09 Oct Happiness is…learning to forgive yourself
Check out this important article from our friends over at Soul Seeds…
Forgiveness is not something you do for someone else. It is something you do for yourself. An unforgiven injury binds you to a time and place someone else has chosen; it holds you trapped in a past moment and in old feelings.
It seems like one of life’s greatest challenges to forgive yourself, and often forgiving others falls into place when you forgive yourself because hostility towards others is often just unresolved self loathing in disguise. The incredible liberation you experience when you begin to forgive yourself is like a fog of bitterness that lifts. You see yourself, others and life more clearly and with greater compassion.
Forgiveness is an issue we all deal with in different ways. Maybe we are reminded of situations where we didn’t listen to our intuition and take action. This brings with it a heavy load of guilt. Others may need to forgive themselves for staying in abusive relationships for too long, or making choices that diminished your humanity. Most of us are haunted by something we wish we had done, or knew we should have done, and healing begins with forgiving yourself.
When I was in kindergarten I left the classroom one day to go to the bathroom. When I got there, I found my best friend, David, sitting on a stranger’s lap in the cubicle. I ran in terror back to the classroom and didn’t tell anyone what I’d seen. I was frozen in fear. Eventually word filtered around the room that David was missing, and I finally told the teacher what I had seen. Nothing else was ever said about it, and I never knew what happened to my friend. But my inability to immediately tell the teacher plagued me for years.
What was wrong with me? Why didn’t I speak up? It was my fault if David was hurt. I had made myself the perpetrator and bound myself for years to that time and old feeling. My self loathing wasn’t helping anyone, least of all myself. But I couldn’t move beyond it for years.
I noticed 5 steps that eventually helped to liberate me so I could move on.
Step One: Accept What Was
I couldn’t control the actions of the man, nor my friend. Whatever happened, happened, however devastating. I certainly can’t change what happened, and I can’t change what I did and didn’t do. Wishing it were otherwise now is a futile battle with reality and memory. The starting point is ACCEPTANCE.
Step Two: Reframe the Memory
I am left with a frame in my mind, a snapshot of something that happened a long time ago. My frame on the experience was laced with guilt for many years. Once I accepted the reality of whatever happened, I started to reframe it. My new frame was full of compassion (for myself). I was 5 years old, confused and terrified. I was also an innocent victim of the situation. My new frame is compassion; for myself, I did all I could do at that time, for my friend, he has lived with what happened to him, and even for the perpetrator. You can’t abuse kids without being very damaged yourself. It doesn’t excuse bad behavior or lack of self control, but it is a frame that enables me to move on…
…keep reading the full and original article HERE to learn more about steps 3-5.