Love & Forgiveness

[ascension scout]

Here I was thinking about starting a thread on self-forgiveness and it had already kicked-off. We are never alone in our queries/lessons!
I find it easy to forgive others, but forgiving myself is a completely different animal. I was a drug addict for many years and there were many things I persecuted myself for. The big one was neglecting my boyfriend at the time who went to prison. Three years ago I cleaned up and got married just months before he was released. When I sobered up I realized that I needed to forgive myself, he had forgiven me, now I had to forgive myself.
My thought patterns/distortions were very strong, I perceived the situation very specifically/narrowly. Like ruts in a road, my thought patterns on the subject sucked me in. 'I am a terrible person' , 'I caused him so much pain' , 'I do not deserve redemption'. I was so used to those thoughts I actually believed them to be true. Beating myself up was how I answered these distortions.
Changing these perspectives took time. But as Ra famously said 'The source of all distortion is the limit of viewpoint'
It was helpful for me to zoom out, see two beings on a planet, learning their lessons and following their own paths. I needed to accept the experience for what it was. Persecuting myself was not productive, I needed to integrate the experience in order to move on. I really like what TheFifty9Sound said about it:

Everyone will come to an understanding of this subject differently, so let me share my perspective.

For me, learning to forgive - both myself and others - was learning to let go of that which I thought should be, or should have been. To forgive you need to presuppose error, for if there is no error, what is there to forgive? So, from my point of view, forgiveness is also acceptance. And as Ra said, there are no mistakes.

Presuppose the error! Brilliant.
I even find that typing out my little story to be helpful. Put it out there and let it go. Holding on to things is like holding your breath.