Self Forgiveness As The Path Towards Awakening

Self-forgiveness is the willingness to abandon self resentment and accept responsibility for one's actions, while fostering compassion, generosity, and love towards oneself. It aligns with self-compassion and involves being kind to oneself in the face of difficulty. A guided meditation is provided to practice self-forgiveness, which includes opening to the pain of remorse, being self-compassionate, recognizing the factors that led to the mistake, offering forgiveness, and making a resolve and commitment to not repeat the same, in the future.

Transcript

So,

Welcome to our practice today and today we'll be discussing how we move towards Self-Forgiveness.

So,

Self-Forgiveness is the willingness to abandon self-resentment in the face of one's own acknowledged objective wrong while fostering compassion,

Generosity and love towards oneself.

This is a textbook definition but we all know the textbooks don't do justice to individual situations.

So,

The ideal process of Self-Forgiveness involves the transgressor accepting an appropriate amount of responsibility,

Experiencing sufficient levels of guilt to promote reparative behaviors and personal growth and then releasing guilt that no longer serves as a usual function.

But this is often not realized in real life.

Many of us avoid guilty feelings altogether by taking emotional shortcuts to make ourselves feel better.

So,

What is Self-Forgiveness?

I'll repeat it again.

Self-Forgiveness is the willingness to abandon self-resentment in the face of one's own acknowledged objective wrong while fostering compassion,

Generosity and love towards oneself.

So,

There are three aspects to this.

One is the willingness to abandon self-resentment.

So,

Resentment which harbors in ourselves,

The willingness to let go of that.

A second aspect is that we acknowledge some objective wrong we may have done.

We accept it without trying to push it away.

And third,

We foster the aspects of compassion,

Generosity and love towards oneself.

So,

To actively forgive oneself,

What does that mean?

So,

One must view that whatever we've done in from a broader perspective and realize that we are human.

In this way,

Self-Forgiveness kind of aligns with Self-Compassion.

Whereas the latter,

The Self-Compassion involves being kind towards being kind towards self in the face of difficulty while recognizing that we are all part of the same human condition.

So,

We'll do a practice and then I will come back to five steps of Self-Forgiveness.

So,

Let us begin a simple meditation on Self-Compassion and Forgiveness.

So,

I invite you to close your eyes and bring your awareness to this moment,

The present moment.

I invite you to feel whatever it is that you're feeling.

Notice whatever it is that you are noticing.

We all make mistakes,

Yet many of us have great difficulty coming to terms with our mistakes.

Healthy response to mistake is Self-Forgiveness.

So,

Finding a comfortable posture in which you are alert and relaxed.

Gently closing your eyes,

If that is convenient for you today.

Gently closing your eyes,

If that is convenient for you today.

Really take two or three really deep breaths as you get settled.

And some of us might find this a bit difficult,

But let us try to practice it.

Bring to mind a person who you may have caused some pain.

So,

Maybe think of a specific event or situation that occurred in the relationship that you regret and for which you would like to forgive yourself.

If this is the first time you are contemplating this practice,

Select a situation that is not causing you a huge amount of distress,

Perhaps two to three on a 10-point scale.

So,

Something on the lighter end.

So,

Take a few moments here to consider how your actions may have affected that other person.

As you do this,

Uncomfortable feelings like guilt or remorse may show up.

As best you can,

Allow these feelings to be here in your body exactly as they are.

This is the definition of courage.

Allowing feelings to be there exactly as they are takes courage.

Notice where in your body you experience these emotions and what physical sensations are accompanying them.

Perhaps you are experiencing some tightness.

Maybe there is a contraction in the stomach.

Maybe you can notice your breath changing slightly.

Maybe you can notice tingling or butterflies somewhere.

Whatever you are experiencing,

Do your best to stay with it.

Be gentle with yourself.

Do your best to open to these difficult feelings and see if you can space them somehow.

Making space for them helps you hold it with courage.

Again,

Any moment you are feeling that this is not possible,

I invite you to step out of the practice.

Just bring your mind to the breath and simply be there for the rest of the practice.

But if you are here ready to open up for forgiveness,

Perhaps deepen your breath slightly.

And as you inhale,

Imagine your breath flowing down into the part of the body where those sensations are strongest.

So rather than pushing this experience away,

See if you can simply let it be.

