by Tracey Burchard

Created on: November 28, 2008

Self Forgiveness the Key to Healing

We've been taught from a young age to forgive others. But no one ever guides us through the wisdom and healing that self forgiveness can bring.
This article stresses the importance of self forgiveness for health, success and spiritual growth.

"Tell your sister you forgive her, go on" my parents would say to me. And with much resistance, I would comply.

"Fine, I forgive you."

This is a typical story about how we learn to forgive. In our society, forgiveness is just words, words meant to smooth the surface of a well of emotions so that life can go on without confronting real issues and feelings.
It gives us an avenue to hide those unacceptable thoughts that are brewing in our minds. And it teaches us several things:

Anger is wrong.

You are not supposed to talk about how you feel.

You must hide your emotions.

You are expected to lie about your feelings.

Forgiveness doesn't mean anything.

Most of us grew up really believing that forgiveness is just a word, that you say it just to get along and avoid confrontation. Even though we forgive people on the surface, we hold anger, resentment and hurt on the inside, and we replay old events like videotapes in our minds.

Forgiving others is one thing, and is covered in our next article "The Healing Power of Forgiveness."
Forgiving yourself is quite another, and many times more difficult than forgiving others.

Forgiveness of self goes against many beliefs that you may have picked up as a child. Some of these may be:

Serve others before serving yourself.

Putting yourself first is selfish and egotistical.

I'm a bad boy/bad girl.

I'm a burden.

Forgiving means giving up.

Take a moment and clear your head. On a scale of 1 10, ten being high, how much do you love yourself? How much do you deserve to be loved? Most people will rate themselves as less than a 10 on both counts. Imagine, as you walk down the street, most of the people that you run into don't love themselves.

Is that the way you want to live your life? Punishing yourself? Not liking who you are, or feeling that you don't deserve? Many people develop health issues because of hidden feelings of self punishment and feeling like they don't deserve. The subconscious mind holds and protects your belief system. Your beliefs create your thoughts, your thoughts create your feelings and your feelings create your responses.

If you believe that you are bad and must be punished, your subconscious mind will create the situations for that to manifest. Maybe you will

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