Radical Self-Forgiveness by Tipping Colin

Author:Tipping, Colin [Tipping, Colin]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Self
Publisher: Sounds True
Published: 2010-12-31T22:00:00+00:00

STAGE 3: COLLAPSING THE STORY

Completing this step represents the end of the line as far as traditional forgiveness is concerned. This is because traditional forgiveness makes its appeal to the human self, and so the process must end at this point—there’s nowhere else to go.

It is in this third step that we ask the judging self to give way to the self-loving self. We need it to bring some heart-centered energy to the situation. It’s the self-loving self’s job at this stage to say to the judging self: “Yes, but have some compassion for me and try to understand why I did what I did. Yes, I am a flawed human being, and I did something wrong, but if those who are judging me could imagine what it might have been like for them, had they been walking in my shoes at that time, under the same bad conditions and with all the emotional baggage I was carrying, they might not be so judgmental. So, Mr. Judging Self and all those others out there who are criticizing me, do cut me some slack here, please. If you cannot, at least try to imagine me as I once was when I was a tiny baby—innocent, unspoiled, whole, loving, and trusting of those around me, a beautiful child of God.”

Opening our hearts to ourselves in this way, and asking others to do the same, helps us see ourselves as human beings with all our frailties and imperfections and allows us to become open to the possibility of being loved as we are. This is going to help us a great deal, too, in the Radical Self-Acceptance aspect, since this is what is meant by that phrase “loving ourselves exactly the way we are.”

Bringing compassion and empathy to a situation that needs forgiveness also has the effect of reducing the intensity of the other feelings that we have experienced about our crime, such as anger, self-recrimination, shame, and so on. It won’t do much about the guilt, though, since this process is directly related to what we did rather than how we interpreted it. However, this is also the step where we bring our rational minds to bear on the situation and ask ourselves some straightforward questions, like whether we are entitled to feel guilty. In other words, as we’ve already asked during this process, are our guilt and remorse appropriate or inappropriate?

If we find our guilt to be totally inappropriate, then there is nothing more we need to do. But even if we find that the guilt was appropriate, all we can do from a traditional-forgiveness standpoint is exercise our compassion and understanding, make a rational assessment of the situation, and then make the decision to forgive ourselves. But that’s easier said than done, and unfortunately traditional forgiveness offers little that would help us make such a decision. On the other hand, Radical Self-Forgiveness provides a way that is simple, quick, and easy.

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