Category: Happiness

Despite how critical it is to our healing, often we are not taught to forgive ourselves. 

We are told, however, the value of “forgive and forget” and the importance of forgiving others.  It’s impressed upon us the weight that carrying those heavy emotions will take its toll, and we must let them go in order to move forward. So why does it feel so unnatural to turn that same forgiveness inward?  

It’s important to forgive, but your forgiveness shouldn’t always be reserved for others. There’s a second half to it, one too often hanging in unspoken air, lingering like an incomplete breath. Your forgiveness, kindness and understanding is also for you.  

When you’re subject to a scenario in which someone or something else has caused you harm, navigating the responsibility you may feel for your role in the conflict and granting self-forgiveness can feel tricky or overwhelming. But when you are the one in need of forgiveness, where do you begin? 

What does it mean to forgive yourself?

As forgiveness research has developed, the subfield of self-forgiveness has taken on its own definitions and space. Self-forgiveness is defined as a “restoration of self respect” (Hall & Fincham, 2005) but it’s not a single step. Forgiving yourself happens in distinct stages: 

1. Uncovering. Recognizing a shortcoming may include a strong series of emotional reactions like guilt, anger, denial, blame or shame. Acknowledging a problem is the first step in solving it, and that’s what happens in this first stage.
2. Decision. When you decide to move past those negative emotions, you’ve reached the stage that allows space for changing your behavior, action or approach. This stage is the turning point in the process of forgiveness.
3. Work. Actively applying the tools you recognize and gather in the decision-making stage may manifest in many forms, but all of them will involve putting in the work of having compassion for yourself. Creating acceptance and fostering support is critical in success in the work stage of forgiving yourself. 
4. Outcome. At this final stage, you see the fruits of your labor. You have moved through the hard processes of self-forgiveness and can apply them to a new outlook and the journey that follows whatever harm you needed to forgive. 

These stages occur in a distinctly phased pattern that requires you to move through a curve of emotions, realization and effort before you can truly reach the enlightened spaces of forgiveness. 

How do I do that? 

In order to navigate these stages, there are a few critical truths that will help prepare you for navigating the hard, important work you must do. Realizing that this work isn’t optional, and that you have been denying yourself the power of your own forgiveness, is a powerful mantra with which to begin. Try repeating, from the very first moment of this journey, something that helps you to feel both accountable and worthy of your time and attention. 

Use Mantras

A mantra, like, “I am flawed and still valuable” or “I can be accountable and compassionate to myself” may remind you of the duality you must impress into the experience of forgiving yourself for the pain you’ve caused in your world. In recovery, feelings of self-worth can be hard to come by, while blame is an old friend. Reject that binary and instead insist that worth be clipped to the heels of blame. In order to feel self-blame, you must also feel self-worth. You are worthy of being forgiven. You are worthy of boundaries. You are worthy of accountability. 

Those things may hurt in the gravity of applying them. Accepting accountability and enforcing boundaries feels like punishment, but in reality, it’s a reminder that you deserve to heal through the pain you’ve caused with compassion- even if you caused it to yourself. 

Exhale empathy, but not compassion

To forgive yourself, you will need to remove your extreme empathy for your actions, as it may lead to defensiveness. While it may seem counterintuitive, not allowing yourself to lean too heavily into empathy for the way you’ve harmed yourself will allow you to create more helpful boundaries around the ways you move forward. While it’s true that you were once operating the best way you knew how, you now know better, and you should expect more from yourself moving forward. 

Let go of that empathy so that it cannot become a defense dressed up in fancy clothes. Choose accountability and compassion instead. Show yourself that you deserve softness, even amid a hard experience. Acknowledge the wrong you’ve done without trying to justify it and make a clear plan for the ways you can do things more gently in the future.

Apologize to yourself 

And mean it. A genuine apology without an excuse or explanation (even if you know them) can go so far in soothing the pain you cause yourself no matter the magnitude of the hurt. 

Forgiving yourself is a journey, but if you wish to move forward in your life, it isn’t an optional one. Both shaming yourself and avoiding accountability are power-players for your addiction, and moving forward with recovery will flourish under the compassionate guide of healing. Your self-forgiveness is a powerful tool you are worthy and capable of wielding to keep recovery moving forward. As you move through the stages of recognizing hurts and responding in new ways, let us support you.

Happiness isn’t something you can manufacture through a series of accomplishments, a milestone you can check off a prefabricated list or a commodity you can buy in any form.   You don’t easily stumble across something so precious.

A quick web search will turn up hundreds of results on “how to be happy” or “being a happy person”, but no internet search is going to help you find what you’re looking for. Can I tell you a secret? This article won’t either. You can be happy though. You will be, you deserve to be, and we will be right here as you navigate your path through recovery toward learning to be happy with yourself.

We don’t need to be happy to be loved 

There is a very real and pervasive theme in our society that there is an order to the way things must be achieved in order for them to be sustainable or acknowledged as deserving. One of the most damaging ideas to come from that theme is the one that tells us we must love ourselves fully in order to be loved. 

This is a lie. 

