Forgiving yourself can be one of the most difficult steps you take on your journey to lasting love – it can also be one of the most worthwhile endeavors. This journey of self-discovery and growth will lead you to a more fulfilling life, happy and healthy relationships, and a love that will stand the test of time.

You may have heard us say, “You are the common denominator in all of your relationships.” This realization comes with a lot of power; the power to change your unhealthy patterns, to make new decisions, and to create new habits and behaviors (ones that serve you and create a life you love).

There is a dark side to this realization as well. If you are the common denominator in all of your relationships then it can be all too easy to take more responsibility than your fair share. While you are responsible for your own behavior, it is unhealthy and unrealistic to take responsibility for your partner’s actions and choices.

It can be difficult not to judge yourself when a relationship ends. You can find yourself constantly reliving in your mind everything you ever did or said wondering if you could have done something differently for it to have worked out.

This can trigger feelings of guilt and shame like you are broken in some way and that love is something you don’t deserve. Or you may become apathetic and feel like you don’t even want to bother having another romantic relationship.

These false beliefs (and others like them) can’t be further from the truth. Everyone is deserving of love – even you! Love does not discriminate. You are worthy of the love you want.

It is inevitable that you will make mistakes in your relationships. You may upset the one you love, you may have disappointed him, you may have behaved badly. You are human after all. However, to create lasting love you’ll want to begin the journey of forgiving yourself for all of those mistakes. Part of that means you’ll have to learn to love and accept yourself for ALL the parts of you – the good, the bad, and the ugly.

Forgiving yourself for these past mistakes is the key to manifesting love in the future.

You Come Back Into Integrity With Yourself

Coming back into integrity with yourself is one of the most powerful results of forgiving yourself. If you don’t take this crucial step you can wallow in self-judgment.

Self-judgment leaves you disconnected from yourself and that will not allow you to connect to others. You may feel alienated and lonely, or worse, you’ll be judging everyone around you which leads to further detachment. This downward spiral can leave you feeling unlovable.

It’s like judging yourself means you are out of integrity with yourself. You are out of touch with your lovability and your own humanity.

In order to show up authentically in a relationship, you have to be connected to yourself and the truth of who you really are. Holding onto guilt and shame about your past relationship mistakes will block you from connecting to your authentic self.

Forgiving yourself and your past mistakes gives you a sense of feeling whole and complete which then makes you more available to connect with others. When you don’t need to be with someone, but rather desire to share your life with a partner, it is much easier to be discerning through the selection process of dating.

Self-sabotage and destructive behavior can manifest when you are out of integrity with yourself. We recommend you start a crash course in self-forgiveness. We like this practice taught in the Hawaiian tradition of Ho’oponopono:

1. Place your hands over your heart.
2. Visualize the earlier version of you who made those mistakes.
3. Repeat these phrases as you expand the love you feel for this earlier version of you:

• “I’m sorry.”
• “Please forgive me.”
• “Thank you.”
• “I love you.”

4. Repeat for 5-10 minutes.
5. Practice daily at a minimum.

Do this first thing in the morning and last thing before you go to bed for a minimum of 21 days and you will experience a transformation in how you feel about your past mistakes. Forgiving yourself puts you back into integrity with yourself leaving you available to connect with others.

You Release The Energetic Bonds To The Past

You can’t create the love you desire when you are energetically attached to the past.

Imagine that there are strings and ropes of energy attached to you from past events connecting you to those feelings of guilt and shame. These strings and ropes of energy are holding you back from moving forward in your life. Forgiving yourself is the key to breaking these energetic ties so that you can move more freely into the future.

Release the negative emotions you’re holding onto from your past experiences. When you do, you’ll be disconnecting a chain that your mind has cobbled together.

Your subconscious likes to clump similar information together saying, “This is like that.” It does this to help you survive and so that you don’t have to learn similar things from scratch (like the cache on your computer); however this strategy often gets in the way of your ability to thrive.

