Forgiveness

“You forgive yourself for every failure because you are trying to do the right thing. God knows that and you know it. Nobody else may know it.” —Maya Angelou

Why does itseemwe are the last person we forgive?

At times,even as we have no cause tobeguilty when it is merely ourreflecting, we still attack ourselves for no good reason. We need forgiveness of self.

We obsess, suspecting everyone is against us, as we walk closer to the edge of the cliff of Self-Pity. It doesn’t matter what we do or don’t do; we take ourselves to heart unjustifiably because that comes naturally. There are those too, who take offense with whatwesay, andtheyare hurt.

We may hear a specific inflection in someone’s voice and we ask ourselves,”Oops, what didI doto cause this?” Fear clouds ourthinkingin an instant and we imagineif onlywe, “Did something different,” or “Said something different,” fear would vanish.Oftentimes, fear can surface by not having saidanythingatall. We don’t need to be sensitive to every thought, gesture, or imagining. Wereallydon’t.None of this is about us. It is about the other person.

So we look at it for whatit is: thinking run riot. The fearwe are not good enough, fear we’ve fallen short in some way, disappointing others. The truth is, we are the one who needs our forgiveness. We are the ones we have disappointed, many times, through no fault of our own.

Forgiveness is a virtue we practice to detach from our insecure, often neurotic perceptions. We get caught in thoughts of triviality and become blinded by what is real. We make assumptions based on mistaken beliefs that were never our truth, to begin with, and continue to feed them the attention they don’t deserve.

Are we responsible for what others think, do or say?
Absolutely not.

But how do we let go of the whirring and stirring in our head that says surely we must havesomethingto do with someone else’s disappointment of us?

If youlikethis article, click on this link,“Ten Things You Can do To Forgive Yourself to Freedom,and begin feeling better this minute: