How do I love myself and forget the past?

We have all made a decision that we regret or think it is bad after we do it. In the moment, it seems like we made the right call. But afterward, the impact of the decision sets in, and soon we realize your judgment was cloudy, or something else happened that is now causing us to regret the decision. 

We’re all human, which means we are not immune from making bad calls every once in a while. Although we can’t go back in time and change the choices we made, we can lessen the impact it has on us. I am not saying that the decision you have made marrying this other person is inherently bad or the wrong choice, but it seems like in this moment you are feeling like it might be. I can think of a few actionable steps you can do in order to move forward and into self love. 

Accept your emotions. Suppressing your emotions will get you nowhere, it will not help you in the long run. It is important to first focus on how you feel. Consider going to therapy, which can help you work through what happened, and help you process your emotions.  You can also journal your emotions or speak with a close friend or person if you have someone you feel safe enough to do so with. 

Then it is time to accept and focus on the fact that the decision did happen. The event, the action, happened and it cannot be changed. Ask yourself: What is currently happening? How can you work productively toward that goal given the situation you are in? What do you really want? 

Forgive yourself and try to mentally separate yourself from the decision. Doing so can help you strip it of its power. Do not be too hard on yourself in the wake of a poor decision. It is possible for us to become our own worst enemy with poor decisions. We spend way too much energy siting in our guilt rather than using that to go to our next move. Use the failure of your bad decision as leverage for future success. And if, after making a bad decision, your mind is flooded with regret. This regret can actually be a powerful tool as it can help you remember the things you want to avoid in life and help you make better decisions in the future. 

If you are unable to rid yourself of the guilt or regret on your own, practice gratitude. One way to see the positives is by practicing gratitude. For something concrete to do, make a list of three to five things you are grateful for. This can help lessen the grip the regret has on you. Here are some gratitude prompts you can think about:

1. Name something beautiful that you saw today.
2. What memory are you grateful for?
3. What opportunities are you grateful for?
4. Name something in your home that you truly treasure. Why?
5. What are you grateful for in your significant other?
6. What about your body are you grateful for?
7. What about the current season are you grateful for?
8. Name a struggle you currently have. What about that struggle makes you grateful?
9. What freedoms are you grateful for?
10. What talents or abilities are you grateful for?

Finally, the next time you are confronted with a big decision, you might feel anxious or stressed that you will make another mistake. To counteract this anxiety, consider putting a decision-making process into place for all future calls. Everyone should have a process in place for complex decisions, and people will commonly use the seven-step decision-making process. It works like this: 

1. Identify the decision/problem;
2. Be as clear as possible;
3. Collect information that will assist in your decision-making;
4. Consider various solutions;
5. Weigh the evidence for each potential solution;
6. Make your decision;
7. Take action on that decision; and then
8. Review the decision once action has been taken.

Going forward, it should be easier to make informed decisions. 

To go back to your other question, though: How do you love yourself and forget the past?

I would say in order to start to love yourself, you cannot forget the past. You have to embrace it. It happened, the decision was made. However, this decision does not define you and it does not make you who you are. This decision can be a learning opportunity, a moment of growth. In order to love yourself you have to accept all of the parts of you, all of who you are, including the version of you that made the decisions that you made. You have to ask yourself: this is who I am but is this who I want to be? If it is not, then thinking about the 7 decision making steps when making further decisions, and practicing gratitude are tools you can engage in that can help. 

Self-acceptance is the key to self love. When I’m feeling great about myself and accepting who I am, it is almost as if some magnetic force draws others to me and I feel unstoppable. Of course we are always going to have our up days and our down days, but the goal is to help you to increase the frequency of the self-accepting days and reduce the down days. On those down days, make a list of your strengths. Grab a sheet of paper and list out your best traits. Don't be shy about it. Write down strengths you admire about yourself as well as compliments you've gotten from others. You can keep your list of strengths in a book and then refer to it whenever you need a confidence boost. If you ever get thank you notes or positive feedback from other people, put them in the book to help remind you that others appreciate you for who you are.

Taking this step to reach out and ask for advice shows self-love as well.

Keep at it! You are someone who has value.