How Do I Forgive Myself?
When the person you can’t forgive is you — what may be happening, and one small next step.
If you searched this
You probably didn’t type this question casually. Maybe something you did years ago still replays at night. Maybe it happened last week. Maybe other people have already moved on, and you can’t.
Whatever it is, the fact that it still hurts tells us something: you care about the harm. People who don’t care rarely ask this question.
Before any advice
You don’t have to minimize what happened to be here. You also don’t have to keep punishing yourself to prove you’re sorry.
Carrying regret can be exhausting. It can make you feel like you’re the only one who has ever done something like this. You’re not.
What may be happening
Many people find it helps to separate two feelings. Guilt says, “I did something wrong.” Shame says, “I am something wrong.” Guilt can point you toward repair. Shame tends to push you into hiding.
Forgiving yourself usually isn’t a single decision. It often looks more like a direction you keep choosing: telling the truth about what happened, repairing what you can, accepting what you can’t, and letting yourself keep living.
Forgiving yourself does not mean saying it didn’t matter. It means you stop treating the worst thing you did as the whole truth about you.
One small next step
Write down, in one or two plain sentences, what you did — without excuses and without insults toward yourself. Then write one thing that could still be repaired, even partly. If nothing can be repaired, write one way you could do good in the same area of life.
If making amends to someone could hurt them or put anyone at risk, don’t reach out. Repair can also happen through how you live from now on.
A Franciscan way through this — if faith would help
In his Testament, Francis remembered the years before his conversion simply as the time “when I was in sin.” He didn’t hide that part of his story, and he didn’t let it be the end of it. What changed him wasn’t a perfect feeling of being forgiven. It was going toward the people he had avoided and showing mercy.
Franciscan tradition invites us to treat ourselves with the same mercy we would offer someone else — and then to turn that mercy outward, in service.
When it’s more than regret
If thoughts about what you did have turned into thoughts of hurting yourself, please reach out now. Crisis lines are listed on our Help page, and you don’t need an account.
If guilt or shame is taking over your days, a counselor or therapist can help in ways a web page can’t.
You don’t have to do this alone
For Sinners Only editorial team · Awaiting final review