I am having trouble of letting go of my past mistakes

[raushan]

Hi,

For past few days my previous regrets or mistakes coming on the surface. When those memories comes up I get very tense and start thinking over it. I am having trouble of forgiving myself and letting go of these thoughts.
The thoughts bringing up the anxiety. It feels like it is deep rooted guilt of mine.
Any advice on this?

[dharma bum]

sometimes we are overly harsh on ourselves. one way to deal with this is to imagine someone else doing what we did and often it seems like not a very big deal. that can give us some perspective on our guilt. the other thing that helps me is metta to myself. for me this is very hard to do, so the trick i employ is to use metta i feel towards someone else and channel it towards me. one feels a natural sense of metta for children, for example. i use that towards myself.

of course, i'm only offering these as suggestions. by no means, am i any sort of authority.

[Nicky]

the buddha taught mistakes are performed by ignorance (not-knowing) rather than by oneself.

because mistakes are performed by ignorance, they should be viewed as learning experiences (rather than objects of guilt).

[Undertonez_evanston17]

Hi Raushan, I'm sorry that you're experiencing these type of feelings. However,  this is not uncommon.  I think, to get to the route of the issue, you should set some time aside  (maybe 30 minutes a day if you can spare it)  to just face these feelings.  Don't run from them, don't judge them,  don't force them away.  It's ok  that you've made mistakes, hindsight is 20/20 as they say.  Once you're able to just face these feelings, try to imagine them as stones and throw those stones away. If you feel your thoughts are overwhelming you, try to meditate in the moment (again if it is safe to do so ie not driving or doing something that requires your full attention) to quiet your mind.  With daily practice this should become easier as well. If you feel 30 minutes is too much (or you can't focus for 30 minutes) try starting with 10 minutes at a time and work your way up. Remember, we are all works in progress. No one is perfect, like a child falls many times while learning to walk, we've all made many mistakes. It is ok to forgive yourself, you made the best decisions you could in the moment with the information you had available at the time. PM if you need to talk.

[Matthew]

You cannot learn without making mistakes. Instead of identifying with the feelings of "I, me and mine" that you associate with such mistakes, which keeps you trapped in guilt/shame/fear, recognise what Nicky says: "the buddha taught mistakes are performed by ignorance (not-knowing) rather than by oneself ... because mistakes are performed by ignorance, they should be viewed as learning experiences (rather than objects of guilt)".

So not identifying and not pushing away feelings ... learn what they have to teach you!

[raushan]

Thank You all.

Nicky and Matthew,

Knowing this helped me to relieve my guilt. I will try to read suttas also.