Monthly Archives: May 2010

Self-forgiving

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Self-forgiveness. How do we do this? What I do know is that doing it is absolutely essential in our process of becoming our best/highest selves. Sometimes I even wonder if it is what living as humans is really all about. I certainly have had my challenges with it; and nearly everyone that I work with struggles to forgive, especially himself or herself. How did we come to be such harsh self-critics?

I suppose there are as many answers to this as there are people. I always have clients look at their families as well as our culture. It is a core part of our social structure to judge. Most of our institutions are integrated with our legal system now. And in this integration process we have come to view so much through the “right or wrong” lens. Right – you win, wrong – you lose. Just like a court case. Even our family lives our riddled with this skewing. Our behavior has become right/wrong, good/bad vs. inappropriate, immature, unconscious, or otherwise. With this right/wrong labeling comes a sense of shame and guilt. Unfortunately, the shame and guilt has been misused to lead us to become harsh, and often unforgiving, judges of ourselves rather than monitors of our behaviors, followed up with behavior changes as we recognize our infractions towards others.

When I discuss self-forgiveness, guilt becomes the main subject. Here is how I talk about this much misunderstood emotion. Guilt is good for two things; to help us modify future behavior and to help us make amends. If we are feeling guilty about something, we need to look at the event/issue. Determining how our behavior was inappropriate/hurtful, we examine our part in the process. In a healthy model, we take responsibility for our part, whoever else is involved takes responsibility for theirs and then we modify behaviors in order to no longer repeat actions that cause us to feel guilty or poorly about ourselves. Secondly, we say we are sorry- apologize – make amends for our infractions in a heartfelt manner. Again, in a healthy relationship, the behaviors change, so we are not repeatedly making amends for the same thing(s) again and again. If we find ourselves doing this, repeatedly apologizing, we need to look at this action. Are we unable to follow through on change or are we apologizing for simply being? Either way it is an issue that calls for our attention.

Inability to follow through on change indicates lack of commitment or confusion of true desires. Both of these areas can be complex issues, requiring individual attention, not to be addressed here. But what I will say is that in a relationship in which one person is not able to, or does not, make change, it is a fairly clear signal that their commitment to themselves is greater than their commitment to the relationship. This is not right or wrong, just is. How it impacts the “other” in the relationship becomes the dance of the relationship, thus creating what may or may not be a viable relationship – more on this at another time.

Apologizing for simply being indicates a lack of self-confidence and worthiness. This often comes from a childhood or relationships where the individual was seen as a burden, taking up space and resources just by being alive. This can happen when parents do not have healthy and abundant energy to fulfill the parenting role well. In the extreme cases, parents are abusive, mistreating children in ways that cause the child to feel that they are wrong or bad without the maturity and discernment to understand that it is about behavior (perhaps not even theirs but their parents behavior) and not who they are. This can impact our core sense of self. In these cases, our healing comes through relearning our worthiness and lovability. Not always easy, but always worth the effort and time invested. Because the truth is, we are all worthy and lovable.

In my times of pondering behaviors that cause guilt, I have come to believe most of our actions that cause us future guilt are a result of our immature desires to be loved, to be recognized, to be seen and heard, to be accepted, to be understood and to feel all of these things deeply. It is often our egocentric behaviors seeking these fulfillments in ways that ultimately won’t get us there, but are often unconscious attempts to do so, that cause us our guilt. As I considered my own weaknesses and past behaviors, I am well aware that I wanted to love and be loved, deeply and openly. I wanted to be heard and accepted just as I am. My intentions were never to cause others harm or distress, but to fulfill my neediness before I learned to fulfill it myself through self-love and self-acceptance. And then through that self-love and self-acceptance, develop a life that reflected well my strengths and desires.

The path of self-forgiveness frees up energy to be utilized for living our best life. It can open our minds and hearts to thinking, creating and acting in new and inspired ways as we release our ties to the past and the heaviness of judgments. Deeply forgiving ourselves and others through on-going life review, making peace with past hurts and releasing our need to judge are all gifts that we can give to ourselves; we need no one’s permission to engage in these processes and access the freedom that waits beyond.

We Do Not Fail

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Last night I dreamed – blessed illusion-
that I had a beehive here
in my heart
and that
the golden bees were making
white combs and sweet honey
from my old failures.
Verse from Antonio Machado
Translated by Robert Bly

When I read these words in a book by John O’Donohue called Eternal Echoes, I committed the lines to memory and have recited and contemplated them since that first reading. In the last decade or so, during my times of deep inner reflection and healing, I seem to have made peace with my failures. Such peace, in fact, that I find it difficult to call them failures any longer. Forgiveness has graced me fully, a sure sign that I no longer sit in judgment of my past mishaps, unintentional hurts bestowed on others and my immaturity.

