There is a term in the financial industry that has to do with allowing someone to be set free of their responsibility to the amount owed. It is generally referred to as a "forgiveness" of the debt. In short, it means that the person who was supposed to be paying back what they borrowed is instead released from either some or all of what was to be paid.

The debt is no more.

But what about those of us who have made serious financial mistakes? Have we taken the time to forgive ourselves, or are we still holding ourselves under some sort of mental penalty for the things that we have done wrong?

A lack of forgiveness of ourselves in our financial lives can make even our daily decisions harder. It can breed guilt and shame which can affect us in so many more ways than just our checking account. Left unresolved, it can actually make us afraid of money. It can keep us from making the most of our opportunities and instead leave us with fear of our financial situations.

Forgiveness Gives Us Peace

When we walk around with our hearts and minds replaying things that we have done wrong in our financial lives, it becomes easy to be afraid of making decisions. We worry about what might happen rather than just making a decision. We may even assume that we will fail "just like last time."

By giving ourselves a break, though, we can instead learn from our past mistakes. Those times in which we failed or let someone down with our own mismanagement are only able to defeat us if we don't learn from them.


Forgiveness Brings Healing

Going broke. Filing for bankruptcy. Bouncing checks. Getting into debt over our head. These are all things that can be pointed to as failings in our past.  Do it too much and we tend to believe that this is our fate; that we are doomed to continue repeating these until Judgement Day.

Yet, by taking an honest look at where we have failed and telling ourselves "yes I did those things", but givings ourselves the leeway we need to grow we can begin to change. Our sense of being inept comes from looking only at our failures and not at our successes.


Forgiveness Opens Up Trust

Surely we have all given someone else a second chance after they have done us an injustice. Whether it is a parent and child, a friend to a friend, or even us to a complete stranger, forgiveness allows us to begin trusting the other person again.  We take the wrong and let it go and give that other person the chance to start "making it right".

Can we do that for ourselves?  Absolutely.

Consider a time when you forgave someone for an infraction of some sort.  How did you do it? Did you badger them or did you quietly, in your heart, take what had been done wrong and say " I forgive you". 

Once done, the person who wronged us is given the chance to redeem themselves in some way, and if we can do this for ourselves, we open up this same mentality for our lives.

Forgiveness Lets Us Move On

Forgiving ourselves doesn't mean that we will from them on always make the right decisions. In fact, the chances are good that we will want to kick ourselves for something else that we did wrong with our finances at some point in our lives.  It could be a bad stock investment, mistrusting a family member with an unsecured loan, or even just bouncing another check.

Regardless we need to give ourselves, not just others, some grace and understanding.

It doesn't mean that we are condoning our past actions nor does it mean that once forgiven that we are then free to do as we please. No, forgiveness is instead where we pull up the stakes on guilt and shame and hopefeully begin making better decisions for ourselves.

How about you?  Are you still harboring some sense of guilt about something you did in your financial life? 

How do you plan on dealing with it?