Turning a Corner: The Practice of Self-Forgiveness

Introduction

• Listen to the following video (or audio clip) yourself and/or share it with your colleagues.
• Next, answer the “Reflection After the Practice” questions, individually, and/or in small groups.

Video:

Audio only:

Video/Audio Transcript

Orienting to the Practice [0-1:14]

Educators these days are held to impossibly high standards—parents, supervisors, administrators, fellow staff, the children—so many wants in such little time.

I think there’s a special place in heaven for educators. I come from a line of educators, and in some sense, I am one myself. I’ve done a little bit of work in school districts, and wow, as soon as I did it, I was aware of how challenging and difficult it is.

So, in that context, obviously things happen in which we feel like we’re falling short. We didn’t meet some standard. Maybe there’s criticism coming at us. Maybe that criticism or that sense of falling short is surfacing previous experiences of feeling inadequate or “less than” or mad at ourselves.

What can we do about that? This is where self-forgiveness comes in, which includes recognizing how to do better next time, while letting go of beating yourself up for the last time.

Forgiveness is like turning a corner. You’re aware of what’s on that other street. You’re not running away from it, but you’re no longer carrying that burden everywhere you go. So I’m going to offer a few suggestions, and you can take as much time with this as you like, including pausing the recording.

The Practice [1:15-4:28]

• Taking a Bird’s Eye View: Pick something that you’re wanting to forgive in yourself and take a little time to go up to the bird’s eye view. Look at all that happened, all the many factors outside you, inside you, and even get a sense of how those factors reach back in time, all these upstream causes and conditions swirling together to lead to whatever happened. Big picture, some of it may have been about you. Some of it might have been your responsibility. Some of it might be an opportunity for some learning. And so much of it probably maybe even all of it, it’s really not about you, no fault, no blame. So big picture.
• Appreciating Your Effort to Learn: Consider all that you’ve done to learn from the experience, repair, and make amends as best you can, and the sincere efforts that you’ve made to deal with whatever happened. Appreciate that. Appreciate all those efforts.
• Leaning Into Self-Forgiveness: Be willing to forgive yourself. Be willing to recognize lessons learned. Be willing, perhaps, to have a little wince of appropriate remorse about something, but you’re not carrying it with you, be willing to turn that corner. And so here is where you can actively remind yourself that you don’t need to keep criticizing yourself. You don’t need to keep beating yourself up. There’s no more value in that you learned the lesson. You might make gestures of laying down a burden, letting it go,and know in your own heart that you really have made efforts to learn the lesson or to clean up the mess or make repairs as best you could, to resolve for the future, and be aware of your own, frankly—goodness—in this process. And be aware also that whatever happened that you’re forgiving in yourself is alongside 1000s, 10s of 1000s or more of little acts of thought, word, and deed that were beautiful, came from your goodness, came from your movement of service and your own good heart. So it’s in that larger context that whatever happened has happened here to you. And you can bring to yourself the same qualities of warmth and letting go and perspective that you would bring to another person, if it’s appropriate for them to receive that warmth and perspective and release, it’s appropriate for you to receive that as well, even if it’s you who is offering that to yourself.
• Finding a Sense of Relief: So we’ll just take a few little moments here as we finish up to see if you can get a sense of a kind of relief or release sinking into you a little bit like a soothing balm of kindness for yourself, sweetness and support for yourself again, much as you would offer to another person who had been walking in your shoes, see if you can let it land, it’s okay to let It land, and as you let forgiveness land in yourself, actually, you will be a better teacher for it, a better person. You’ll be freed up of the preoccupations on that other street, as you go down a new street, one day at a time, into your own future, you can even appreciate yourself for being willing here and now to do what can be the hard work of self-forgiveness.

Source

Rick Hanson, Ph.D.

Evidence That It Works

What makes us more or less likely to forgive ourselves for a perceived wrongdoing? When researchers analyzed the thinking of 80 adults, they identified four overarching themes. Participants who were more likely to forgive rather than condemn themselves 1) focused more on the present and future rather than the past, 2) could acknowledge their personal limitations and their responsibility relative to the wrongdoing in question, 3) could accept their flaws while also reconnecting with their values, and 4) used coping strategies to not only reduce negative feelings, but to better understand what actually happened. In the practice above, Rick Hanson highlights each of these orientations to encourage an attitude of self-forgiveness.

A recent meta-analysis of 21 research studies indicates that self-forgiveness yields a range of benefits to our psychological health. Self-forgiveness can reduce self-blame, anxiety, and depression while lowering stress hormones like cortisol—so it also has the potential to improve our physical health. Further, forgiving ourselves can help us to end cycles of self-criticism and rumination.

Why Does it Matter?

Educators tend to hold ourselves to impossibly high standards, and when we don’t meet them, we can be particularly hard on ourselves. Unfortunately, relentless self criticism takes up precious mental space that could otherwise be tapped for addressing a mistake and moving on.

According to forgiveness expert Robert Enright, when we are able to forgive ourselves for past behaviors, we 1) accept responsibility, 2) let go of self-directed negative emotions, and 3) nurture more positive emotions toward ourselves. This sense of release (and relief!) can free us up to be more present and attuned to others, including our students and colleagues.

Self-forgiveness, however, is more of a process that happens over time rather than an “on-off switch.” With this in mind, practicing a stance of self-forgiveness can help us open to the possibility of letting go of the past. When we are able to find a balance between taking responsibility and maintaining a positive sense of our worth, we are practicing self-forgiveness.