Most of the time, the hardest person to forgive is yourself.
What you’ve done in the past doesn’t matter, but it does.
What happened in the past shapes who you are, but doesn’t define you. It is your story, but not your identity. Your story, like your identity, is unique to yourself, but the two are not the same thing. Your story is a result of your interactions with your circumstances, your identity is the person that experienced those experiences.
Maybe you took a bad misstep, maybe you messed up everything. But it’s hard to forgive yourself when you confuse your story with your identity. Because when you assume that your story is your identity, you allow the past to take control of your future.
But being a growing human being means that you are willing to forgive yourself. Acknowledge that you messed up. Be real. Communicate what has changed as a result, and push on harder than you ever have before.
Don’t be afraid of forgiving yourself.
