The 4Rs of Self-Forgiveness

Hi everyone,

I hope you are doing fine. I am doing ok, a little overwhelmed as I am trying to monetize the blog and everything and I’m still struggling to get my head around how things work here on this new platform. But hey, I will get to the bottom of it. Soon. Anyway, today I had some style tips but I came across Karo’s Little Corner‘s latest article and I felt compelled to share. I love her writings and I encourage you to follow along her journey to discovering self-love, self-confidence, and self-esteem. Enough talking, today topic it’s about forgiveness, “Self-Forgiveness”.

“

Forgiveness means that you accept the behavior, you accept what has happened, and you are willing to move past it and move on with your life without ruminating over past events that cannot be changed.

NOLEN-HOEKSEMA S, WISCO BE, LYUBOMIRSKY S. RETHINKING RUMINATION. PERSPECT PSYCHOL SCI. 2008;

What is self-forgiveness?

In other words, self-forgiveness is about accepting that you were wrong. Accepting that what is done is already done and there’s nothing you can do about it. It’s about letting go, accepting that we all make mistakes and forget.

Basically, when you forgive yourself you stop thinking about a past situation and stop blaming yourself for how it turned out. Most of the time, we focus more on blaming ourselves for what someone did to us. “I should’ve seen this coming. Why was I so dumb? How did I fall into the trap? Why I didn’t do this/that instead?” You made a mistake, so what? Self-forgiveness is all about feeling good.

In an article written by Kendra Cherry, I found something interesting called the 4 Rs of self-forgiveness: Responsibility, Remorse, Reparation, and Renewal. I’m going to use them to explain the process of self-forgiveness.

1. Responsibility

What happens when you decide to ask for forgiveness? You accept that you were wrong and you come forward to own your mistake. To forgive yourself you need to accept that you were wrong, let go of the illusion, and take responsibility. Forgiveness is not only about letting go and putting the past behind us, but it’s more about facing what happened and understanding your part in it. If you keep trying to justify what you did, you will never let go.

2. Remorse

Now that you’ve accepted the reality, you will face some negative emotions and feelings: guilt, shame, anger… It’s normal, embrace them. Don’t push them away. Allow yourself to feel those emotions. Cry, scream, run, pray… do anything you can to free yourself from the pain. You will feel like a bad person but understand that everyone can change so why not you. You’re bigger than your emotions.

3. Reparation.

The third step in the self-forgiveness process consists of repairing the damage caused. How would you ask someone to forgive you? You’d probably buy them a gift, cook their favorite dish or just do something nice for them right? Well, why don’t you do it for yourself? When was the last time that you actually did something for yourself? Something to make you feel good? Think about that.

4. Renewal

When you make mistakes, you should always look for ways to prevent yourself from doing the same thing again. That’s why we always ask what have you learned from a bad experience. What were the lessons? Now that you’ve forgiven yourself, how can you grow as a person? Sadly I cannot answer this question for you but I can tell you that a good way to become a new version of you is to understand why you behaved the way that you did.

Source: Karo’s Little Corner

“

Dress @Champagneboutique 

To me, forgiveness is an important treatment for resolving feelings of anger, hurt, and betrayal. Forgiveness therapy is an evidence-based treatment for anger. And one of the most common activities I do during mindset coaching with my clients is the “Letter of Forgiveness” where they get to learn the 4 steps to be taken in order to truly forgive themselves. Today I hope you forgive yourself for whatever you are holding it accountable for so you find peace.

Thanks for stopping by,

XoXo,

*Follow Karo here