Failure is simply when we do not live by our own truth, values or potential. Sometimes it is confusing which one of these is the issue at hand. When we inadvertently hurt others or ourselves through cruel words or actions, through deceit or falsity, or by immature or unconscious behavior, we most likely can look at it later and dissect the process. Through this disentangling, we might see where we did not live by our values, where we did not speak our deep inner truth, or where we fell short of being our best selves. Understanding ourselves more deeply can come if we take the time to consider our transgressions, to follow up with appropriate apologies and to do what it takes to no longer repeat our behavior that is causing us to fall short of who we feel we can be.

In the sweet knowledge of failure comes the deeper lesson of life. Sitting in judgment of ourselves by wallowing in guilt or ignoring others calling to us about how we have hurt them, we lose our opportunity to learn important life lessons. These opportunities to learn life lessons will come again, surely as the sun will rise and set, we can count on repeating our troubles until we finally learn from them. One way you might prove this to yourself is by listening for the “why does this always happen to me?” or “how did this happen again?” or “doesn’t anybody get me?” Taking the time to learn our lessons means we are less likely to repeat past failures and more likely to do the important work of creating inner peace for our selves and making amends with others.

My referring to my first marriage as my failure lasted for many years. I held myself to high standards, sat in judgment of myself when I didn’t live up to those standards, and felt I had transgressed a sacred contract. Upon many years of reflection and self-forgiveness, I came to allow my immaturity, my lack of self-knowledge, my misconstruing of my more important values and my inability to admit where I went wrong right away. During that process of self-reflection I had to forgive myself again and again for not being more aware, more ready to speak up and more honest about the real me to all involved, particularly my ex-husband. And in the midst of all those transgressions there was much, much good. Today I find myself with three incredible relationships with my adult children and the ability to look my ex-husband in the eye, smile, and know we did the best we could with the family we created in this world for a time. How can this be called a failure now? That would certainly do all of us a disservice and dishonor that part of my past.

Deep self-forgiveness is essential to our inner life and internal peace. Internal peace will be reflected in a world of outer peace, beginning with each of our individual worlds of relationships. Our failures are simply pointers to where we can grow and come to understand our full potential. Not using them for this is a waste of time and energy. Find your lesson in your so-called failure and then let it all go. The lesson will remain in your heart, making sweet honey for you and those you care about.

Welcome Grief

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I know, I know. Who does that? But we welcome joy – do we not? If we are going to engage fully in life, we will experience grief. The natural cycle of life is – birth, life, death – with many, many small and large cycles of this sort throughout this particular experience we term “my life”. Grief is a major part of loss and loss is a part of change. In resisting grief, we lose our opportunity to acquire and finesse the skills to navigate essential aspects of a fully lived life. Change is the one constant we can rely on in this world. Learning to live well through change and loss equates to sailing across stormy seas with an adequate ship.

Our culture sends us disturbing messages about what is normal in response to loss and the process of grieving. Some of the messages we receive, both direct and indirect, include:

• We should get over a loved one’s death in a matter of days to weeks – maybe months in the extreme case.
• Intense sadness and bereavement equates to depression that needs to be medicated.
• We fall short of ceremony and ritual that honors a person’s life and instead focus on the loss only.
• We resist death as if it were the enemy rather than the natural conclusion to a process that has a time limit.
• Our language and cultural habits do not support one another’s loss processes, most of it inhibits it or diminishes its value and importance.
• We lack understanding about many types of losses that can have an extreme impact on us and need time to recover from. Divorce, the ending of important friendships, loss of our hopes and dreams, loss of pets, financial loss – are just some examples.

Ways in which we might honor our loss process and open to grieving more readily are:

• Never put a time limit on the grieving process. It takes as long as it takes. A significant loss such as a child, a beloved spouse, a sibling, a dear friend may take years to grieve. For particular losses, we may grieve at times till our own death. I remember asking my grandmother, who lost her son at the age of ten to scarlet fever, if she thought of him much. Her immediate response was, “every day”. Enough said. Because we have funerals and wakes that last a matter of days does not mean that this is the appropriate grieving time. Grieving takes as long as it takes till our heart begins to mend from being broken or wounded by losing a loved one or an important aspect of our life.
• When I lost my dear friend and my dear cousin, I wailed, I sobbed; I cycled in and out of crying for a long time. My heart felt like it was going to break, again and again. I thought the feeling would never end as I was experiencing it. I lost interest for a time about most of my life, forcing myself to walk through the motions – no appetite, no enthusiasm, no joy were the theme for quite some time. Needing medication in order to function once again is a personal decision, but our culture seems to rush to medicate without allowing adequate time to feel the fullness of the loss, allowing ourselves to naturally return to life after our own particular grieving needs are met in whatever time that means for us.
• Our mainstream wake/funeral time is so brief and so quick to come after the loss, that we are rarely in an emotional or mental state to honor the individual well. Our gifts of life come through our experience of them, and then often, the loss of them. Looking at and cherishing those gifts are part of healing from loss. Finding ways to do this in time as the healing process evolves can help our hearts heal as they embody what was once there.
• Our inability to naturally welcome death, when we have the opportunity to do so, means we lose other opportunities to say goodbye well, review life and make amends and peace with our inconsistencies or lingering troubled relationships.
• “You’ll feel better soon”, or “it will be all right” are not phrases that help or soothe when our hearts are breaking. No words are better than words that indicate that things will be fine when we are in the midst of despair – we are just too far away from that point of return to care. It can actually hurt more if we feel expected to acknowledge that this “all right” time will come by imposing trite phrases on anyone while they are in the depths of despair.
• Losing a dream for our life can break our hearts just like the death of a loved one. Our dreams are our dear friends that live inside us and hold great meaning to us. Minimizing these losses by hurrying through them without giving them good attention and finding meaning in them only diminishes us.

