Forgive Yourself

I've always been toughest on myself, a bit of a perfectionist and afraid of making mistakes. I guess this type of thinking has caused me to focus on forgiving others, but never choosing to forgive myself. In the the past I never actually thought that I needed to forgive myself, it wasn't a thought. But when I couldn't figure out why it was so hard for me to forgive a specific person and resentment continued to grow against this person, I realized it was so hard for me to forgive them because I actually needed to forgive myself. I needed to forgive myself for allowing someone to take advantage of me, for tolerating disrespect, and for accepting bad behavior.  I was upset with myself for making decisions over and over again that did nothing but hurt me in the end. I felt shame and guilt about my past decisions. I felt stupid and angry for continuing to make mistakes that I should have learned from. Instead of forgiving myself and using my mistakes as a testimony to help others, I was condemning myself.  When I chose to finally forgive myself, I could then forgive others.