There are many emotions that run through a person’s head and body while they are in rehab and recovery. Early on, one of the key components is looking at forgiveness. It is important to learn how to forgive yourself before you can really start to seek forgiveness of others. This may be one of the hardest lessons of early recovery because it ties so much into shame, guilt, fear, blame, and many other toxic emotions. Moving towards forgiveness requires hard, internal work looking at yourself and seeking to restore what has been broken. Learn more about how to forgive yourself and why the journey is so important in recovery.
Why We Forgive
Guilt and shame get people stuck in addiction. It may come from other people or from inside yourself, but any way you come by it, these feelings stay with you for a long time until you are ready to deal with them. Learning to forgive yourself is important to inner healing. For recovery to be meaningful, you must examine your feelings of guilt or shame and learn to forgive.
Guilt-Free Living
When you think about forgiving yourself, it can be hard to see it as all the faults you have rather than your positive attributes. You are not just someone who has done things to hurt others, you have also caused harm to yourself. There is hope to heal from this, and offer hope to others, but you first have to think about how guilt frames your life, and your recovery. Then, you can begin to break the chains of guilt and move forward:
- Acknowledge your past: you cannot hide from what you’ve done or bury the feelings. Recovery is about facing these and owning what you’ve done. Once you admit the mistakes you’ve made, you can begin the healing journey in recovery towards forgiveness and reconciliation
- Right the wrongs: when you seek to fix something you broke, like a relationship, you can take active participation in making it whole again. To release yourself of guilt is to acknowledge that you did something wrong and seek to make it right with that person, even if they don’t want to forgive you
- Ask and receive: the final step in seeking forgiveness is to ask it of yourself and others. When you move towards healing in recovery from harm you’ve caused, you begin to notice how others see you differently. You are acknowledging your imperfections and seeking a positive path that can lead to restoration of the relationship (if both parties are willing) or, at the very least, a healing space to make the journey.
Forgiving Yourself
If you are not in a treatment program, you can find help for addiction recovery by going to a safe place to learn about healing from addiction. You can start learning how to forgive yourself and others in this space as well as recovery groups where people will help you navigate the challenges of recovery. Recovery is an ongoing process throughout your life. Don’t be hard on yourself if you need more time and space to figure things out around forgiveness. You’re talking about a lifetime of work that can be done one step at a time for the sake of yourself and others.
Oceanfront will help you kick addiction to the curb with our premier beachfront community in Laguna Beach. We are founded on the principle of providing the best in care and services at affordable prices. We are located in beautiful Laguna Beach. Call us to find out how we can help you navigate addiction recovery: 877-279-1777
