Karleigh Lynne

It’s time to let it go.

Whatever it is that you’re holding on to, it’s time to let it go.

When I said that, I’m sure something popped in the front of your brain. That thing is the thing that you need to let go of.

It’s time to forgive yourself.

It’s time to forgive yourself for that thing that you’re holding onto.

As humans tend to hold on to so much guilt.

We feel we’re responsible for something that we did, something that was done to us, or something we feel we had a hand in.

We hold onto this guilt as penance for the thing we did wrong, we feel like we’re not deserving of being free of the guilt. In order to ‘make up for’ the thing we think we did wrong, we have to remain miserable.

But what if I told you that was a lie?

What if I told you that this unforgiveness is hurting more than just yourself?

This guilt that we hold on to affects every part of our lives. It affects our relationships, our work, our health. 

You will never make progress unless you make the decision to work towards forgiving yourself. 

Yes – I said decision.

All of life comes down to decisions. You need to decide you’re going to grow. You need to decide with no back up plan.

When you say you’re going to start eating better, but you’re not going to get too invested because ‘just in case you mess up…,’ you’ve already made the decision that you’re going to mess up.

You have already decided that you’e going to screw up. You’ve made the choice to sabotage yourself and the choices you’re going to make.

You need to make the decision right now that you’re going to work towards forgiving yourself.

Because if you don’t make that decision, you’re never going to grow.

You’re going to self sabotage, you’re going to give up when life gets hard, you’re going to throw in the towel when those thoughts come into your mind that you struggle with.

I know first hand this isn’t easy. It also isn’t a one and done situation.

But once you do the hard work, and once you get used to it, it becomes easier.

You have to make the decision to forgive yourself every single day.

I have to make the decision every time I wake up in the morning that I’m going to forgive myself. I have to tell myself that I’m worthy of the grace that I extend to others.

But how do you do that? How do you forgive yourself? Because if it was easy, you would’ve done it a long time ago, right?

But really think about that – would you? If it were easy, would you truly forgive yourself?

Or would you continue to tell yourself that this guilt you feel is punishment for what happened?

I don’t know what your thing is, but if you’re listening to this, if you feel guilty, you deserve to let go of that guilt.

Regardless of your situation, regardless of what happened, you deserve to live a life free of guilt.

The very first step to forgiving yourself? Go listen to episodes 2 and 3, the power of self talk parts one and two.

How you talk to yourself is so important and those episodes are foundational. You have to stop telling yourself you’re dumb, broken, a bad person, weak. You gotta change your vocabulary.

Grab a journal and start to write down your new truth.

On one side of the paper, write down the negative things that play on repeat in your brain. Then on the other side, write the truth. The truth is what you really are.

For example, one of the negative things you may say is “I’m stupid.” So on the other side of the paper, you’re going to write down all the ways you’re not stupid.

And before you start whining about “Oh Karleigh I am stupid. You just don’t know me.”

I know you can’t see me – but I rolled my eyes so hard I thought they were going to get stuck.

Are you breathing? Do you have a roof over your head? Are you able to eat? Were you able to open up this podcast and figure out how to play it?

Then ding ding ding! You’re not stupid!

I already started your journal for you.

I want you to do that for as many of the negative things as possible. This is going to become your weapon. Every time you think of something negative, open up that journal and look at the reasons that negative thought is a lie.

You’ve got to rewrite your brain to realize the truth.

You’ve been telling it so many negative things for so long that it’s going to take time.

But as long as you give yourself grace, you’re going to be ok. You’re finally going to be able to move forward.