Every Day help: How do you forgive yourself for making a huge mistake that still haunts you every day? - Help.com

Stop letting it haunt you everyday. To let something or someone bother you to that extent is to be a victim. Stop playing the victim role and stop feeling sorry for yourself. You made a mistake, you are human. Forget it and move on and start over. We are given a new chance everyday when we wake up, why bring your ghosts with you to the next day?
It’s an ego trick. But on the other side, the opposite of being arrogant. You have to believe that you deserve forgiveness and that it is ok for you to make a mistake. Because it is. Then you let it go and work on not bringing it back up.

“Nothing makes us so lonely as our secrets.” - Paul Tournier

You will keep obsessing about it and having it drag you down. If you don’t clear your conscience, it will also hurt your relationship with others needlessly. They will see that their relationships with you have some problem to it and won’t understand that it’s because you have a secret you’re keeping and it bothers you a lot.
Only by openness and compassion can anything be resolved.

You can’t forgive yourself. The person who has to forgive you is the person you harmed with the mistake. The person you think about when you are haunted by your mistake.

hurt or hunt?
see :
http://healththroughprayer.com/forgiv…
http://www.webmd.com/balance/features…

read this book :
http://www.amazon.com/Forgiving-Yours…

Involving someone else in it before you have found peace with the sitaution will not do the other person any good. Or yourself for that matter. After you have reconciled with it and you still feel as if the relationship will benefit from you telling that person then tell them and deal with the consequences. If it was a one time thing then let it be just that and don’t do it again. If this is chronic then take some time to yourself to figure things out then go back to people.

Thank you to everyone so far.

I do not feel as though the relationship would benefit from telling; it’s the exact opposite actually. I think it would very possibly destroy it.

It was definitely just a one-time thing. I’m just having a lot of trouble getting past it. I’ve gotten past much, much worse things that others have done to me, but I’m having trouble dealing with this one being *my* fault. :( I’ll have a day where I think I’ve made some progress, and then the next day I feel worse than ever.

Well, if you think you can live with never mentioning it, it’s up to you.
In my experience, that has never worked. I’d rather take the backlash I deserve than to let myself dissolve away from the inside.

My relationship with a person is damaged even if only I know that it is. So I always try to repair it, and whatever the cost I’ve done my best.

Anonymous wrote:
Thank you to everyone so far.

I do not feel as though the relationship would benefit from telling; it’s the exact opposite actually. I think it would very possibly destroy it.

It was definitely just a one-time thing. I’m just having a lot of trouble getting past it. I’ve gotten past much, much worse things that others have done to me, but I’m having trouble dealing with this one being *my* fault. :( I’ll have a day where I think I’ve made some progress, and then the next day I feel worse than ever.

That’s what i mean by ego. People think ego is *only* when you are being arrogant. It is just as bad when you feel bad about yourself and your mistakes. You are not your failure and they do not define what kind of person you are. Especially when it is an honest mistake. Learn to be ok with that. Failures are a lesson to learn from so you know what NOT to do. Not a judge of your character or self worth. It’s going to be ok :) When you properly let go of something, trust me, it doesn’t come back. Not in a haunting way anyway. You will think of it, but as a memory not a stimulant for you to feel bad. Don’t try to fix the emotion don’t evaluate don’t ponder, stop thinking what you’re thinking and move on to something more productive. Like being a better person in your relationship and staying away from whatever caused you to make the mistake in the first place.