Self-forgiveness can be one of the hardest but most important things we learn in the recovery process. We don’t feel deserving of forgiveness, and we replay memories of our mistakes and regrets constantly as evidence of our unworthiness. It’s almost as if we want to keep reminding and convincing ourselves that we’re bad people. Our addictions are destructive and debilitating, and we don’t make it through them unscathed. We develop toxic behavioral patterns. We abuse ourselves and others. We have draining and unhealthy relationships.
All of these things contribute to the cycles of addiction, where we make mistakes, feel ashamed about them, then seek to relieve some of our pain by escaping into our addictions. Our shame helps fuel these cycles, but when we can forgive ourselves, we’re more likely to stop repeating the same patterns and making the same mistakes. We’re more likely to make better choices for ourselves. We prioritize our inner peace and happiness, and we can work towards the, because we’ve forgiven ourselves enough to know that we deserve them.
Being unable to forgive ourselves can play a huge role in our inability to recover. We hold ourselves back from all of the healing progress we could be making. We block ourselves from receiving the support we need, in the form of people and resources that can help us get better. When we’re consumed with feeling ashamed of ourselves, we’re more focused on the past than on creating a better future for ourselves. We keep ourselves stuck in our shame, in our regret, in mourning the past.
We can only recover when we believe we can. If we don’t believe we deserve forgiveness, we usually also believe that we don’t deserve to be happy or well. We’re always pushing away our happiness and our chance for recovery. We’re consumed with beating ourselves up, and this totally depletes us of our emotional energy, the energy we need to work on our recovery.
Depriving ourselves of our own forgiveness keeps us down and makes us limit ourselves. We allow ourselves only as much as we deserve, and we get only so far as we feel we deserve to. We deny ourselves our compassion, and we deprive ourselves of our love. When we don’t forgive ourselves, often we’re so mired in shame and self-deprecation that we lose our hope and optimism. We keep ourselves from being able to heal, because we’ve lost faith in ourselves.
We believe you deserve love, forgiveness and happiness. We believe in your recovery. Our commitment is to helping you get there. Call 888-570-7154 for information on our treatment programs.
