How do I release the past mistakes I made and stop blaming myself?
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To err is to human. We make mistakes. But living in the past and feeling guilty about the mistakes you made is not a solution. Learn from it and stay determined that you won't repeat them. Do not blame yourself or feel guilty. You made them in the past, you're in "present" moment now, moving towards the future. So get over it. You've come a long way and you've a long way to go. You don't need to carry such heavy feelings in your heart. You can't go back and correct it. But you can work on having a better future where you don't repeat those mistakes.
Stay happy :)
The thing is, you can't go back and change what happened. Those actions shape who you are at this second, and the actions you take this second shape you you will be in the future. Stop, take a breathe, and feel the 'now'.
Sometimes you can't stop blaming yourself. I had to accept that about myself. That no matter how many good things I do, I will sometimes keep going back to my mistake and blaming myself for it. I learned to live with it. I can still be happy. I do as much good as I can to correct my mistakes. Sometimes you can't make direct amends to the person you hurt - reasons might be different. But I believe that it's not important, as long as you do good. I think good is universal, and even if you do something good for someone else, unconditionally, it will help you feel better, and will compensate to the harm you have done to others. Love you, wish you well.
Simple. Forgive yourself first. Learn from your mistakes and try not to repeat them again. It's the only way to know that you've learned from your mistakes and the only way to redeem yourself. People make mistakes. You do it, I do it, and so does everyone else. It's what makes us human. No one is perfect and no one will ever be. We're not robots to be perfect at every single thing that we do. We're human beings and no matter how much of a cliché it really is, we will continue to make mistakes. Our goal is to just minimize them :)!
You release past mistakes by truly forgiving yourself. Realize that we are all imperfect. We all say and do things that we may later regret but that is just part of life. Live for today. Live in the present and release the grudges you are holding onto about yourself. You forgive others who hurt you so why aren't you forgiving yourself? You are so worthy. The past does not define the amazing person you are today. If anything, it is because of how or what you did in the past that help contributed to how you are today. Forgive and let go. You got this!
Anonymous
February 26th, 2017 3:41pm
Everyone makes mistakes, isn't it? How would life be if we never made a mistake and everything was just too perfect. And its not like its all bad. Have you given a thought to what you have learned from your paste mistakes. There's always something to learn from it however bad you might think the situation is. You have grown as a person because of these mistakes. Now its up to you how it affects you whether you sit there (and just overthink about it all over and over again) or move forward and try to make yourself a much better person. Explore yourself, try and find what makes you happy, what you like and how you can spread a little cheer in everyone's life around you. Life is a lot easier to live when you try and be helpful to everyone or at least someone and let them grow, and theres no way better to do this than trying and be a little understanding to yourself first!
You are a better person and deep within you know this. Good luck with a new chapter in your life!
Anonymous
March 1st, 2017 10:23pm
Think of yourself as you would a good friend. Imagine someone you know is a good person who you care about came to you and confessed their mistakes. You would probably not tell them the mistakes were okay, but you would accept them, recognize they had moved on, and continue to love that person and think well of them. Nobody's perfect, so if you would forgive your friend in that kind of situation, maybe you can forgive yourself, too.
guilt, shame and past mistakes have all taken a HUGE part in our lives and they continue to scar many people; with that being said all our mistakes are in the past they're done you can't change them you can't go back now, we all wish we could but we can't. what we can change is our future. stop thinking about what you can't change think about what you can do TODAY not tomorrow or yesterday but today, think bout how you can give back to someone, how you can fix a problem or burden in your life, think about how you can help someone today, how you can give yourself some self love!
As cliche as it may sound, you cannot change what happened in the past. What you can change is how you choose to respond to it now (in the future).
Often times we blame ourselves for something because we feel like we made the wrong choice. Keep in mind that every choice we make, especially first time ones, is a learned experience. Things may not turn out exactly as we hoped, or like we planned. Learn from that experience, and when the situation arises again you will be more prepared for it.
You did the best thing you could at the time, and looking back at it you may see things different now because you have more experience. But at that point in time, you didn't. We are always growing and always changing, which is a benefit of being human! We learn new skills and learn from our mistakes, and that is the best thing to do when you feel like you've made a mistake. Learn something from the situation and think about what you would do differently next time, not what would should have done different last time.
Forgiveness is hard. Many people don't think about how you can forgive yourself. Something you can try is REACH.
R Recall the hurt through imagination
E Empathize with, sympathize with, feel compassion for, and/or love the one who hurt you (including yourself)
A Give an altruistic gift of forgiveness
C Commit to the forgiveness you experienced
H Hold on to forgiveness when you doubt
When you make mistakes it is often easy to beat yourself up about them, but it is always extremely hard to forgive yourself. Self-kindness is often condemned because many may think it is selfish. It isn't selfish at all. Taking care of yourself allows you to take care of others.
Anonymous
May 22nd, 2017 5:42am
Think about whether what you did is really worth the worrying you're doing about it. Is anybody else hurt by your mistakes? Are they likely to remember it? Were other factors involved? Was it entirely your fault? Thinking objectively can help relieve the constant guilt.
Anonymous - Expert in Forgiveness
October 16th, 2017 2:31am
You are only human, mistakes happens so that we can learn from them and be better. No use blaming urself on things that you can't change it will get you no where. Take time to realize what happened is inevitable and all u can do is learn from it and move forward to make sure you do better the next time.
Realize that you cannot change those past mistakes. Try to forgive yourself. Recognize that mistakes are unavoidable, but promise yourself to learn from them and transform the negative past experiences into positive future ones.
We can't make the past undone but we can prevent the same mistake from happening again. Also, things like apologizing are almost always possible!
This is a really tricky thing to do, and it is definitely something that a lot of people can struggle with. One way of releasing our past mistakes could be to accept that we made them and that they happened, and to try and learn from these mistakes and grow as a person. Another way could be to write down how you feel about them and then burning the paper/putting the document into the recycling bin. There are a few ways we can use to stop blaming ourselves too - we could talk about how we feel, review our actions and acknowledge they were perhaps incorrect, and to remember that we made those mistakes in the past and hopefully we will not make them again.
Anonymous
October 13th, 2020 3:51pm
I find it hard to let go of mistakes I made in the past. It's hard to look back and not see mistakes, but with practice you may be able to see them as lessons learned.
Most of the time, we blame ourselves for things outside our control because having no one to blame means there's nothing we could have done to stop it.
Firstly, it's good to look over the mistake we made and see if it's really something we did, or something we blame ourselves for. For example "Dropped a plate of food" is an accident, not a mistake. "Had a car accident at a red light where I was stopped" again is not your fault.
It's a hard skill to learn, but with practice just knowing what mistakes where ours and weren't can help you reduce and even remove blame from yourself.
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