Every now and then I stumble across a web site with a bunch of quotes on a topic that I feel is important to write about in my blog. Today is such a case. I was looking for a quote to use on self-forgiveness and happened upon a site that had the quotes that I’ve used below. I’ve tried to arrange them is an order that makes sense as a progression of thoughts about self-forgiveness. The first three sort of set up the problem that self-forgiveness allows us resolve.
Lack of forgiveness causes almost all of our self-sabotaging behavior. – Mark Victor Hansen
You don’t want to beat yourself up for beating yourself up in the vain hope that it will somehow make you stop beating yourself up. – Kristin Neff, Ph.D.
You’ve been criticizing yourself for years and it hasn’t worked. Try approving of yourself and see what happens. – Louise L. Hay
Self-forgiveness is really part of a healing process that help us recover from mistakes or failures in or lives. Forgiveness usually starts with recognition of the problem, admitting that it happened, instead of continuing the denial process. Once we accept that something happened or that we made a mistake, we can begin the healing process.
In order to heal, we must first forgive … and sometimes the person we must forgive is ourselves. – Mila Bron
It’s not about worthiness, it’s about willingness. – R. Alan Woods
It helps to start the process of forgiving ourselves to think about the fact that God forgives us. After all there is no greater authority than God.
I think that if God forgives us we must forgive ourselves. Otherwise, it is almost like setting up ourselves as a higher tribunal than him. – C. S. Lewis
Once we get into it, we can have compassion for ourselves and move on into forgiveness and love for ourselves. It is only when you can love yourself that you can love others.
Having compassion starts and ends with having compassion for all those unwanted parts of ourselves. – Pema Chodron
Forgive yourself. The supreme act of forgiveness is when you can forgive yourself for all the wounds you’ve created in your own life. Forgiveness is an act of self-love. When you forgive yourself, self-acceptance begins and self-love grows. — Miguel Ángel Ruiz Macías
So, stop looking for someone else to give you love until you first give yourself love.
You can search throughout the entire universe for someone who is more deserving of your love and affection than you are yourself, and that person is not to be found anywhere. You, yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection. – Buddha
The Aretha Franklin film RESPECT opens this week in theaters. To have the respect of others you must first respect yourself. I think a big part of respecting yourself is forgiving yourself and loving yourself. Forgive yourself and earn that respect.
NormsMilfordBlog 
[…] cry, to give in for the moment to the emotion. It is also critical to forgive yourself (see my post https://normsmilfordblog.com/2021/08/12/forgive-yourself/) if you think the mistake was yours. Then, it is just as important to turn the moment into a […]