Releasing the shame and guilt from your past mistakes will allow you to let go of the past so you can be present and more resourceful. There is no reverse in this life, you can’t go back and change what happened. You can’t go back and change your behavior.

You can change your relationship to that earlier version of you, and the meanings you assigned to those past events. And you can heal those feelings of regret so that you can make better choices now and in the future.

Forgive that younger version of you who was doing the best she could with the information and resources she had. When you honor that you did your best at the time and that you’ll make best efforts to make better choices in the future you can release the past and put it all behind you.

Forgive yourself and a whole new world of opportunity will open up for you to make better choices and have new experiences.

You Free Your Heart To Love Again

Carrying guilt and shame over past mistakes burdens your heart closing it off from new experiences. It can affect your energy as you move through the world like a dark cloud.

Forgiving yourself and putting the past behind you allows you to free your heart to love again.

A free heart is filled with grace. It is open and light and ready to love again.

If you don’t take time to heal and forgive yourself when a relationship ends, then you could end up stuck in a rebound relationship, further delaying your connection to your soulmate.

It is the love you have for yourself that is reflected back to you in your beloved’s eyes. So ultimately you do not get love from another person, you share love with them. Rebound relationships are like a band-aid over a gaping wound. The wound doesn’t heal and instead it festers and creates cyclical patterns causing you to choose similar circumstances again and again.

Forgive yourself and free your heart to love yourself. This love becomes a magnetic attraction for your soulmate.

You Move Forward On Your Path To Lasting Love

Forgiving yourself allows you to continue to grow into the person you are capable of being.

You could think of your life like a game board. Discovering the Golden Nugget Of Learning moves you forward in your growth toward your highest and best self. Forgiving yourself requires you to learn from your past mistakes so that you don’t repeat them.

Take time to journal about the past experiences that still haunt you. See if you can discover what those situations showed up to teach you. The Universe is always presenting us with situations where we can either step into our higher selves or fall back into our conditioned behavior.

What were those situations asking of you?

How could you have behaved differently?

When you can answer these questions without judgment take some time to write a letter to that earlier version of you. Let her know that you love her and that you have compassion for her. You can let her know how grateful you are for the experience of learning to do better and to become a better person. Let her know that you will always love her no matter what and that she is not alone.

You Don’t Have To Stress About Being Perfect

Forgiving yourself is a process of accepting your humanity. Being human means that you will make mistakes. If you can’t accept your mistakes then you will have trouble accepting your partner’s errors making lasting love impossible.

Holding onto guilt or shame about your past mistakes will cause problems in every single relationship so it is of the utmost importance for you to find a way to accept yourself as is – flaws, mistakes, and all!

The truth is you are always doing the best you can with the resources you have. The younger version of you didn’t have the knowledge and experience that you have now and was unable to make a better choice.

We love someone for their imperfections – their crooked smile, or goofy laugh. Keeping an unrealistic expectation that you will behave perfectly sets you up to be disappointed again and again.

A good friend of Orna’s taught her to knit. He was taught to knit by a Master Knitter who is Native American. She taught him (and he taught Orna) that before casting off to purposefully MISS-STITCH! Only machines are perfect she had told him. You miss-stitch to show that a human being made the item.

You can release the unrealistic expectation that you will be perfect or it will be very difficult for you to create the lasting love you desire. Every single person will make mistakes – including you. It’s time to love yourself anyway so you can connect with your soulmate.

Acknowledging your mistakes, accepting your humanity, and making a sincere effort to change is really the best that can be expected of anybody.

Forgiving yourself allows you to release the baggage from your past relationships and start with a clean slate moving forward. Now, you’re ready to start manifesting love in a whole new way. Instead of using your old strategies for finding love, get our special report, “7 Steps To Soulmating™.” You’ll receive our top dating strategies that have helped thousands to discover a new approach to love and create their soulmate relationship.