Letting go and forgiving yourself often seems daunting, especially when we feel that we have done something truly unforgivable. Whatever the case may be, in order to bring ourselves back to a healthy state of mind from which we can do good, it is essential to learn how to let go of past mistakes.
But it doesn’t have to be that way and it can be a lot easier than you think if you are brave enough to take these 15 steps.
For best results, I recommend making these 15 steps a daily ritual.
1. Allow Yourself To Feel Without Judgment Or Reservation
This is a massively important part of learning how to let go of past mistakes.
Sit with your feelings or take a walk outside and let them come as they will.
Don’t try to push anything out of your mind or tell yourself that things didn’t happen as they did.
Own everything completely and, instead of making excuses or trying to convince yourself that you are either always right or misunderstood, accept that you were simply wrong.
Being wrong does not make you a bad person and being able to recognize your own imperfection is a respectable and honorable trait.
2. Recognize Your Feelings
Your mind is your home and your feelings are guests there.
Like guests, they will stop by to visit you and to be seen by you.
You may have invited them or they may be dropping in unannounced.
They may enjoy their company or you may politely tolerate it.
Greet them as guests and allow them to have a look around, but remember that your mind is your home and you will still be living there after they leave.
If you need a little more info on this, here is a helpful guide.
3. Recognize That Your Feelings Are Not Part Of You
This is another massively important part of learning how to let go of past mistakes and one that is very often and very easily overlooked because people tend to identify with their emotions.
Whatever feelings come to visit you as you sit or walk around your neighborhood, observe them as you would observe a visitor to your home.
Your feelings, like guests in the physical world, may be calm and pleasant or noisy and irritating.
They may be well-behaved or rude and you may find them pleasant or unpleasant.
Remember however that you are not your feelings and you are the master of the house.
4. Do Not Cling To Your Feelings
It can be easy to identify with your feelings, but do not allow yourself to be fooled into thinking that your house belongs to one of your guests and not to you.
Do not be hostile to your guests and instead welcome them because they each come bearing lessons that will make you a better person if you listen to them with a truly open heart.
Once a guest has taught you what you needed to learn, thank them and allow them to stay as long as they need to without making any attempt to force them out or convince them to leave.
Eventually, they will leave on their own and you will remain in your home with the new understanding that they have given you.
5. Recognize When You Are Being Too Hard On Yourself
You may have made a mistake and you may have even done it on purpose in a moment of weakness or ignorance, but it is important to keep in mind that your mistakes are not you.
Your mistakes, like your feelings, are temporary and probably more infrequent than you realize.
When you tell yourself things like “I am always doing this,” you are simply being unrealistic.
You don’t always do anything except for breathing.
6. Identify Where You Are Being Unrealistic
When we feel bad for any reason, we often tend to say hurtful and inaccurate things to ourselves in order to make ourselves feel even worse because we feel like we deserve it.
Know that, when you do this, you are (probably unconsciously) trying to avoid taking the action that needs to be taken in order to make things right.
You torturing yourself does not help whoever was hurt or fix whatever was broken.
Instead of indulging in self-harm and bullying yourself, think of ways that you could try to make things right or at least do some good to make up for any bad that you might have done.
7. Feelings Are Not Facts
And neither is “perception.”
I know I am diverging from the dominant cultural orthodoxy here, but feeling or believing something does not make that thing true.
Reality is external and exists on its own the way it does regardless of how you or anyone else feels about it.
Believing that you can fly does not in any way alter the law of gravity that will affect you when you jump off a cliff and believing that you deserve to feel bad does not mean that you do.
See and accept things for what they are so that you can handle reality more effectively instead of denying it and suffering the inevitable consequences that come from doing that.
8. Identify Where Inner Monologue Diverges From Reality
You probably don’t notice when it happens but, when you start seeing it, you won’t be able to stop.
Let’s say that you said something to your friend which hurt their feelings even though that was not your intention and then you tell yourself that you are an insensitive person because of it.
