Yesterday I did something really stupid – again. It’s a mistake I’ve made many times before, and each time I make it I beat myself up about it. Today, I woke up and realized I needed a healthy dose of self-forgiveness (along with some better choices in the future), so I decided to find some quotes on self-forgiveness, because I really, really needed to read them. They helped! If you are in the same boat as me and need a healthy dose of self-forgiveness, then here are 10 quotes that may help you forgive yourself.
1. What Do You Need To Forgive Yourself For?
Forgive yourself for not knowing better at the time. Forgive yourself for giving away your power. Forgive yourself for past behaviors. Forgive yourself for the survival patterns and traits you picked up while enduring trauma. Forgive yourself for being who you needed to be. – Audrey Kitching
Anything that you are holding onto or beating yourself up over needs to be forgiven. Whether you are holding onto something that wasn’t that bad or something that was really bad, it doesn’t matter. You don’t need to live in the past anymore. It’s not doing you or anyone else any good. It’s time to accept what you did, forgive yourself, and move forward.
2. Learning Self-Forgiveness Is A Must!
There are only 2 two ways to have a peaceful conscience: Never do anything wrong or learn self-forgiveness (Pro tip: first way’s impossible) – Elizabeth Gilbert
Elizabeth Gilbert is so full of life-learned wisdom, and this bit of advice is ringing so true to me right now! I’m human. I’m not perfect. I’m going to do things wrong and make bad choices.
Of course, that’s not an excuse to go out and make bad choice after bad choice. I want to learn from my mistakes and not repeat them. But, some lessons are harder to learn than others. So, I need to practice self-forgiveness, go forward with the conviction that I won’t make the same mistake twice, and then do everything in my power to make sure I don’t!
3. I Don’t Want To Look Back With Regret
I regret spending years of my life regretting things! Self-forgiveness is loving yourself. – Sinitta
I’m 5 months away from the age of 40. It seems that I’ve hit a point in life where I do more reflecting on things.
For instance, I worry that I won’t do enough with the rest of my life. I really don’t want it to go by as fast as it did for the first 40 years. And, I don’t want to waste a moment of my time beating myself up over something that is so meaningless in the grand scheme of things.
As Sinitta said, I regret spending so much time regretting things! That’s why self-forgiveness is so important. I don’t want to waste any more time on things like regret and look back 40 years from now feeling the same way I do now.
In short, I need to forgive myself so that I don’t live with that feeling of regret for a moment longer. I want my life to be full of satisfaction, peace, and happiness.
4. Meditation Tip For Practicing Self-Forgiveness
Try practicing self-forgiveness with Loving Kindness Meditation (or Metta), which increases positive emotions and happiness! – Rebecca Scritchfield
I’ve written a lot about happiness, and I have never heard of the Loving Kindness Meditation until I was looking for quotes on forgiveness. I’m so glad I found this concept.
The Loving Kindness Meditation is all about directing good wishes towards yourself and other people. I found that this meditation just puts you in a better frame of mind – one of compassion, including self-compassion and acceptance. I came out of it feeling really good about myself, other people, and the world around me. Try it out for yourself!
5. Create A Better Life Through Self-Forgiveness
The only true way to create a more loving, productive, and fulfilling life is by forgiving the past. – Iyanla Vanzant
As we already talked about, not practicing self-forgiveness will get us stuck in a state of regret that we will eventually regret! But the fact is that if we want a more productive and fulfilling life, we need to forgive and move on from the past. Otherwise, we are just hanging on to those things that are no longer relevant and letting them influence our life by reducing productivity, reducing a loving existence, and reducing fulfillment.
I don’t know about you, but I want my life to be fulfilling and have a purpose. I want to use my moments to create a better life and more happiness and more love. This will be a great self-forgiveness quote to remember the next time I feel a tinge of regret coming on.
6. Give Up Hope That It Could Have Been Any Different
“Forgiving is giving up the hope that it couldn’t have been any other way than it actually was.” – Oprah Winfrey
Oprah says that understanding this simple fact helped her to be a better person. And I can see how.
I think if we can all buy into the belief that we are not forgiving ourselves to say that it was alright, but, instead, we are forgiving to say that it couldn’t have been any other way, then we can stop holding onto the self-anger that we ‘should’ have done things differently.
7. You Did What You Felt Like You Had To Do
Forgive yourself for the things that you had to do while you were in survival mode. – Michell Clark
I can really resonate with this forgive yourself quote. I’m sure many other people can too.
Sometimes we do things in the heat of the moment that we feel like we need to do, but then we later realize that it wasn’t a nice, good, or even decent thing to do.
Things like stealing someone else’s job through shady means because we need the money. Or, stealing someone else’s money because we needed the money.
When things get desperate, our minds don’t always think straight, and we can become willing to ‘go there’ and do things that we wouldn’t otherwise do.
Forgive yourself for doing what you did when you were in survival mode. Then next time when you find yourself in survival mode again, think back to the pain you carried last time for doing something that you regretted and let that guide you in your decisions moving forward.
8. Forgive Yourself First For Repetitive Mistakes Then Take Corrective Action
If you keep repeating the same mistake; stop, face the issue, forgive yourself, and take corrective action. – Olufemi Awoyemi
One of the best ways to forgive yourself is to start taking corrective action. As you do, you will feel better and better about yourself.
I talked about going through this in the beginning of the article. I made a stupid mistake with my finances, again. It’s something I’ve done many times over the years. This last time, instead of beating myself up for it for months, I forgave myself, and then I decided that I wanted to stop making the mistake instead of beating myself up.
I focused on how I could stop making the mistake, new good habits that I could put into place, and new affirmations I could say to help me behave differently so that the mistake isn’t something I ever can make again.
9. Stop Being Hardest On Yourself
We forgive others, yet we rarely forgive ourselves. It is time to forgive yourself. – Dan Curtis
We tend to forgive others for all kinds of things, sometimes worse things than what we are unwilling to forgive ourselves for.
The lesson in this is that we are hardest on ourselves, but we don’t need to be. If we can forgive others, then we can forgive ourselves.
We need to step away from what we did and see ourselves as someone who makes mistakes and learns from them, just as we view other people.
One of the best things I’ve ever heard to help me forgive myself and others is that we all do the best we can with the knowledge, beliefs, and habits that we have. We literally cannot do any better because we are doing what feels right to us at the time (even if we know it’s not right deep down). This is why it’s so important to take corrective action and develop new awareness, beliefs, and habits that help us avoid making the same mistake again.
10. You Are Getting Better With Each Passing Moment
Love and forgive yourself. You are getting better at every passing moment. – Tobi Rachel
This is a great quote that helps you see why you should forgive yourself.
You are getting better as you learn, grow, and expand your awareness. Therefore, allow yourself to forgive yourself knowing that you are getting better with each passing moment. You don’t need to beat yourself up for what you did because you are no longer the person you were before. The new you doesn’t deserve any of the blame.
