I messed up.

I was overwhelmed, burnt out, and sleepy.

It had been a lovely morning until I snapped over something silly.

My unexpected behavior left me feeling guilty. I was surprised by the intensity of my anger. As a result, I spent the next few hours dwelling on the situation and beating myself up for what I had said.

I couldn’t forgive myself. All I was feeling was shame about my actions. Then I had an epiphany…

The anger I had felt subsided. Why was I still dwelling on the situation? Why was I still grappling with shame and other uncomfortable emotions?

Shame is tricky because we aren’t programmed to naturally process it. When it arises in our bodies, it may linger and disturb our sense of self.

Messing up is hard because it fills us with shame, disappointment, and anger. I can’t let go of my shame because I can’t let go of the fact that I’m flawed.

But instead of focusing on the flaws, I can focus on something else—something better…something more beneficial.

Feeling bad about myself doesn’t help. What really helps is finding ways to lower my feelings of shame and fear. When we tame our inner critic, we can admit that we’ve messed up and move on.

There are three ways that have helped me to forgive myself this morning:

1. Focus on the solution—not the problem. When I kept mentally replaying the mistakes I had done, I felt stuck. I couldn’t move beyond my mistakes. All I wanted to do was hide and beat myself up. Doing that wasn’t helpful at all. My internal monologue got louder and louder and became uncontrollably negative.

The only way I could stop my negative thought spirals was to shift my focus from the problem to all the possible solutions. Instead of wishing the problem away, I held myself accountable and accepted my undesirable behavior. That bold confrontation allowed me to envision a better outcome and set personal values with integrity and honesty.

2. Understand your emotions. When I couldn’t forgive myself, I couldn’t accept how my body had been feeling. I was unconsciously shutting down my emotions, thinking I could change the outcome. But running away from reality wasn’t helpful. What was helpful, though, was coming to terms with my ugly feelings.

Instead of suppressing them, I looked for the trigger. What had caused my sudden outburst in the morning? What was the trigger? When I checked in with myself, I cultivated a better understanding of my reactions. I was kind to myself and understood what my feelings were trying to tell me.

3. Restart. Getting stuck in the past is easy. I couldn’t let go of what I had said and done. When I felt the need to let go, I held on ever harder. I thought that mentally staying within the situation would keep me safe, but it only made me more miserable.

The only way to truly forgive ourselves is to be willing to restart the present moment and choose to stop dwelling on what’s draining us. Let’s think about how we can do better next time without clinging to the past.

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