Self-forgiveness is a painful thing to learn, and a painful thing to live. It is so much easier to forgive others, than to forgive oneself. At least, that’s the way it is for me. (That old perfectionism again!). Like most women, I remember what I did wrong ten years ago, as if it dooms me to forever repeating the mistake… and like most women, I allow it to create a “negative monologue” in me. I’m yet to meet a man (although I’m sure there are, out there) who keeps rehearsing for failure by reminding himself how he messed up that thing fifteen years ago, on 29th February (lol), at 1649… And how humiliating it was, and “if only I had done it like this, I would have done better”…. Fact is, of course, we live according to our present level of knowledge, and gosh there’s no going back to fix all we did wrong. I know and accept that; the trick is then to let go of my feeling of failure, and the consequences of that long-ago action, so that I don’t have to live in that rut forever. And that involves self-forgiveness, a virtue we don’t always learn as children. It’s ok to mess up, you know; no one is perfect. We ALL make mistakes; we must get up, learn, and move on, LETTING GO OF SELF-CRITICISM as we do. Otherwise life becomes a bitter journey indeed.

(And a special reason to let go of self-criticism? The more harshly we judge ourselves, the more we become critical of and hurtful to those around us- including those we supposedly love. Oh, and life’s too short for that nonsense anyhow).