This blog is a response to a question around self-forgiveness that arose out of an earlier blog Refusing to Forgive: 9 Steps to Break Free. It is clear from the responses of this blog how much pain we all have that is associated with our own actions and the actions of others. I started this blog with the intention of answering all the questions that came up and soon realized that that would not do them justice. Instead, I will do a series of blogs on forgiveness that addresses these questions. These were excellent questions and are all worth exploring. Some of them overlap so as this series progresses, I will do the best I can to synthesize them.
I thought it was appropriate to start this series with us. So, how do we forgive ourselves?
So many things happen in our lives that we blame ourselves for. We may blame ourselves for shouting at our kids or not protecting our siblings from abusive parents when we were young, or hating ourselves for having an affair. One of the first things to do is understand that you are not the first person who has made this mistake; it has likely been made thousands if not millions of times before you by other people. I am not condoning the action, but simply letting you know that you are not alone and that many people have made this mistake in the face of common human challenges. One of the common things we do as humans is taking things personally to a fault. When we come to understand that no one is immune from being unskillful, we can begin to take it a little less personally. This helps us in the process of forgiveness.
Another thing to remind yourself of is that this act you may have committed is now in the past, it is not present, and you are not currently doing it. Notice when the mind trap of blaming yourself for past events arises, see if you can acknowledge its presence and the remind yourself that you did make mistake, but that was the past and you are going to learn from it. This practice of blaming does not support you or others in any way at all. Allow the process of forgiveness of this past event to surface and begin to see it as something that you can learn and grow from moving forward. This will free you up to be more skillful in the present.
Psychologist and forgiveness expert, Fred Luskin, Ph.D. tells us that we have all created a grievance story of about the offense we have made and how badly we feel about it. The stories we weave in our minds can have such dramatic effects on the way we live our lives. If we allow the onslaught of self-judgment and blame to constantly overwhelm our minds, we create and amplify more pain, making it difficult to make the skillful actions to break free and live today. What we might do is say “In the past, I had done or been xyz, and now I am (connect with positive intention.” For example, “in the past I had an affair, today I am a loving and committed husband/wife and the love I feel for my children sustains me.”
This is not mean to be some Pollyanna solution to your pain where everything comes up smelling roses. However, it is a path toward reconciliation with the self and toward a greater peace that will free you up and allow for more conscious responses. It is very easy for our minds to drift to grievances of the past and hold us hostage. It is our job to cultivate a greater awareness of how our minds work. We can learn to take responsibility for our actions and at the same time understand that we are not alone and others have made mistakes in the face of emotional challenges. We can begin to let go of our grievance stories of the past and begin to build new ones with more conscious intention on how we want things to be moving forward. This will be a process and will take patience, determination, and persistence as the old stories and habits of self blame will keep creeping back into the mind leading us back toward our old unforgiving ways that don’t serve us. See if you can notice when this happens and then invite yourself now to begin the process of self-forgiveness again.
As always, please feel free to share your thoughts and comments below. Your interaction here provides a living wisdom for us all to benefit from.
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