A great many people go about carrying excess baggage of guilt. Some of it justified. Some not.
Some, regrettably, get stuck too long in the position of the condemned prisoner. They conduct a permanent trial in their tormented heads. There is no point waiting for the internal judge's ruling. It is always the same — you are guilty, and therefore you are rubbish, and so you will remain.
That is not good. Woe to the person who does not learn to forgive himself.
Generally I am against being pleased with oneself, but the cases of broken hearts that have passed before my eyes have forced an alarmed conclusion on me.
Automatic self-forgiveness is a bad thing, but automatic self-flagellation is a catastrophic one. The first is considerably preferable.
But if we put on the practical suit and want to help you forgive yourself, we have three recommendations in the warehouse.
One. Acknowledge that you did something bad.
Close the door. Stay alone, with nobody listening. Alone in the room? Good. Now say quietly: I messed up.
I hurt, I insulted, I ignored, I lied, I betrayed, or I simply could not be bothered. It does not matter which. Take ownership of the bad act with both hands.
No, do not say "but". Do not fly off in search of mitigating circumstances. For a certain moment, or a certain week, your bad side came forward.
The monster exists in all of us. This time, you did not manage to restrain it.
Two. Promise yourself that from now on you will try to repair.
Not that you will feel worse for longer. Guilt is not a payment, however much it feels like one, and no quantity of private suffering discharges a debt to a person who is not in the room.
Three, and the one people skip: distinguish what you did from what you are.
That distinction is the whole mechanism. Self-flagellation is what happens when an act gets promoted into an identity — and identities cannot be repaired, only endured. An act can be admitted, addressed, and left behind, which is why the first step insists that you name the act precisely, rather than concluding something enormous and vague about yourself.