“Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.”—The Lord’s Prayer
One of the biggest obstacles to experiencing ourselves as the loving person we are is our inability to forgive ourselves. We feel guilt and shame for mistakes we’ve made. We beat ourselves up for situations we handled less skillfully than we might have wished. We incriminate ourselves for the people we’ve hurt—whether accidentally, unconsciously, or intentionally. To fully love yourself and unleash your courageous heart, you must be able to forgive yourself.
We also struggle with forgiving others. Perhaps you’ve been betrayed. Maybe someone hurt you, stole from you, lied to you, or was unfaithful to you. It may feel hard to forgive in such a situation. However, not forgiving will rob you of your energy and keep you stuck in the past. You won’t feel good or hopeful about life.
Not everything we approach openheartedly is going to work out as we expect.
Not everyone we open our heart to is going to treat us as we wish.
Most of us will experience disappointment in love, and likely we’ll disappoint others.
However, if we can trust that everything we go through is an opportunity to learn—an opportunity to know ourselves as the loving person we are, and hence to be compassionate to others, forgiving their mistakes and accepting their decisions as we would want them to do with us—then our load will be lighter and our path will be easier to walk.