is it possible to forgive yourself?

KEEP IT LONG TERM!

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
You live long enough and you'll mess up maybe once, maybe 100
times. Some mistakes echo throughout
your life. Some wrap themselves around your
neck like a weight, reminding you of every failure, every
moment of weakness. For me, I've wronged people in
my life. I've hurt people, said things
that I shouldn't have. And the hardest part is my mind

(00:20):
turns against me. It replays those moments
whispering that I'm not worthy of love, that I can't keep
going, I'm suffocated with guilt, not worthy of peace.
But let me ask you one thing. If your best friend made a
mistake, if they acted out of anger, pain, fear, would you
forgive them? Or would you hate them forever?
Would you let them move on? Would you call them names?

(00:43):
Then why do we do it to ourselves?
That self talk that we have all in ourselves say and Paul
Conti's book, he paints a picture of a dye being dropped
into a bowl of water. The more the dye gets dropped
in, the more the concentration gets proliferated, and
eventually it just covers the entire bowl.

(01:03):
It's whatever color the dye is. It's like our minds, like the
more we put into it, the more ittakes shape of whatever thing
that we store in it. What we store in our brains is
how we see the world. Do we think ourselves positively
or do we constantly put ourselves down?
I'm a failure. I did this.
I don't deserve love. Now imagine your friend breaks

(01:24):
down, ashamed of something they did.
You sit beside them, you tell them they aren't the some of
that mistake. You remind them of who they are.
Not perfect, just trying human. We're all human now flip that.
Why is it so hard to offer yourself the same compassion?
When did we decide that self forgiveness was weakness instead
of growth? Life is about happiness, right?

(01:47):
It's to be feel fulfilled now. I think as a society we're just
constantly ruminating on the things that have happened in the
past of this and that, and we never give ourselves some grace.
We never really go about life, and we're not as nice to
ourselves as we should be to ourfriend.
Why can't we have a good relationship with ourselves?
I say enough is enough. You should put yourself first.

(02:09):
Stop draining your cup so you can fill others and start
filling up your own. Shame is tricky.
It makes us think we're noble byholding on to that guilt.
It's like being pressed up against the wall and just being
crushed by the weight. It's because we think we deserve
it. But do we really?
If everybody lived like that, this would be a chaotic world in
suck. Like punishing ourselves will

(02:30):
fix what we broke, like hating ourselves will somehow prove we
care. But all it really does is freeze
us in time. We stay stuck in a loop reliving
the worst experience of our lives and that's no way to live
instead of moving forward. And sometimes it's not even
about the event itself, it's about the story we tell
ourselves after. I'm a terrible person, I ruin

(02:53):
everything. These are not truths guys.
The trauma speaking. You're hurt.
Now let me let me be clear. Forgiving yourself doesn't mean
pretending it didn't happen. It doesn't mean racing the past
or excusing your actions. It means I did wrong.
And I choose to learn. I choose to grow.
I choose not to live in a prisonof my own making.

(03:13):
Forgiveness is not forgetting. It's remembering and letting go
of the knife that you've been holding on against your own
throat. How do you really start
forgiving yourself? Step one, name it, speak it,
don't run from it. Step 2, make amends.
If you can say the words, show the change.
Step three, talk to yourself like you're someone you love.

(03:35):
Practice compassion, even if it feels fake at first.
Step 4, Give it time. Healing isn't linear, it's
messy, but every day you choose to be kind to yourself.
That makes it a small act of rebellion against shame.
There's so many mistakes that I wish I could have just gone back
in the past and changed the way things have gone, but you know
what? This is it.
This is how my life it's going. This is what's done in the past.

(03:57):
I can't go back. There's no time machine.
Things happened in the past. What you got over it and you are
trying your best and that's OK. You can't hold on to the things
that happened. You are not your past.
You are now. You're here now with me watching
this. You're wanting to get better and
you will be better and that's going to take some work.
It's it won't be an overnight thing.

(04:19):
There are going to be things in life out of your control, but
you must keep moving forward. If you believe people can
change, that they deserve redemption, growth, second
chances, then that has to include you too.
Forgiveness just isn't about thepast.
It's about making space for the future where you can show up
better. And there's this quote by Steve

(04:39):
Marboli. The truth is, unless you let go,
unless you forgive yourself, unless you forgive the
situation, unless you realize that the situation is over, you
cannot move forward. You will always be stuck in the
past unless you give yourself some grace, unless you take the
time to forgive yourself and move on forward.
Because if you're constantly lingering on the past, nothing

(05:01):
will get done. You're just destroying yourself.
You can do this. You're not your worst day.
You're not your lowest moment. You're still here, still trying,
still worthy. So I ask again, if your friend
deserved another chance, why don't you?