This is self-work and I'm Dr. Margaret Rutherford.

At self-work we'll discuss psychological and emotional issues

common in today's world and what to do about them.

I'm Dr. Margaret and self-work as a podcast dedicated to you taking just a few minutes today for your own self-work.

Hi and welcome to self-work. I'm Dr. Margaret Rutherford. I'm a clinical

psychologist. I've been practicing in Fayetteville, Arkansas for over 25 years and

last year began this podcast to self-work. I not only wanted to confront the stigma of mental

illness and talk about it openly, talk about my own struggles with mental

illness, and certainly try to normalize problems for others.

But I also wanted to give those who might listen,

be they people who are in therapy

and very comfortable with the psychological world,

or be they people who would never

darken the door of a therapist I wanted to give you a chance to hear how a

psychologist or a mental health professional thinks so that I could shed some light at least from a psychological perspective

on common problems and things we all deal with. Today we're going to be talking

about self-forgiveness. This podcast was actually triggered by my work within the last

couple of weeks with a woman who wakes up in the middle of the night and literally is

awake for two to three hours ruminating about things from

her past that are so painful to her and I've heard it many many times before.

I've done podcasts on self-compassion and of course self-compassion is linked to self-forgiveness

but compassion is understanding and forgiving is an actual act.

...