Learning Daily To Forgive Myself

I have been thinking about forgiveness... I think it is hard for some people, especially when someone hurts you beyond what you thought anyone was capable of doing.  I personally can forgive those people, of course they are no longer a part of my life, I don't believe in letting people hurt you over and over.  Forgiveness for me is letting it go for me, not for them. 

What I find hard is forgiving myself... I don't know why I can seem to forgive other people so much easier than I do for me.  I expect so much of myself, I have an impossibly high bar.  When I make mistakes as we all do since we are human, I seem to be much more harsher on myself.

I am trying to be kinder to myself or at least treat myself as good as I treat other people.  I can honestly sit her and say that I have forgiven my step mother Ruth for being abusive to me... does it mean that I want anything to do with her, no.. but I also do not wish any harm to her.  From everything I can see, she ended up alone, not a great place to be when you are elderly.

I forgive Andrey for everything he did to me, the nasty words, the shoving, the slapping and the rape.  He holds no power over me, I am free from him... why would I want to hold on to hate, he would own me... Andrey will have to deal with what he did to me, none of it will come from me... I think it will come in the form of losing Valentina when she is older and she finds out what he did to me.  That little girl loves her papa but she loves me and doesn't like when someone hurts me.  I will want her to forgive him though, I don't want her living with hate.

Someday, I will write about what I have such a hard time forgiving myself for, I haven't done anything to hurt anyone else, what I have done has hurt only me.  Sometimes I feel that I lost my David because of the things I did... he's told me that's not true but I think if I hadn't done those things that it might be different for us. There are very few people in this world that knows  what I did to deal with the abuse in my life.  David is one of those people who actually knows it all.

He never judged me or said an unkind word to me in all the time I have known him... I just wonder because I have had a hard time loving and forgiving myself, so I can't fathom how he or others could...  I know I am a good and kind person, who would much rather hurt myself than to hurt another person, so for this reason I work daily to let it go and not let it eat me up inside.

I really need to work on forgiving me, I was in pain... I didn't know how to deal with it....  if I can forgive other people, I should be able to forgive myself in time...

"Everything you want, also wants you" ~ Jack Canfield