Practice of Atonement of Sins: Honesty Releases the Self

The Practice of Confessing and Letting Go of Sins: Reflections on Yom Kippur

Today, October 2, 2025, on the sacred day of Yom Kippur — the holiday of universal forgiveness, repentance, and letting go of sins — I feel the autumn coolness opening my spiritual and emotional waves. There is no better moment than now to share my own practice of confessing sins and letting them go. I consider this practice one of the most important for psychological correction and spiritual growth.

My Experience

Twenty years ago, when I began exploring religion and spirituality, I took a small notebook and wrote down a list of my sins. I ended up with about 40 sins, filling the entire notebook. A week later, I gathered my courage and went to morning confession, speaking with the priest for an hour and a half. I am grateful to that priest; he didn’t dismiss my feelings or rush me, though at times he gently scolded me. Nevertheless, he forgave all my sins, I received communion, and went home.

At home, I rewrote those 40 sins, crossing out the ones I was able to forgive myself for. Out of all of them, I probably had about 15 left. I waited a couple more weeks. By the way, I don’t want to lie, but I think it was during the Great Lent before Easter. At that time, I wasn’t yet familiar with Hinduism, didn’t practice vegetarianism, but kept the Christian fast. I didn’t fully understand its meaning, but I wanted to reduce my bodily attachments and turn inward.

So, I waited a couple of weeks and went to church again early in the morning. I think it was the same priest. This time, we talked for an hour, and he forgave all 15 of my sins again.

I returned home and rewrote my notebook for the third time. This time, I had about 5–7 sins left that I couldn’t let go of, simply because I was still committing them. Some of them could be worked on right then and there, but others, of course, required serious personal transformation.

An Example with Greed

For example, greed. You can work on greed directly, starting with mechanical actions. In this regard, it helped me that I soon became acquainted with Hinduism, where the practice of giving—both monetary donations and personal time, such as serving, visiting temples, helping in the kitchen, and so on—is very common. I started doing this right away and realized how wonderful it feels to give. This sin could probably be crossed off my list by 50% now.

Deep-Seated Issues

Nevertheless, as I mentioned earlier, some things can’t be resolved in a week, a month, a year, or even five years. We approach such issues gradually, step by step, when there is a structure for personal transformation. These might include problems like overwhelming guilt, suppressed anger, or even hatred toward God (which is essentially hatred toward parents, which can arise, for example, as a reaction to abandonment). This category also includes long-term issues like family conflicts, addictions, ongoing problems with work, society, or the law. We can’t solve these in one day. As they say, a problem cannot be solved at the same level at which it was created. Do you know the psychological definition of a crisis? A crisis is always a door to the next stage of development. If we are in a crisis, it’s 100% certain that we won’t be able to resolve it at our previous level. We need to elevate our level of development. This also includes shocking events, traumatic experiences, and things we hide from ourselves or repress. At some point in our lives, we will have to look inward and hear things that, in a normal state of mind, we couldn’t accept about ourselves.

How to Address Deep-Rooted Flaws?

1. Self-Discovery. Use psychological courses, preferably professionally led. Nowadays, there are plenty of online resources where such courses are conducted by certified psychologists.
2. Spiritual Self-Discovery. The pressing question: “Who am I?” Listen to your inner voice, go inward, and hear what it wants to tell you. Additionally, turn to external sources: read books, listen to lectures, try to connect with a community or talk to people who seem authoritative to you at the moment.
3. To keep this list from becoming endless, on this sacred day, I recommend the practice of repentance. Start a separate notebook where you write down all your sins or character traits you’d like to work on. Leave some empty space because, over time, more qualities or events you want to change might appear. I want to make a clarification here. I use the word “sin” simply because it’s a convenient way to express the concept I’m describing. However, you can call it something else: negative qualities, traits I’d like to overcome, or traits I’d like to eliminate. The goal of this exercise is not to blame yourself but to give yourself a path, a support, a way to change these qualities. For convenience, you can make a list of childhood sins, youth sins, and adulthood sins. You can structure them differently, for example, those I no longer commit, those I commit 50% of the time, and those that are still 100% present in my life.

Deep Analysis

I also want to touch on another profound point. There are some things that, even with such detailed analysis, we might not see. These are things in our lives that we don’t even acknowledge, that we don’t admit to ourselves. The following questions will help bring these things, these character traits, to light and make this list as personal, deep, and honest as possible. So, answer these questions:

• “I no longer want to pretend that…”
• “I’m tired of pretending that…”
• “I feel relief when I honestly admit that…”

Why Is It Important to Speak Aloud?

Once you’ve fully compiled your list of character traits you’d like to work on, you need to tell someone about them. This is a very serious step. The act of speaking something aloud frees you from the internal secret that weighs you down. Honesty is considered one of the greatest virtues and blessings in both spirituality and psychology. I understand that it’s probably difficult to go to someone with this list of sins. Nevertheless, there are standard solutions:

1. Go to confession with a priest or your senior mentor in the spiritual tradition you follow. Be cautious; the space must be safe.
2. Go to a psychologist. Here, you can choose: go to one psychologist with the entire list or attend psychological groups that address similar issues (in this case, you may need to divide the list slightly). For example, if you’ve experienced domestic violence and have never told anyone, sign up for psychological groups that work with victims of violence. Another example: if you have an addiction but haven’t told anyone, join anonymous groups related to those addictions. There are also hotlines and websites offering services like empathetic listening.
3. If you can’t do either the first or second option, start by being honest with yourself. Write down all your character traits, as well as secret personal matters and wishes. Conduct a small ritual with yourself. Light a candle, sit on the floor, and read the entire list to yourself or to a higher power, whomever you consider God. You can burn the list afterward if you want. In my case, I kept the list because I reworked it three times.

Why Does This Work?

1. Honesty. Honesty liberates. Honesty releases the voice of the “I,” the inner child, the true “I.” Honesty frees us from the constraints of society and rules. Honesty is the energy of a deeper universal vibration. Deep inside, we know these truths, but outwardly, we may not follow them for various reasons. But we’re not here to talk about reasons or guilt. Let the energy of honesty manifest in you; this energy will align you with the wavelength of your true, deep essence.
2. Another reason why this method works I learned from Indian religion. Speech is the element of fire. When we speak something aloud, the word burns on our tongue in speech. That’s why, in the spiritual traditions of various religions, it’s said that you shouldn’t share your true desires or deep spiritual experiences with just anyone. But sins, on the other hand, should be shared. The point is to burn the energy of the sin with the fire of speech.

Conclusion

I congratulate everyone on the sacred holiday of Yom Kippur. Every religion has similar holidays and traditions dedicated to inner honesty: recognizing one’s sins and the possibility of resolving them.

May this day be a step toward your inner freedom and growth.

Constellation work with feelings, emotions, and qualities https://t.me/tattva_constellations