We are all challenged to break the culture norm by casting off these indirect or direct messages that there is something bad or wrong with intense grieving. Losing out on a vital process that helps us actually recover, and then deepen our life experiences, means more loss in the end. Compounded losses lay heavy in us all when we do not honor our lives through grieving well and opening fully to this process. Welcome grief as the teacher and guide that it can be.

Love of Learning

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Our public school systems and institutionalized places of learning are not always inspiring for many of us. What I came to believe about myself during my early education in public schools was that I lacked any skills in art or writing (English). My strengths were languages and mathematics, so I sought further education down those academic paths. Although successful in my studies, work in the business world did not satisfy me. As my children grew older and I considered going back to work or school, I was horrified by the thought of returning to what I had done in the corporate accounting world. Remembering when I left my job to raise my family the vow I had made to myself never to look back, I set out on a journey to discover my real work in the world, not just something to do to make money. I was on a quest to find out who I was in this way.

What I discovered is that I am an artist of sorts. No, I am not a classical, talented oil painter of fine art like my son, but I do love arranging color through flowers, immensely enjoying the creative process of putting beauty in an order that appeals to me. Gardening became a passion as I kept a part of me alive though this creative process while my children were very young. My return to creative gardening during the past year with my new husband has been a delight for both of us, as has been decorating our home together. Our new perennial bed calls me to continue the process of arranging colors, shapes, heights and beauty as I gaze upon the creation thus far. I feel like an artist when I am in the kitchen surrounded by the beauty of fresh vegetables and fruits, herbs snipped from the garden, and a loaf of delicious baked bread. Making a meal in a leisurely way, really seeing the beauty of my creation, sitting with loved ones and enjoying a relaxing repast satisfies me deeply.

My return to higher education was not made until I had a clear sense of my purpose in that undertaking. During my graduate studies in Counseling Psychology, more often than not, I took great pleasure and interest in my courses, hungrily reading literature and writing my papers. My course of study felt like a course into my inner world, an organization of the review of my life and the “me” that had developed up to that point. As I engaged in my studies, I found another part of me that felt utterly natural and fulfilling, the therapeutic process. Leading others into their own inner world, encouraging them to look beyond their past wounds and current confusions, guiding them to honor their lives through making healthy choices all feel like an organic experience of “me” and my sense of connection to a divine source of wisdom. These studies complemented my growing personal study and interests in energy medicine.

Sharing spiritual studies with my son during our individual quests to delve deeply into the knowledge of the workings of the universe is another of my current passions. Our learning process is motivated by our internal desires to understand life both seen and unseen more fully, to develop ourselves to our highest potentials and to live with a sense of passion and joy everyday, just for the love of being alive, able to partake in this glorious and mystical endeavor of life. Without an assigned syllabus, but rather with the loose but important guidance of a teacher who has walked the path before us, searching for helpful books, learning exercises and meditations that enable our process to flourish, discussing insightful areas that may be boggling our minds for a time, and reveling in the positive energy we cultivate from our efforts all demonstrate our love of learning.

And now here I sit, writing daily, honing my new craft. What I once thought was one of my weakest skills has become my main pastime presently. In the past, I had compared myself with the great writers, and with my mother who is a gifted writer, always coming up quite short. In school, my grades indicated that this was not an area in which I would excel, therefore I shied away from writing and it became a difficult process. But I have found that the challenge and reward of expressing myself through honest writing is a newfound love. Engaging in the process of deeper healing through writing has been a liberating experience.

All of us have particular passion(s) for learning, whether we have discovered them yet or not. To find what makes our hearts beat faster, that which lights a spark of excitement within us; something that calls to a deeper part of us can be the journey of a lifetime. Do not let any lingering blasé that may have developed from our often rote way of educating in schools keep you from your own quest for living in awe and splendor of the world around you. Our own individual love of learning will be ignited when we are on our heartfelt path in life. We all deserve to travel that path; it’s our responsibility to ourselves to find it. And when we do, we have opened a door to whole new world.