How to forgive yourself
When we are haunted by past mistakes, what can we do to exorcise those ghosts?
Hello,
After a short hiatus, I’m back with a new post about the path to self-forgiveness. I hope you find it useful.
We all make mistakes that hurt either ourselves or others, and those memories can continue to haunt our minds for years or decades to come. I’ve found that this is most common in the middle of the night, as I begin replaying a whole montage of my worst moments, some of which occurred more than 25 years ago.
I know that I’m far from alone in this, and so I was intrigued to find a new paper examining 80 people’s experiences of self-forgiveness. Their transgressions involved everything from regrettable arguments to extramarital kissing to neglecting to care for a suicidal father.
The researchers divided the participants into two groups: those who had managed to make peace with the events, and those who hadn’t, and looked for common patterns in each one.
As you might expect, the people who kept on lingering over their past mistakes often felt a heightened responsibility for what had happened. Even if they’d tried to act appropriately, there was the suspicion that they could have done more. Consider the case of a 21-year-old who had let his friend drive while drunk. He tried to stop him, but the friend insisted that he was sober enough to get home and subsequently injured himself in a car crash. I think most of us can recognise that this man should not be accountable for his friend’s behaviour, but that’s hard to remember when you’re the one with the troubled conscience.
In some cases, people would feel responsible for another’s transgressions against themselves, a form of internalised victim blaming:
“I stayed in an abusive relationship for far too long after realizing I was in one,” wrote one man. “I lied to myself and convinced myself everything was okay and tried to stay busy and distract myself. I’m no longer in the relationship but I feel like the years I spent in it were rather wasted. I still regret it and often think about how things could have been different or I could have used that time better.”
One common – but in my opinion, damaging – belief was that shame was a way of avoiding the same situation from occurring again. They believed it would lead them to act better in the future. Previous research has shown that the opposite is true: the more we treat ourselves with self-compassion, the better able we are to make up for our transgressions and prevent them from occurring again.
“It took several months to reach the point of forgiveness with myself,” wrote one woman who had cheated on her partner. “It was a very freeing experience to finally be able to look objectively at the situation, realize that while I had messed up it wasn’t the end of the world, and look forward to the future. Now, I don’t really think about it all that much, though I have definitely learned I do not want to be in that position again.”
In general, these people tended to talk to lots of other people about the event. It’s a cliché that “shame dies in the light”, but open conversation really can help to banish our demons.
Reading these anecdotes led me to wonder whether there are any formal interventions for coming to terms with shame or guilt, and I found an eminently practical piece from the Greater Good Science Center at the University of California, Berkeley. It’s written by Fred Luskin, the director of the Stanford University Forgiveness Projects, and Lyndon Harris, a former Episcopal priest. Here’s a quick summary of the 12 steps:
Categorise the event
Are you feeling bad for a single wrong action, a pattern of bad decisions, an act of neglect, or a failure to achieve your potential? Labelling your mistake in this way can help you gain some distance from the emotions it creates.
Be clear about what you did
Articulate the specific wrong you committed and who it may have harmed. If you can face it, share this with a friend or loved one, who may be able to remind you that you are not alone in your feelings.
Understand what you want
Are you aiming for reconciliation with the person? Or do you simply want to let go of the bad memory? Often, we aren’t sure what to do with our remorse, and these questions will help you to work out the best way to move forward.
Focus on the present
Describe how the event is affecting you now, and decide whether that suffering is still useful, or whether you could let it go while still acknowledging the lessons it has taught you.
End self-attack
Identify the excessive self-criticism. This often comes in the form of “I am” statements – such as “I am an awful person” that undermine your whole identity.
Recognise unrealistic expectations
Much of your shame may arise from setting yourself impossible standards. You might believe that you should have predicted the consequences of your actions before the event took place, even if there was no way of knowing what would happen.
Hit the stop button
Find ways to break up ruminative thought cycles, such as visualising your negative thought floating away in a bubble.
Apologise
Sharing your regret with the person who suffered from your actions will help to exorcise the shame that you feel – though this may not always be feasible.
