Integrating sexuality and sensuality into personal evolution, which I wrote about last time, requires a better relationship with oneself. And that is precisely what brings me today to a subject I consider fundamental and that is rarely discussed with the depth it deserves: the relationship with yourself in the moments when you have been harsh, inappropriate, unjust, or simply less than you would have wished to be.
I am not talking about mistakes towards others, which have a clearer resolution. I am talking about what you do with the moments when you are hard on yourself, when you judge yourself harshly, when you condemn yourself for what you did not manage, when you allow yourself a level of harshness towards your own person that you would never accept towards a friend.
Why are we so harsh with ourselves? There are a few well-documented mechanisms in psychology.
The first is that self-criticism has, paradoxically, a protective function. The human brain evolved to detect threats and prevent them. Self-criticism is a form of internal threat detection: if I judge myself first, I can no longer be judged by others in a surprising way. It is a form of preventive control that comes from the desire to avoid rejection or failure.
The second is that many of us were raised with high standards imposed from outside, by parents, teachers, and culture, which internalised as an inner critical voice. Not our voice. The voice of someone who spoke a great deal and who remained inside after the original person left our active life.
The third is the confusion between harshness towards oneself and responsibility. Many people believe that if they do not judge themselves severely, they will not learn from mistakes, will not improve, will not perform. Research in the psychology of compassion, conducted by Kristin Neff, shows exactly the opposite: self-compassion produces better resilience and performance than harsh self-criticism. Not because it gives you permission to do nothing, but because it reduces the anxiety that sabotages effort.
What is self-forgiveness and how does it differ from excuses or ignoring mistakes? Self-forgiveness is not denying that something happened. It is not the conviction that everything is fine when it was not. It is the recognition of what happened, the taking of responsibility, and then, deliberately, the choice not to punish yourself indefinitely for it.
There is an important difference between feeling guilty and punishing yourself. Guilt, felt authentically and resolved, is a useful signal: you made a mistake, you saw it, you can do differently next time. Self-punishment is a cycle that does not end, that consumes energy without producing real change, and that produces a form of suffering that adds to the original mistake.
How do you ask yourself for forgiveness for moments of harshness? Not through a formal exercise or a solemn declaration. But through a more subtle and more constant practice.
The first is to recognise harshness when it appears. The internal critical voice often functions so automatically that we no longer notice it. Pausing and hearing it as a voice, not as a truth, is the first step.
The second is to treat it with curiosity, not with total identification. Is this voice saying something true? Or is it an old pattern activating automatically? Where does it come from? What is it trying to protect you from?
The third is to respond to it differently than usual. Instead of amplifying the self-criticism or suppressing it, offering it what you would offer a friend in the same situation: recognition, understanding, and a gaze that does not condemn.
There is a direct link between self-forgiveness and the quality of relationships. People who judge themselves harshly tend to judge others harshly as well, or conversely, to fold excessively to others' expectations out of fear of being judged. Harshness towards oneself does not stay inside. It colours the way you view the other, the way you react to their mistakes, and your capacity to offer forgiveness in the relationship.
And conversely: the gentler and more just you are towards yourself, the gentler and more just you can be towards the other.
I believe one of the most profound forms of self-love is not the satisfaction of your own desires or the avoidance of discomfort. It is the capacity to look at yourself honestly, to acknowledge what was not good, and to choose, deliberately, not to condemn yourself to endless suffering for it.
Is there a moment from your recent life in which you were harder on yourself than you deserved? And if you looked at that moment through the eyes of someone who loves you, what would you hear in place of the usual accusation?
