How to Forgive Yourself
My tween daughter: (looking in the mirror) sighs: I’m ugly.
Me: (while also remembering how my mom and I did this same song and dance): sighs: You are not. You are so not. I wish I could have back all of the wasted hours, days, months, years I wasted worrying about this. Think of the things I could have done! And the stupidest part is, [pointing to a photo depicting a younger self] I look at these photos, and my god. Why did I waste so much time chasing something I already had?
This can happen, and then in the next minute, I will look and still see all of the “flaws” I have wasted years and years trying to fix. I will recognize full well that someone could take my picture right this second, and I will be saying the same thing ten years from now. I look back to the mirror. Where is the disconnect? What will my eyes in ten years see that my eyes now can’t?
Guess what? I don’t need special glasses. I need to learn how to forgive myself, and I am guessing you do too.
Here’s what worked for me*
Picture your ego (you know that piece of you ? That you are supposed to outsmart like you are going to go head-to-head with the oracle in the city of Thebes. But don’t think of it like that.)
In order to forgive yourself, think about your ego, not as the villain in an epic poem you are…