Perhaps silently say to yourself,

Whatever this is,

It is okay.

Let me open to it.

Let me feel it.

Stay with whatever you are experiencing without reacting to it.

Whatever this is,

It's okay.

Let me open to it.

Let me feel it.

And so you likely feel as though you have acted wrongly in this instance.

If this is so,

Remind yourself that mistakes are a part of being human.

The fact that you have done something wrong does not mean that there is something wrong with you.

The fact that you did something bad does not mean you are a bad person completely.

And see if you can offer yourself some words of kindness for your suffering in all of this.

Perhaps say to yourself something along the lines of,

May I be kind to myself?

May I accept me despite my mistakes?

You might like to place a hand on your heart or somewhere else and allow feelings of compassion to flow through your palm into your body.

Stay here for as long as you need to,

Repeating these words of kindness silently to yourself.

May I be kind to myself?

May I accept me despite my mistakes?

May I be kind to myself?

May I accept me despite my mistakes?

It is okay.

We are only human.

Take a moment now to consider what led you to your mistake.

What factors may be affecting you at that time?

For example,

You might have been under a great deal of stress,

Going through some sort of personal issue.

Or you may be coerced or pushed into doing,

Or you might just have had a really bad day.

Now I invite you to have a go at offering forgiveness by saying something along the lines of,

May I begin to forgive myself for what I've done?

May I begin to forgive myself for what I've done that caused this person pain?

Using a soft,

Gentle,

Kind inner tone,

Repeat this phrase silently to yourself.

May I begin to forgive myself for what I have done that caused this person pain?

And again,

We do this a couple more times.

May I begin to forgive myself for what I've done that caused this person pain?

May I begin to forgive myself for what I have done that caused this person pain?

Now I invite you to notice the forgive in this sentence.

May I begin to forgive myself.

May I begin to forgive myself for what I may have done that caused this person pain?

Thinking of it this way,

Why do we fall?

So we learn to get up.

As children,

We fall constantly.

As children,

We fall constantly.

And then each time we fall,

We find a way to get up.

And the good news about making mistakes is that we can learn from them.

Or not.

Maybe there is nothing to learn which is also a learning.

What can you learn from this situation?

What will you do differently if this sort of situation arises in the future?

Now if it feels right to do so,

You might like to make a promise to yourself.

A promise to not hurt other person in this manner again as best as you can.

And the promise to forgive yourself when you can't.

Now to finish the practice,

I invite you to take three centering breaths,

Cleansing breaths.

Once you have finished,

I invite you to return the breath to its natural rhythm and gently open your eyes.

And re-engage with the rest of your day today.

And reflect on what was it like to allow yourself to feel the pain associated with hurting someone else?

Would you offer yourself compassion even though you may have felt undeserving?

That takes practice,

But it's possible.

Did it help to identify factors that led you to this behavior?

Maybe,

Maybe not.

It does not really matter.

But what factors came up?

How did it feel to say the forgiveness phrases to yourself?

And how do you feel now with regards to that incident?

So these are some questions to reflect.

And before we go,

As I promised at the beginning of this practice,

Self-forgiveness consists of five steps.

So the first step is opening to the pain of remorse.

Second step is being self-compassionate in that adversity.

Third state is recognizing that the situation was a consequence of many interdependent actions that were taken in the past.

Fourth state is recognizing that the situation was a consequence of many interdependent and independent causes and conditions.

Four,

Offering self-forgiveness.

And five,

A resolve and the courage to not repeat the same mistake and also knowing that you are there for yourself if you do.

So these are the ways in which you can practice self-forgiveness.

And I hope you found this useful practice today with me,

Nikhil.

And if you'd like to share any thoughts about your self-forgiveness journey,

What you struggle with,

What you actually find easy and any thoughts about self-forgiveness,

Please do share in the comments and let others know about these practices and how it can help people.

So thank you for taking your time out and being here with me.

I really appreciate it.

If you like what we do here,

Please consider following and helping us bring more of this to as many people as possible.

Helping us bring more of this to as many people as possible.

So thank you and have a wonderful day.

Keep practicing.

Practice makes progress and much more.

Reviews

Thank you.

Great to hear this session again. It is a practice I can do more often. It is a great reminder. Thank you🙏🏽👌🏽💞💞💞