Self-Forgiveness
Hi,
This week’s email is about how to engage in self-forgiveness in a way that benefits you.
The information here comes from a research article on the topic.
Here are the key practical points you should know:
Forgiving yourself for past mistakes can reduce negative feelings that you have, like guilt and shame.
Self-forgiveness can also help you stop engaging in problematic behaviors, by encouraging you to accept responsibility for your actions, while also reducing issues that get in the way of moving forward, like rumination and self-loathing.
Pseudo-self-forgiveness happens when someone forgives themselves without taking the necessary responsibility for their action, by blaming their wrongdoing on an external source, which causes them to repeat their problematic behavior.
To use self-forgiveness properly, make sure to take full responsibility for your actions where appropriate, without taking responsibility for things that aren’t your fault.
You should also make sure to acknowledge any harm caused by your mistakes, and remember that your goal is to avoid making these mistakes again, rather than just moving on with no consequences.
Also, an update: I just moved the newsletter to Substack, so you’ll receive my emails from effectiviology@substack.com from now on. To make sure you don’t miss the emails, move them to your main inbox (if they’re in Spam/Promotions), add this address to your contacts, and/or respond to this email with a quick message (this will show your email provider that this address is safe).
Also, please be on the lookout for next week’s email, which should be sent out at the regular time on Tuesday. Thank you!
As always, I'm happy to hear your thoughts and questions.
Have a great week,
Itamar