A few months back I began using a daily journal, and writing down one thing I forgive myself for, every single day. At first it was easy — I screw up a lot — but then it got a little harder, and finally I was digging back into the past, the deep, painful, locked-away past to drag out the stuff I have hated myself for since forever. The girl I insulted at a dance. The time I interrupted a famous author in the middle of a conversation. Firing my best friend in the stupidest way possible. On and on, things I regretted and have regretted for years. I hauled them kicking and screaming into the light and held them there. And then I embraced them and told them they could rest now.

I don’t think there’s been any single practice that has been more transformative in my life than that one. You have something here in this post that needs to be far more widely shared.