One adoption related issue that I still struggle with is forgiveness. Not so much forgiveness of what others did or did not do, because I have been able to deal with those feelings and issues and have come to term with them. Forgiving other people wasn’t always easy but it is something that I have been able to work through. Where I struggle in terms of forgiveness though, is with forgiving myself.

What do I have to forgive myself for you might be wondering? Well, I deal with guilty feelings often about a variety of issues surrounding the adoption. I feel guilty for the mistakes that led up to Charlie’s conception. I deal with guilt because I wasn’t able to parent my son at that time in my life.

I looked up the word forgiveness in the dictionary, which took me to the word forgive and then gave me this definition.

Forgive: verb a: to give up resentment of or claim to requital for (forgive an insult) b: to grant relief from payment of (forgive a debt)2: to cease to feel resentment against (an offender) : PARDON (forgive one's enemies)

I know I have to learn to give myself. I can not beat myself up constantly for the mistakes that I have made, things I didn’t do, or things I wish I would have done differently. I know those things are in the past, what’s done is done, and I can only learn from them and move forward. Unfortunately, life doesn’t have a rewind button where we can go back and fix our mistakes. Boy, don’t you wish it did!

To me, it just seems so much easier to forgive another person for something, than myself, but lately I have really been working to forgive myself. I started with writing an apology letter to myself. It seems a little hokey, but it really did help. I wrote a letter apologizing to myself for the things I feel like I let myself down on. I then, wrote myself another letter of forgiveness, forgiving myself for the things I felt I have done wrong. It really has helped me on the road to forgiving myself.

Anyone else out there struggle with forgiving yourself? What have you done in order to try and forgive yourself?

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