loving yourself when you’re not proud of past choices
We’ve all made mistakes. I know I’ve made plenty I’m not proud of.
They’re embarrassing, and I cringe when I think of all the faults and mess-ups I’ve made in the past. But they are in the past, and I know that I need to let them go. It’s just hard.
It’s easier to ignore them or push them to the side, when you start to think about them. What’s not as easy is embracing them and loving yourself through them.
And what I want for you is to love yourself despite all the mistakes you’ve made in the past.
I’m a firm believer that everything in life is a lesson (including mistakes.) So allow them to be a part of your self love journey.
forgive yourself for past choices
To be able to love yourself despite everything you’ve gone through, I need you to forgive yourself for past choices and mistakes.
Forgiveness is important because it’s not healthy to walk around with the guilt or self-hatred for things that happened in the past.
Verywell Mind says forgiveness means “you accept the behavior, you accept what has happened, and you are willing to move past it and move on with your life without ruminating over past events that cannot be changed.”
They list four key actions that can be helpful when taking a therapeutic approach to self-forgiveness:
responsibility, remorse, restoration and renewal
The organization also says that you should be aware of your emotions and label them when you feel a type of way about your past mistakes.
“Becoming aware of the emotions you are experiencing is an important part of learning to forgive yourself. Research has found that identifying and labeling your emotion can help reduce the intensity of your feelings. This can help you better regulate emotions, including those linked to feelings of guilt and shame,” according to Verywell Mind.
Let’s let go of some of the shame you feel about your past mistakes.
That’s the first step to releasing guilt and forgiving yourself, so that you are able to love yourself even when you’re not proud of your past choices.
embrace your past self
Once we get to a point where we forgive our past, it’s time to take it a step further and actually embrace it.
Your past is a part of you, and a part of self love is embracing and loving every single part of you.
And yes, I mean the messy, embarrassing, wish-you-could-ignore parts of yourself too.
According to Psychology Today, an aspect that keeps people from making peace with your past self and previous choices you’ve made is the shame you feel for that version of yourself — whether you feel you were flawed, not worthy of love, etc.
Though those qualities of yourself make you human.
“When you embrace your humanity, you accept that you don’t always act in admirable ways, particularly when you are young and are driven more by your unconscious urges than conscious choices,” they say.
So embrace that your past choices make you human, and it’s a good thing to have humanity in this world.
trust you’ve outgrown your past
You are not your past self. The next level is realizing that you’ve grown from the person you once were. You made mistakes in the past, but we all have.
Growth is a necessary part of self love and healing. I’m proud of how much you’ve grown recently, and you should be too.
Love who you are now, but also love the growth and resilience you’ve shown yourself.
Your growth is a part of your self love journey, and making those past choices you’re not proud of were crucial in shaping the person you are today.
