@helenfrances- Good morning- What an excellent question. For me I think that self forgiveness was a foreign thought. What did it mean? No one back in my 20's and 30's (I'm 73) ever mentioned what it meant and how to go about doing this. We ruminate instead, hitting ourselves over the head time and time again and not getting anywhere. When we make mistakes because they were made outside of our own values, at least for me, tend to be the worst. I never thought to look at why I did what I did-I just did a mental flagellation on myself. And boy have a done a great job on this!
I think that we as humans tend to hang on the the past because even if it's a rotten past it's what we are use to, we are comfortable with so we don't leave it behind, it's too threatening. We don't want to go back a relive things because it hurts too damn much. SO by punishing ourselves we avoid acceptance.
I found this quote and it sums it up for me. "It means that you accept the behavior, you accept what has happened, and you are willing to move past it and move on with your life without ruminating over past events that cannot be changed." By Kendra Cherry

What do you think?