I love the idea that when we know better, we do better. In early recovery, I found it impossibly hard to forgive myself for some of the things that I had done during my period of active addiction.
But hating myself for those things took too high a toll, and I had to find a way to let go and move on. Two things helped me with self-forgiveness.
The first was believing the recovering people around me who warned me that staying in shame and self-hatred would hinder—and possibly even destroy—my recovery process. That felt true to me.
The second thing was embracing the idea that I heard from others (also in recovery) that when we know better, we do better. As the great Maya Angelou said, "Forgive yourself for not knowing what you didn't know before you learned it." How liberating is that?
Forgiving ourselves is one sure way to practice radical self-compassion. Try it?