(Nimue)
Without forgiveness there's no way to effectively move on with a situation. Sometimes that's a very good idea – if someone has seriously hurt or harmed you, forgiveness probably isn't the right response. Getting away from them can be a far better choice. However, when it comes to genuine mistakes, not letting them go causes its own problems.
If the focus remains on the mistake, that can leave no room for something restorative. Fixing things usually calls for second chances and the opportunity to do better. To do that, we have to recognise our own scope to learn and improve – which is a far better thing to focus on. Getting stuck in the mistake and feelings caused by a mistake can make a whole situation unnecessarily toxic.
The person who beats themselves up and makes the focus how terrible they've been can shut down criticism. It's hard raising an issue with someone who is likely to do massive self-flagellation over it, in my experience. The person expressing a problem can start to feel like a bully if the person called out howls and screams in response. It's an effective abuse strategy. Making the discomfort of being called out over something more important than whatever was wrong in the first place isn't healthy.
Forgiveness and restorative action have to go together. That's equally true when we're dealing with ourselves. A mistake should feel forgivable when we're trying to deal with it effectively. This is how we avoid being the person who has a meltdown over being told they are wrong. Focus on solutions, on fixing and restoring and you can be confident that you just made a mistake and it' no big deal. That's entirely forgivable. If you go the other way, doubling down on the mistake and pretending it's fine, you're on the path to being someone who deliberately causes harm in order to protect their own ego. That's not something to willingly do to yourself.
Forgiving yourself can be hard if you've not been shown forgiveness. Being blamed unfairly can make it difficult to work out how not to carry blame and guilt forward. However, these are heavy things to carry. It is better to focus on learning and improving, than on guilt and shame. If you learn and do better, you are worthy of forgiveness regardless of how anyone else in the situation relates to you.
If someone has called you out on something, the odds are they just want it sorted out. They want restorative action and may well be able to tell you what that would require. If a situation cannot be fixed, it can always be learned from. That means not repeating it. If you seek forgiveness on the promise that you will do better next time, you have to follow through on that. People who refuse to change and repeatedly make the same 'mistake' are questionable as to how unintended their 'mistake' is.
If you are called out over something you were not responsible for, or have no means to fix then the call out itself is the problem. Blaming and scapegoating are difficult things to be on the receiving end of, and not internalising that experience is hard.
When we forgive ourselves, that can help shift the focus away from what went wrong and towards how we move forward. We all make mistakes, and those are vital for being able to learn and grow. Seeking perfection can just be a form of paralysis. Forgiving yourself so as to avoid having to even look at your mistakes is a bad choice, and one that harms the person doing it.
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