I want to discuss a sensitive subject, which is forgiveness. Forgiveness of others and especially ourselves is crucial to living a happy life. I want to share an example from a client of mine I treated years ago.

A man came to see me because his teenage daughter had taken her own life, and he was the one that discovered her. He, of course, blamed himself. We did quite a bit of grief work together, including substantial EMDR, for which he received quite a bit of relief.

A significant part of his treatment involved correctly assigning responsibility for his daughter’s death from his shoulders to hers. At one point I asked him, “If you really wanted to kill yourself–if you were bound and determined to do it, could anyone stop you?” He replied no. I asked him to tell me about what things he had done to try to help his daughter to live. He listed thing after thing he and his wife had done. I then prompted him, “what else did you do?” Again he continued, naming places he had taken her to get help, medication they had tried, therapists, monitoring systems they’d implemented, prayer, etc. I kept asking, thinking eventually he would run out of things they had done to help her, but he kept going.

I asked, “if your daughter was bound and determined to die, is there anything that could stop her?” He acknowledged there was probably nothing that could, but couldn’t let go that maybe there was something he could have done, or noticed.

Then I said to him, “I’d like you to consider something. Consider that everything you’ve ever done, every mistake you’ve ever made, is all forgivable.” His reaction to this became the final step in his recovery from his traumatic loss.

So many times when we think about something we have done that we regret, or something we did not do we strongly feel we should have, there is an extra “weight” attached to it. The weight derives from an additional judgment we have about ourselves which is “…and it is unforgivable.” For example, “I did X in that situation…and it’s unforgivable.” This is often implied, so it’s not stated or maybe even thought of explicitly, but it may be there anyway. The simple way to tell is to ask yourself if what you did (or didn’t do) is forgivable. If there is any resistance to the self-forgiveness, it’s probably part of the problem.

Learning how to forgive ourselves is some of the most important, profound work we can do. Since none of us are perfect we all have plenty of opportunities to forgive ourselves for mistakes we make. In all cases it’s important to forgive ourselves in order to not be feel haunted by our perceived mistake, particularly when it comes to trauma or grief.

Here’s a good way to do it, but I’ll warn you it might feel weird. Bring to mind some experience when you feel you made a mistake in how you acted, or by inaction. Say out loud whatever you think about yourself with the memory, and then follow it up with the words, “but it’s forgivable.” Don’t just say that once either, try saying it a few times. That’s all. Try to allow yourself to begin integrating that phrase into your life, as often as you want. Feel free to experiment! The words “I can forgive myself for that” might feel better, or simply saying your name followed by “I forgive you for that.”

This simple–but not always easy–exercise will have a remarkable effect on you over time. Try easy stuff first if you like. Forgiving ourselves has the added effect of making it easier to forgive others too, and as we do we will feel less burdened and have more room for joy.