Make it right
When appropriate, look for ways to make amends for what has happened, or to find some positive way to express your regret. You might use this as a reason to begin treating the other people in your life with greater kindness, for instance, or – if your mistake harmed yourself – to try to undo some of the damage.
Shift your attention to the good
Luskin and Harris suggest a short meditative exercise that involves visualising your conscience being wiped clean and reflecting on the people who love.
Get perspective
Remember that everyone makes mistakes, and remind yourself of the kind deeds that you have performed.
Identify your positive intention
Look to the future and identify the positive ways that you can now move on with your life.
If this has piqued your interest, I’d thoroughly recommend reading the full piece here.
That’s all for this week! I’ve had a few radio interviews recently, so if you’re interested in hearing more from me, you can find me talking about using questions to enhance connection, the subconscious bias that produces exploitation in the workplace, and the science of changing minds.
See you soon,
David x
This aligns well with what we see in clinical work on shame, guilt, and self-compassion. Persistent self-blame tends to function less as moral repair and more as rumination that keeps the nervous system locked in threat. The distinction you highlight—between responsibility and over-responsibility—is crucial. Self-forgiveness isn’t absolution; it’s a shift from global self-attack to specific accountability paired with self-compassion, which research consistently shows supports learning, repair, and future behavioral change far more effectively than shame.
I feel like I am stuck in some sort of vicious loop.
Hard Choices Easy Life, Easy Choices Hard Life sums a lot about what goes for everyone's life. I myself am self aware that the life I am living is on total automation, there is no autonomous decision making I hold for myself as I didn't move outside my parent's house, which leads to they generally have a say in everything which is kind of default for their generation. A ruckus get created everyday for small bit of things which impacts everybody's day both in personal and professional which leads to a lot of stress and anxiety leading to poor focus & effort allocation throughout the whole day leading to mediocre efforts which will lead to mediocre or no result in the future. Everybody is filled with anxiety and everybody feels a lot of pressure at home.
I have said to myself that I need to move out from here, it will good for my personal growth, professionally as well and good for my family's overall health as well. I don't want to be dictated by my family in my 30's, when will I develop the skill of decision making the. I see almost 99% of people are living superficial lives even with their partners, they are not blunt about they want to speak or be who they are. Decisions are being made everywhere in some kind of peer pressure, even when I see they say we love each other a lot but then I see their decisions where the pressure gets seen mounted by one partner on the other. We are not living, our bodies are alive. Till date I haven't been around a human who has the skill of extreme ownership meaning they take onus of everything in their lives, I am surrounded by people blaming other people, government, their extended family for some or the other thing. And I see myself being turned into that over the last 27 years I have been alive, from the last couple of months I have changed every bit of narration that goes in my mind where I say to my parents that because of you people I had to pursue law and now I am doomed. But now I flipped the script, I take ownership & accountability of almost everything, I blame myself because I need to develop this skill to improve my life right now and for the upcoming times as well. Blaming others won't ever help me, in every situation if we think deeply we could have done better in that circumstance if we had the decision making skill. I don't see around me people with rational decision making skills as well.
I could surrender right now and say to myself that fuck everything and join your father's business. But I am revolting against my life because I know it as easy decision to join the business but only in the present. If I look it from ten thousand foot view, I know this is not what I want. I have to stand up for myself and take decisions that I want to and not what other people expect of me.
I haven't been able to forgive myself for the stagnation I have done to my own life. It feels like I haven't been financially free at the age of 28 and haven't developed any skill over the past years which would help me. I have just given time to things at home which didn't helped me personally & professionally. It feels like sheer wastage of time. Now I am planning to move out within a couple of months and it feels what the fuck I have done after my graduation, it was bullshit decision to stay at home thinking it would be okay. I have to change the narration regarding the past as changing the narration is almost the same as changing what happened in the past. Micro & macro pivots is what life teaches us, we can't get stuck on suck part. Rather we need to learn to embrace the suck, obstacles in life.