How to Forgive Yourself

Dear beautiful people,

Wishing you a happy Eid and hope you are having a great week :) It's holiday time for me so it's extra exciting. I have so much to say and write but in this post, I want to reply to one of my readers, JZ. My top priority right now. I received her email today and it always cheers me up to hear from any of my wonderful readers. One main reason I write is to reach out to people like you, share my honest thoughts and help out with anything I can with my writing. Hearing from you motivates me to keep writing and write more. I know I am 10 days late, I am sorry, please forgive me. But I promise I did not even see the email and just opened it literally a few hours ago. I am managing several emails now and life feels like it is rushing by so fast..and I am trying to catch up. I am trying my best and proud of myself for that :)

Back to our topic, it is a pretty deep topic. Have you ever blamed yourself for something? Have you ever thought something wrong was your fault? Even if there were many other reasons which could have caused it, you still feel guilty? Have you ever felt so remorseful that even the thought of it makes you feel miserable? You feel useless or good for nothing? Or maybe it was not that extreme and you just felt so down? Maybe when you think of this guilt, it makes you want to cry and punish yourself? Is it something you can only tell the people close to you? Or maybe it is so deep that you cannot even talk about it to anyone and just keep it to yourself? Have you ever felt that you would change something if you could reverse time? If only you had more common sense then? Or if you had more time? Whatever it is, please be kind to yourself my dear. Step back, look at the bigger picture.

Feeling all these feelings actually tells me 1 thing. You are good-natured. You are concern about the people around you and the people you love. You are selfless. You are willing to take the blame even when it is not completely your fault. You are so kind-hearted that you see the good in others and you dismiss any of their bads. You focus less on your good and more on your bads. This makes you a humble person but not giving equal weightage to your good, it will only hurt yourself in the long run. Respect yourself and do not compromise your self-worth. There are some people on the opposite spectrum who would not admit their mistakes and only blame other people. This is not acceptable either so it is good to find a balance. Be responsible for your mistakes, admit what you have done wrong and try to make things better but do not hold on to too much guilt that it hurts you. Yes, you made a mistake but let the past be the past. Focus on today. Focus on right now, this very moment. What can you do differently? There is nobody in this world with no mistakes. It is OK to make mistakes as long as you learn from them and try to be better. It is harsh to punish yourself continuously and put yourself down. If you are doing this, stop immediately and reflect. You are your own best friend. If you are unkind to yourself and disrespectful of yourself, how can others be kind and respect you? I am very particular of this, I try to ensure I respect myself, acknowledge my capabilities, push myself to my limits but I listen to my inner voice if I am feeling tired or not in the mood for something, I will respect what my heart and mind feel. For example, my rational mind says I need to do 100 push-ups. If I am up for it, I will definitely do it, maybe even 150 if I can. However, if I cannot, I will acknowledge myself and not punish myself for not doing it. I'll make up for it another time. That is just an example. This can be applicable to other situations. So, listen to yourself and accept what you are able to and unable to do. Work on improving yourself but do it kindly. Your heart and mind need to be treated in the best manner possible.

The only way to forgive yourself is to have good thoughts of yourself and acknowledge your well-being great enough that you would not want to do anything that would harm yourself physically or mentally. In order to have good thoughts of yourself and increasing the respect you have for yourself, here a few tips:

• Say kind words to yourself. Do not say 'I am stupid, I am foolish, I am ...'. Since I was young, I have been taught to never say these things to myself. I will say 'Oops, my bad or sorry that was my mistake' but I will never say to myself bad words or negative words. I will not say to myself things that I do not want to hear other people say to me. If they do, you will need to tell them you do not like it or that it is not acceptable, Look at the situation, if it was a friendly one-time joke, no worries just laugh along. It is not good to be too serious all the time anyway. If they are serious or say it often, sorry not acceptable.

• To increase respect for yourself, you must be doing something that benefits others. For example, helping your parents with chores, helping a blind person cross the road, helping stray cats and dogs, helping the poor, giving spare change to beggars, doing kind deeds, helping a friend, helping your neighbour and giving. Giving makes you feel this warm, fuzzy feeling in your heart and makes you feel valuable and positively impact others.

• Know your limitations. Know that you are unable to do everything and you will try your best to work on your weakness. 

• Look at the bigger picture. If something was meant to happen, it will. You cannot possibly blame yourself for the bigger things that are most likely out of your control. 

• People make mistakes. You do too especially when you are young. When you are single, in your teens, 20s, even 30s, you do not have many things figured out and still discovering many things. Some people are still discovering themselves at this age. Even if you are older, you will deal with new things that you did not have to deal with when you were younger I assume and you will tend to make mistakes and it is OK. When you are older, you are more mature and more experienced so people say it gets better compared to when you are in your teens and 20s. I am at the age that according to science, the brain is only fully developed and even if your brain is not fully developed, you can still achieve and continuously improve yourself. Nothing wrong making mistakes. The consequences can vary and can suck most of the time but relax and try to take one thing at a time. 

• Remind yourself of all the good things you have done and wonderful things you have achieved. You see, I am the achiever kind of person so I will refer to this quite often but it does not have to be big academic achievements. It can be many different kinds of achievements and all are equally good.  Everyone has their own forte and I respect that. 

• To have good thoughts of yourself, choose the people you associate yourself with wisely. If there are really no good company at the time, be OK with alone time. I really like my own company but of course it is much better if I have good company. If you are a person that is easily influenced by others or affected by others, this is even more important. If people can affect your mood or your thoughts of yourself, then surround yourself with people who make you feel good about yourself. 

• Forgive others. How can you forgive yourself when it is hard for you to forgive others? Be a forgiving person if that person is honestly asking for forgiveness and trying to make things better with you. 

• Make up for what you did wrong. Be responsible. If you made a mess, clean it up. Do not just feel guilty and do nothing. Being a responsible person for the mistakes you made will make you feel happier and proud of yourself. 

• Do not wait for compliments from others. If you feel you did a good job, compliment yourself. If you feel you look nice, compliment yourself. I like to treat myself. I like to pamper myself doing the things I enjoy like going for spas or shopping hehe and yes I know if you are a student, you cannot spend much money but look for the simple things that make you happy. For example when I was studying, treating myself with my favourite dessert or drugstore products were good enough and made me happy. OK I feel weird saying 'when I was a student' because it is only 3 months that I started working so I still am slightly in that confused transition phase and feeling like I am still a student sometimes hehe. So, basically identify what makes you happy and treat yourself wisely.

These are some tips from me on how to increase self-respect which will hopefully help you forgive yourself in any situation. Loosen up a bit and relax, life is meant to be filled with ups and downs. Don't punish yourself too harshly for the downs because there are so many ups yet to await you :)