And now that dreadful inner voice kicks in, bellowing its incessant refrain -- you're an idiot, you're stupid, you always do this, your life will never get better than this, it's all your fault, this relationship will never heal...
How can we forgive ourselves without falling onto that other path, the one traveled by bullies and heartless demagogues; the one where everything I do is right and all who disagree are wrong and should be throttled? How do we find that middle way between self-recrimination and self-congratulation?
The first step, of course, is to admit that we screwed up; to accept responsibility for our distractedness, for our unconscious behaviors, for all the ways we move through life unfocused, in a cloud.
And then we absolutely MUST forgive ourselves for whatever it is we've done. Forgiving yourself is very good practice -- and a necessary evil -- if we are ever in hope of becoming compassionate beings. If you find this hard to do -- and many do -- think of that part of yourself that was sleepwalking when it happened as a very young child. Let the child know what they did was wrong, then hug them and hold them close and reassure them that you know they'll be working hard not to do it again. If you believe in them, it will give them courage to try again -- it's really only non-acceptance that puts us on the path to demagoguery; that leads us into "I always screw up anyway; why bother?"
But there's another step that will bring us even closer to compassion: once you've forgiven yourself, take some time to be mindful of all the other humans who are screwing up and berating themselves. That is, of course, the rest of us: we're everywhere, and all of us haunted by the same disgusted inner voices. Imagine us all forgiving ourselves, encouraging ourselves to be kinder and more conscious: it's a gift that will give back in more ways than we can ever know.
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