Real Self-Care: Forgiveness

This post is part of a month-long series on Real Self-Care for world-changers. It’s about the experimentation: figuring out what works for you and following your heart. Simple, messy and everything in between. Self-care should be custom, intuitive, feasible and kind – to serve your actual life.

Forgiveness

I can’t recommend this practice across the board: if you’re not ready to forgive, you’re not ready.

But this is a challenge. Think of some of the people you haven’t forgiven yet. Please include yourself.

What is that grudge or pattern of anger doing to you? How does it feel? What could it feel like instead if you brought some forgiveness to the party?

It doesn’t have to be someone who has wronged you. You could forgive yourself for your regrets. You could forgive someone for simply not living up to your expectations. You could forgive someone instead of nagging them. You could forgive them instead of rolling your eyes.

Forgiveness doesn’t have to be monumental. It can be mundane.

I might suggest, very gently, that forgiveness is a form of self-care. We are freeing ourselves of the emotional and psychic energy that it takes to hold onto anger. Sometimes, it’s justified. Sometimes, the apology will never come. But I would offer the possibility that there may be room for forgiveness anyway.

I wrote a longer post about forgiveness over on Tiny Buddha. I believed for a long time that forgiveness was impossible, until once day it just felt right. Trust your gut. You are wise.

Maybe forgiveness won’t come today. Maybe you won’t even speak it out loud, ever. Maybe the person you’re forgiving won’t ever know. But maybe you could offer yourself enough compassion to let yourself be free of it. And if you’re still working on forgiving yourself: please do that as soon as possible.