Were you being insensitive during that entire conversation even before you said the thing that hurt their feelings?
What about all of those other conversations you have had with your friend in which you were not insensitive or in which you were at least less insensitive than you were this time?
Have you always been completely insensitive to every person that you have ever talked to?
How is it that one mistake defines you as a completely insensitive person but all of the times when you were sensitive do not define you as a sensitive person?
9. Feeling Is Not A Substitute For Acting
Once you have identified where you are being unrealistic and become more grounded in the facts, you can start to do what will really improve your life and those of the people around you.
Of course, I am talking about real-world action.
It does not have to be anything huge or game-changing and, in fact, it is best to start with small things and with the people who are already around you.
Do a small bit of good every day for those around you whether you know them or not rather than getting political or trying to change the world.
Like in a relationship, it’s the small and thoughtful actions that make the most difference.
10. Learning How To Let Go Of Past Mistakes = Humanity
Embrace your humanity.
You are a human being with limited knowledge and even more limited experience.
You have made mistakes and you will certainly make many more.
If you don’t expect other people to know everything and be right all the time, why do you expect that of yourself?
Do you believe you have some special ability to always know and do the right thing that they don’t have?
11. Learning How To Let Go Of Past Mistakes = Kindness
Be as kind to yourself as you are to your friends.
Would you say the same things to your friend that you say to yourself if your friend had done exactly the same things that you have done?
If the answer is ‘yes,’ then at least you are fair and consistent.
I respect that.
But if you are being honest with yourself right now, the answer is most likely ‘no.’
So stop being so hard on yourself.
Not every crime warrants a prison sentence.
12. Learning How To Let Go Of Past Mistakes = Kindness
When it’s over, let it be over.
This might sound rough but, if you really think on it, you will find yourself feeling lighter and under less pressure:
You are not the center of the universe and, unless you are a globally renowned celebrity or head of state, almost nobody is paying attention to you.
Why must you continue to torture yourself for something you did which has likely already been forgotten by everyone in the world except for you?
Unless you are reading this in the Black Dolphin or some other notorious supermax prison (they let you have internet?), whatever you did was probably not as big of a deal as you think it was.
13. Keep Things In Perspective
Rolling with the theme of the last step, have you ever thought that you are the worst person who has ever lived?
This is a very common self-abuse statement that many of us make to ourselves when we feel that we have done something wrong and also when we have actually done something wrong.
However, as I mentioned earlier in this list, feeling or believing something does not make it true.
What on Earth makes you think that you are ambitious or sleep-deprived enough to even contend for the title of “Worst Dirtbag Ever” against the likes of Mao Zedong and Pol Pot?
And, since we’re all equal here, how about Darya Saltykova or Ranavalona I of Madagascar who was directly responsible for the deaths of nearly half of all the people in her entire country?
What have you ever done in your life that would qualify you to even be in the running for the “Worst Dirtbag Ever” Top 50 list?
14. Forgive Yourself As You Forgive Others
You are not the only person who has messed up in your life.
We have all messed up and hurt people both when we didn’t mean to and when we did.
Just as part of learning how to let go of past mistakes involves recognizing that you actually made a mistake, another part is being able to move past that mistake.
Once you have made a sincere and genuine attempt to make things right and act in a way that puts good into the world, forgive yourself and focus on doing the right thing from now on.
Torturing yourself doesn’t help anyone and only hurts you.
You are more effective at doing good when your mind is clear and your heart is light
If you won’t do it for your own good, forgive yourself for the good of those you can’t help while you’re tormenting and imprisoning yourself.
15. Don’t Go It Alone
Whether it’s a mental health professional, a clergyman, a family member, or a friend, just reach out and don’t think that you have to deal with this all by yourself.
Don’t Just Do It Once.
Learning how to let go of past mistakes and how to forgive yourself is essential to living a happy, healthy, and productive life on this planet.
As soon as you begin to put these 15 steps of how to let go of past mistakes into practice on a regular basis, you will gradually begin to see exactly what I mean and you will see your life change for the better.
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