I'm having a hard time forgiving the things I've done in the past and the person I was...ugh trying to practice unconditional self acceptance but it's tough

I feel this so much

I’m the same. I honestly believe people like us distort our own perceptions of what we were like in the past and twist ourselves and our intentions into monsterous things. That’s not to say that we haven’t done bad things. It’s simply that I have an incredibly hard time forgiving myself whereas I feel others can move on more easily.

We all change and grow for the better and do our best with what we have at the time. I have forgiven younger me for being naive and often selfish. I am sure I will have to forgive the me, I am now, later. We are always evolving and you are enough as you are.

In the same journey, my friend

you cannot change past events. back then you acted from your level of knowledge and consciousness at that time. over time you apparently have grown and now see things differently. accept what you are at this moment and draw a line under the 'negative' past. .... and ... personally I do think that *unconditional* self acceptance/love/etc does not exist.

Why do you think it doesn't exist? I feel like it is possible to strive towards it. That you can work towards accepting every single thing/situation/feeling/thought in your life that you like and don't like and truly feel okay with all of it. It's gonna take alot of work though but still possible in my opinion

striving toward *ideals* is what we typically do (and what typically makes us unhappy). humans have a value system for a reason, it is our compass - without it we could not make a single decision, a single step - in the sense of navigation and not pure stumbling. therefore, there *are* good and bad things. unconditional (self) love, for instance, means loving despite violations of your value system. you always recognize violations (of course, otherwise it wouldn't work) and the "unconditional" response can lie in forgiving, but if you were to really accept "violence against you" (what it basically is) you would be quite a poorly functional psychological system. if you are honest with yourself, you know that these "unconditionals" are mere ideals - that is, do not exist, as virtually any ideal; and you feel it also, that mentioned violations will sooner or later cause the feeling of frustration (which signals repeated loss of alignment between your values and your behavior or external things) - especially hard it often hits when your behavior is of the kind of "i accept everything as it is". truth is, a lot of things can be changed (and should be) in order to align with your values - for the rest, it would be wise to adapt your value system as good as possible. oftentimes, i have the impression, "acceptance" is closely related to resignation, and not to adaptation.

It's just being okay with wanting to change it and being okay with making the change and being okay with how it was before you made the change....I'm still learning myself though I'm no expert. But Albert Ellis wrote alot of books about unconditional life acceptance and self acceptance and it's helped me so ya

i am glad it helped you. in the end all we need is a consistent story we can believe in.

Feels nice to not be alone in the process ..?

Yes we can most definitely overexaggerate/awfulize/horribilize these things. It's easy to know that for a fact but then I still have all these beliefs about what I've done or whatever and theyre super irrational but I still believe them very strongly like "I must never make any mistakes" "I must never hurt the people I love"....rewiring the brain is tough stUFF

I don't think it's supposed to be taken so literally to the point where you are not trying to strive for better and make changes where need be.

Truuuuu