Healing By Letting Go: Self-Forgiveness-Part 2

What to Forgive Yourself For

Logic is the quickest way to help you understand that you deserve to be forgiven; for everything and anything you have ever done or will ever do. Here is some logic to convince you.

Start with things you did and people you have hurt, betrayed, let down, lied to…before your brain was fully developed and before you connected with your spirit. (Both of which may include your whole life up until now if you are younger than 26 years of age.) Before these two evolutionary steps occur, one does not generally have access higher levels of awareness.

The human brain, specifically the frontal lobe or frontal cortex, is not fully developed until around twenty-six years of age. The frontal cortex is the most evolved part of the brain and it is responsible for the following functions:

  • Self-discipline/control
  • Maintaining focused attention
  • Long-term planning
  • Evaluating long-term consequences
  • Thought control
  • Managing emotions
  • Healthy decision making/choices
  • Impulse control
  • Delaying gratification
  • Frustration tolerance

Therefore, you were being driven by instant gratification, the inability to control your urges and impulses, in addition to seeking satisfaction of unmet childhood needs while being unable to accurately predict the consequences of your behavior (thought, word, or deed).

The brain that is not fully developed cannot be held fully responsible for all its choices, can it? I think 26 should be the new starting date for adulthood, legally!

When we are given adult responsibilities and privileges, we think we’re adults and are even treated as such by some people. Driving, dating, voting, getting married and finally consuming alcohol are age-related privileges. Voting doesn’t get too many people into trouble but the other four do!

And they make up a lot of the things you may need to forgive yourself for.

If we forgive children anything, wouldn’t it be in our best interest to believe we were not finished developing until 26. With this knowledge we could have tried to be more aware. But we can’t change the past. However we can use this knowledge now to be gentler with people in our lives that fall into this category, including your past, current or future self.

Forgive yourself for:

  • All the times you were acting from pain and not able to consciously think of being kind.
  • Not being able to protect yourself or someone else.
  • Not being there when someone needed you.
  • Making the “wrong” choice for yours or someone else’s health or safety.
  • Missing the unexpressed pain of others.
  • Making the wrong choice when it came to keeping or telling a secret
  • Putting your needs first, (if they were your ‘true’ needs and not unmet needs of childhood or ego needs.) If they were unmet needs of childhood, forgive yourself for not knowing they needed to evolve to self-delivery. If they were ego needs, forgive yourself for not recognizing that you were being controlled by your ego.
  • Forgive yourself for not knowing better or if you did know better, for not keeping that knowledge in your consciousness when it was needed. Know better; remember to do better!
  • Anything that comes to mind when you think “I should have known better.” “I should have seen that coming,” and “If only…”
  • Putting your need to fit in or belong above your need to self-protect by giving in to peer-pressure.
  • Believing in or trusting the wrong person/people.
  • Not being kinder to yourself.
  • Not being perfect: for being fallible, for being human.
  • Not being stronger.
  • Ignoring your instincts/intuition.
  • Being afraid (i.e. Being too afraid to take a chance at something good.)
  • Things that you had no control over.
  • Not knowing you were an eternal spiritual being experiencing a physical life.

The other part of the logic is that you may not have had good role-models for “good” behavior.

  • You may not have been taught healthy coping strategies and self-soothing for painful emotions.
  • You may not have been taught to self-protect or may have only learned to self-protect.
  • You may not have been shown boundaries or taught about boundaries; yours, other peoples, the worlds, and how to create your own with others.

If you weren’t’ getting what you needed, your behavior was, subconsciously or consciously, driven to satisfy those needs.

All these factors should make it easy for you to forgive yourself (and others as well.)

Please continue with Step 3: How to Forgive Yourself

May you perceive and receive all your blessings.

With Much Love,

Rev. Michele

Copyright © 2013 Indigo Sky, LLC; All Rights Reserved