There will come a time when you will need to forgive yourself, and you might find this to be one of the hardest things to do.

To forgive yourself means that you need to accept that you’ve made a mistake, you might have hurt someone, and that’s hard to overcome.

You might feel damaged, broken, or a “screw up.”

But you are none of these things. Making mistakes or failing does not make you either of those things.

You are not a failure and you’re definitely not a mistake.

To overcome feelings of inadequacy, the first step is being easy on yourself and forgiving yourself.

When I look back at my early years, I made so many mistakes that it’s embarrassing to admit to. I tried time and time again to solve the problems of my past through my current relationships. And each and every time, I failed.

I’d feel terrible after a breakup and would feel ruined because I thought that no one loved me and that I would never be “right” in a relationship. I felt that I didn’t have the proper skills to be in a healthy relationship, and I didn’t have any models that I could look to for guidance. The only marriages I knew of ended in divorce or decades of resentment and anger.

When I realized that I kept following a pattern in my relationships (intense start, rocky middle, and then a devastating finale), I knew that I either had to work on learning the necessary skills to be in a healthy relationship.

One of those skills is learning how to forgive myself and to embrace change.

Until I took responsibility to learn the skills that I needed, and to heal the trauma from my past, I kept going round and round in circles.

It doesn’t matter if you’ve been in a relationship for decades, are alone, or are just starting out in one. What’s important is the relationship you have with yourself and how to foster that. Constantly trying to fill the hole from your past (fears of abandonment, lack of love, or abuse) with your present relationship (or desire to be in one) will not solve your problems.

Take a moment to forgive yourself, then learn how to love and accept yourself as you are, and take positive steps to find the peace you need.

When you forgive yourself for being needy and fearful of abandonment, a door will open for you: You’ll realize that you’ve been stronger all along. You just didn’t know it.

Like what you’ve read? Be sure to check out my other posts in my Let Go and Be Free blog.