I think that self-acceptance is better than self-forgiveness because it avoids the controversy that a person cannot actually forgive the self. What do you think about this?
As you can see from the other recent posts here, I have responded to criticisms of self-forgiveness, concluding that it is a reasonable approach when a person is engaged in self-loathing. Self-acceptance does not go as far as self-forgiveness. In other words, when you deeply self-forgive, you are loving yourself again, after a possible period of excessive self-condemnation. Self-acceptance does not necessarily include loving the self; it might instead involve tolerating or even respecting the self, without the added, higher challenge of trying to love the self as you love others. So the two are not the same, and I see self-forgiveness as the higher moral path.
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