You do not need to be anything but yourself to be loved. If you are already happy, that’s amazing. Let that love enrich your happiness.

If you are still seeking improvement for yourself, there is nothing you need before you are worthy of feeling loved and supported by those around you. Some of us thrive most fully with a supportive hand (or a few) at our backs, reminding us that we are worthy of being loved and showing us how to love ourselves the way that they do. 

Feeling loved is not something that must wait for happiness, no matter which version of it you are seeking for yourself. You deserve love now, you are worthy of support now. There is nothing you must do to earn those things. 

“I just want to be happy.” 

This simple phrase has so much gravity that merely speaking it can level us and pin us to the ground. We feel achieving it should be just as simple as saying it. We’ve identified what we want to be- happy- so why can’t we be it? 

Happiness is a single word with an array of meanings that shift and flutter through our world like prisms of light. Each iteration of happiness unfolds and expands around us, all fitting within the singular emotion but defined by its own distinct parameters. 

Are you sure it’s happiness you’re looking for? 

While they may be less euphoric or immediate in their impact, other emotional states like contentment, fulfillment and satisfaction may result in a longer term positive sense of self.

Fulfillment is a state of being, where happiness is an emotion. While you may experience a range of emotions (happy, sad, frustrated, elated), you experience an overall feeling of complete trust in your path and passion.  Contentment, on the other hand, is a perspective. It’s the way we process our experiences and responses to create acceptance and gratitude for the life we live. Each is a distinct measure of positive worth in our own favor, and sought after in its own right. 

Sustainable happiness

If you are looking for the kind of happy that often goes by these other names, you may want to utilize tools that have a different kind of impact. To develop a content and fulfilling relationship with yourself, try these: 

1. Start a journal. 

Spending authentic time with your unfiltered thoughts goes a long way in getting to know them intimately so you can process and identify your emotions as you experience them.

2. Examine your core values 

Do what you need to do to uphold or reinforce the things that you hold dear. Whether they are morals, ideals or priorities, make them unshakable.

3. Learn the art of a boundary.

Saying no or even start saying yes to the things that help you engage them more actively in your daily life.

4. Give support. 

Sharing energy you can spare without depleting yourself through spiritual connection, volunteering or financial support of the things that help you to feel worthwhile in your life, body, and the universal experience going on around you. 

We are sold the goal of happiness to reach some sort of personal enlightenment. In our digitally connected currency, happiness is the pinnacle of achievement we’re all striving for, and it’s what we’re sold in new phones, subscriptions, books and media. 

What if happiness isn’t what we’re looking for, but we’re craving something similar that feels more sustainable. As you walk the road of recovery, it doesn’t matter whether you need happiness right now or want to move toward fulfillment long term, we are here with you. 

“Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me.”

Despite age-old idioms, the voices around us have a way of sticking to our bones. What people say, the way they say it and how we feel when they do can build up or chip away at our confidence. When people we love say positive things about us, we glow—we want to be positive too. If they say negative things, we dim ourselves and the negative voices seem to stay with us longer. We can be 50 years old and still hear the judging voice of our mother, or the echoes of self-doubt left by a relationship from 20 years ago. 

Over time, these voices seem to imprint, and eventually, those negative words come from inside too. When it’s our own inner voice dimming our light, it affects more than our confidence. If your negative self-talk is dimming your heart and chipping your soul, keep reading for gentle guidance on how to overcome and glow. 

Confront the negative voice directly

When the only thoughts in our minds are negative or hurtful, it can feel challenging to find a stopping point. It’s easy to lose our way of balanced thinking, especially in recovery, when falling down that spiral of negativity that so easily consumes our hope. 

Instead of spending energy warring with the voice and allowing it to make us feel certain ways, take a moment to address the voice directly. 

Who are you? 

This question seems so simple, and it is. But how often have we stopped to question the authority of the voice trying to undercut your power, much less to ask its identity or purpose? 

• Who are you, we ask, to tell me these things? 
• Whose voice are you repeating from my past?
• Who are you to make me feel bad? 
• Who are you to threaten my peace? 
• Who are you, and what makes you think you have power over me? 

The power of negative self-talk often comes from the voices of the past we’ve internalized. It’s rooted inside of our ego, tailor-made using words designed to injure. When we confront our ego and challenge its power, we can make it falter. By asking who it is—whose voice it’s stuck repeating—we can make headway in loosening the grip of the words it feeds us. 

You can’t talk to my friend that way 

Take a moment and consider the negative thoughts that have taken root in your mind. Would you say those things to your closest friend? Honestly, would you tell them to someone you tolerate? Some of the things I think I wouldn’t even say to my worst enemy. So why am I getting away with saying them to myself? 

The next time you find yourself thinking or (even more vital) believing the negative self-talk that narrates your experiences, refuse to go along with it. When you speak up, tell those negative words that you can’t talk to my friend that way. It may feel uncomfortable, but you are a good friend to your loved ones. It is high time to start being a good friend to yourself. If the things you’re thinking aren’t things you’d let someone say to your friends, don’t let them fly in your own head either. 

