
Missing out on the opportunity to be better because of guilt and shame could be a greater tragedy than the original wrongdoing as the period and degree of doing better may far exceed the prior offenses.
Yes & No
Of course, self-forgiveness is not a get-out-of-jail-free card and cannot be used as an excuse to avoid reformation. Otherwise, we would be like errant Catholics who sin under the mistaken belief they can go to the confessional afterward without a sincere commitment to reform and receive forgiveness. “Sincere” commitment understands perfection may be unattainable but maintains the ambition for it.
Those who are hopelessly racked with guilt due to the enormity of their prior offenses may take some comfort in knowing that everything under the sun has been done billions of times since our species began walking upright. Again, this fact cannot be used as an excuse to delay or minimize our commitment. The “I could do worse” or “he is worse than me” attitudes are the enemies of honest reformation. Better role models are the innumerable “bad” actors who turned their life around (i.e., former gangbangers who run anti-gang groups, the Biblical example of Saul/Paul).
Some believe they are not worthy of self-forgiveness until they apologize and make reparations to the person harmed. Remorse may create a desire to make things “right” but it is not a prerequisite for self-forgiveness due to frequent impossibility (cannot locate the injured parties, they refuse the offer, or apology/reparation will cause more harm). For further discussion, you may refer to the concept of making amends in 12-step programs.
The Benefit
As with last week’s forgiveness Step, there is a faith-based, spiritual component to forgiveness of self. The Old and New Testaments contain messages of God granting the forgiveness of sin that washes away the burden of life-draining guilt.
When approached properly, self-forgiveness releases you from the prison of guilt and removes feelings of unworthiness so you can be the best for yourself and all those you encounter.
Commit to reformation, forgive yourself, and go forth boldly.
