Learning to Forgive Yourself

When did we decide that success was the same as perfection? Do you have something that you have been trying to address in your life: eating better, exercising, giving up smoking, drinking less, yelling less, losing your patience less. . . . . ? Most of us have something that we are trying to be better at. We may be doing more talking about it than we are actually working to change it in our lives, but so often the idea of ‘perfection’ takes us off of the path of successful improvement.

Do you find yourself identifying and accepting excuses for yourself when you aren’t perfect on something that you are trying to improve in your life? You don’t look at all of the other things that you did well that day in that area of your life. You don’t gift yourself with grace. You beat yourself up in spades, because it wasn’t your idea of perfection, so it wasn’t good enough.

I have a dear friend whose husband is fighting liver cancer, and the doctors have said that there is nothing more that they can do. Every couple of weeks now, there is an attack, and within 20 minutes he goes from perfectly fine to unable to control or maneuver any part of his body — then it is time for an emergency hospital run. She is doing all that she possibly can to show love, respect, patience, and kindness to this man that she has chosen as her life partner. She has enough information in her head at this point to be a medical professional … she continually sacrifices what she wants and needs in her life in order to prioritize his care and comfort.

We have talked about what she needs at this point so that when his passing comes, the attacks of ‘you never did this for him’, ‘you always got upset about that’, or whatever else will be met or drowned out by her knowledge that she did her very best. What does she need in order to have that confidence in her head . . . and in her heart . . . and those are two completely different kinds of confidence.

So, I ask you . . . what do you need in order to have the confidence in your head and in your heart that you have done the very best each day that you can . . . . when you look at everything else that went on that day . . . how many other stressful decisions you had to make, how many others wanted and needed your time, thus removing your opportunity to focus on what you needed and wanted?

This is not an ‘out’ or an excuse. I’m not interested in those at all. But consider looking at your situation and making a reasonable assessment of how you did with whatever you are working on, based on the life factors that were in play on that day. And how can you learn from those, and improve upon them the next time . . . . especially if all you are doing is beating yourself up, instead of stepping back and being ‘real’ about your life.

Not much in life is a straight line. Most things are up here, back there, fall forward over there, and slide sideways at that corner. But it is in these points of our journey where we get to learn more about ourselves. And if we continue learning, then the points in our journey that aren’t as straight as we would like for them to be provide some pretty amazing insight into who we are and who we are becoming.

Memaw Wisdom Coaching has a great group coaching class that we are offering this month entitled ‘Being Fully Present in a Family’. It is a 6 hour group coaching class. Each Saturday morning, we start with some teaching . . . strategies for improving our connection with those in our life (and forgiving ourselves for being human) is certainly one of those. We would love to have you join us. For more information use this link: https://memaw.life/fully-present-family.

Learning to Forgive Yourself

Learning to Forgive Yourself

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