Mini mantras

Find little phrases to help empower the light that those negative thoughts try to steal away. Using short, easy-to-recall phrases to reinforce your power is an internal tool that requires no additional support to use. Over time, those mantras can become reflexive, so if you don’t believe them at first, that’s okay. Don’t quit- keep repeating the things that you’ve found to let the light in. 

Try phrases like: 

• I am enough
• I am capable 
• I’m in control 

Reinforcing the positive traits that create the groundwork for believing in yourself is a fantastic way to undermine that negative self-talk now and begin to extinguish its recurrence as time goes on. 

Retrain your brain 

Speaking kindly to yourself may feel difficult and unnatural at first. Especially if you are used to being your own worst critic, making your way into spaces where you offer yourself support may feel foreign. It may even feel hopeless, but the effort to reprogram your thoughts can change not just your mind but legitimately rewire your brain. 

By speaking kindly to yourself, you can go further than just retraining your brain to think kind thoughts. You can actively shape your mind to bypass the impulse to offer criticism instead of support and create room for more love and confidence in the space your negative self-talk once took up. 

There is no single reason we develop habits that criticize our worth and capability. There is, however, one single truth at the root of dispelling their power: you are deserving of kind words and complete faith in your abilities. Whether you’re learning a new skill or working toward recovery, you are worthy of support, and we are here to help you find it inside your thoughts and out in the world. 

With lingering pandemic isolation clinging to our thoughts and social spheres, there are still wisps of shadows in our minds as well. The overwhelming stress of the past year has made burnout a pervasive theme of our lives. Both within ourselves and in connecting with others, negativity seems to be at an all-time high. When we are all so tapped out of our own accord, managing the shadowed hurt of others can feel like it’s just too much. If you’re feeling overwhelmed with the tone of the global mindset, let’s walk through some tools together on how to deal with negative people and remain positive and present yourself.

Resist the urge to fix

Negativity is not always a toxic trait. Sometimes, a person’s negativity stems from circumstance or stress. They may be in a place in their lives where their hopelessness helps to protect vulnerability they aren’t ready to reveal. It’s possible that negativity is a defense mechanism to insulate the self more than a destructive tool to damage others. While this doesn’t stop the defeating outcome on those around them, it can change the impact of the response from loved ones.

So despite what you observe or know, try to resist the urge to fix or alter their demeanor. Focusing on metering your response to their negativity is key in supporting both your continued positive security and the safety of their reality- no matter how skewed it feels to you.

Engage in ruthless confidence

You cannot force someone with a negative mindset to believe in themselves; this much is true. However, you can ensure that they don’t stop you from believing in yourself. Exhibiting ruthless confidence in not only your capability but your capacity to effect the change you seek will stop their doubting tendencies in their tracks.

Shutting down the pessimistic risk assessment of their opinion can be done calmly and without judgment. In fact, it should be. If someone doubts you, let them. But you can also let them know that you don’t doubt yourself. So what if they don’t believe in that dream you’ve got that’s driving you toward the success you crave? When you believe in yourself so ruthlessly that their warnings cannot take hold, there is no room for continued conversation in the vein of potential failure.

Be golden

The golden rule is widely lauded as an essential tenet of religion, but it has a place in philosophy and, in some spheres, psychology as well. Conceptually, treating people as you’d like them to treat you could act as a balm to their negative thought patterns no matter their origin. Choosing to rise above their negativity and remain positive (or at least realistic) may help to check their defeatist attitude and allow you to lift their assessment into more neutral ground. Let them be where they are if your golden attitude doesn’t influence theirs, but remember: who and where they choose to be does not have to change who you are. While it is not your responsibility to change their mindset, it is your duty to ensure their negativity doesn’t alter yours- and if it does, that it doesn’t linger.

Try radical acceptance

Dialectical Behavioral Therapy seeks to balance our rational and emotional minds so that they meet in the middle for a balanced approach to wisdom and awareness. This same balance can be an asset in communicating with someone who is chronically negative. While you can’t alter the tone of the thoughts in other people’s minds, you can reflect their expressed ideas back to them using language that may support a more balanced mindset. Rooted in tolerating distress more effectively and focusing on mindfulness and emotional regulation, DBT holds another vital key.

Radical acceptance, despite its name, does not seek to force acceptance of anything radical. This ruthlessly even-keeled theory aims to acknowledge the truth of something as it is in the moment. When someone says to you, “There’s just no way to improve my situation. I’ve done all I can do”, you can’t rewrite their reality. You can tell them, “So your situation feels stagnant, but you’ve made every effort you can see.” Replying to them in acknowledgment as you perceive their situation can help to validate their emotions without feeding their negativity or taking it on

When someone who is determined to believe in failure instead of themselves comes sniffing around your world, it doesn’t mean their negativity has to become yours. You are not obligated to offer solutions to their endless stream of complaints or determinism to fail. Whether dispelling the insidious anxiety of a pandemic or merely rejecting doubtful assessments of your own goals, a positive response to a negative thinker undermines their power without invalidating their opinion. While we can’t manage others’ thoughts, we can take only what we need and let our self-love do the rest.