Forgive and Prosper...

Welcome back #VibrantFam! I hope this Labor Day weekend is treating you all well, hopefully you are decompressing in the best ways possible with friends and family. Today I wanted to touch on the topic of self-forgiveness. I won't lie this is something I put off for a very long time and did not get the opportunity to touch on it until starting therapy back up again.

This is has turned out to be an extremely important lesson that I have learned in the better part of a month. My therapist kept commenting on how critical of myself I was, how negative and blaming I would be of myself and seemed to harbor these feelings of self-resentment which became a trigger for a lot of my anxiety. I never really put two and two together, that my inability to forgive myself for little things like waking up late or arriving somewhere late to anything larger like hurting a friend from a mistake and so on would be a trigger for my almost debilitating anxiety. This hindered me from reaching a positive experience with self-love and self-care because if you are harboring so much self-resentment and holding onto negative experience and mistakes you put a huge wall in front of truly experiencing self-love. I was so stuck on holding onto all of these reasons why I was not worthy, why I made the mistake, how I made the mistake and rerunning these all through my head all of the time. I was content with convincing myself I was to blame and found life easier if I just went ahead and held the blame for everything because I could forgive anyone else and that was easy but forgive myself?! Oh, no no no. I could never do that. The biggest thing my therapist said to me that stuck out was, "Why can't you treat yourself and do to yourself what you find so easy to do for others in your life or that your friends can do for you?" This basically referring to looking past mistakes from a place of empathy, forgiving and loving them unconditionally and caring deeply about them. I am not lying when I say I sat there with my mouth wide open, my therapist read me like I was the morning paper and just sat there with a face awaiting my response. I had nothing, they were right -- if I could so easily forgive, be empathetic and love my friends unconditionally why was it so hard for me to do the same to myself? I did not find myself worthy of forgiveness. I since have incorporated the saying "I forgive myself, I love myself and I am worthy" to my morning ritual. You could laugh right now if you want, I laughed when I suggested it to my therapist and they deadass looked at me and recommended I do that. I will say that it was something that drastically changed how I looked at everyone including myself, my anxiety changed (immensely),

and how I interacted with myself and encouraged myself went on a positive route rather than negative. A simple mantra of self-forgiveness in the morning a couple of times genuinely assisted the way I view myself. I started evaluating the ways in which I looked at my worthiness and stopped allowing myself to get so worked up anxiety wise over things I could easily change myself. I cultivated better relationships with those I cared about and could be there better for them because I was taking care of myself (absolutely jaw-dropping, let me tell you!), I cultivated better work relationships and was not allowing myself to get so easily worked up over things and cultivated a much better relationship with myself. This is by no means your end all be all to a perfect life but it is a step in such a positive direction. You are the one person you should be able to count on at all times, if you are not taking care of yourself and ensuring you know you are forgiven and worthy of whatever positivity comes your way you cannot take care of yourself properly. My request for you, especially if you are looking for something to read, is to check out Daring Greatly by Dr. Brene Brown. This book honestly read me to filth in the most positive and uplifting ways. It called me out on a lot of habits and mindsets I had because they are societal norms and dramatically changed the way I interact with others and myself. You will not regret this read and it will give you a much needed break from our phones and devices and allow a bit of self-care to take place (it's a double whammy!). Let me know what you think of the book if you read it or have already and lets get to forgiving ourselves, you are so worthy of it and so worthy of living a happier and more loving life. As always Spread Love, Spread Light and Stay Vibrant <3