Why Self-Forgiveness is So Hard (and Also Completely Possible)
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| Photo by Kristopher Roller on Unsplash |
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| one of my favorite old memes |
That's about 40 million people.
About 6.7% of adults in the U.S. have had at least one depressive episode.
That's about 16.1 million people.
There are many, many other diagnoses and there is a community of mental health professionals and survivors out there for each one.
And even if you're not "diagnose-able" by the manual of mental health as we know about it today - we still feel restless; disorganized; dissatisfied; irritated; angry; lost; empty; lonely.
So many of us sit at home, watching Netflix, scrolling on our phones, texting our friends and greeting our coworkers, pretending that everything is okay.
Sometimes I ask myself: Why do we do this? Why don't we say anything? And even when we do say something, we put it in the form of a joke. We post or tag each other in depressing memes, we like snarky tweets about our deteriorating minds, or we make a casual drop of a comment that gets brushed away easily.
Yes, there is the issue of trust and connection in our society. It's hard to find your 'tribe' these days.
But what lies beneath?
More often than not: shame.
When I was researching this topic, I found a groundbreaking author, Gershen Kaufman, who described shame as thus:
Guilt knows what we did wrong. Guilt knows what we can do to fix it.
The exposure of shame is the antidote to its grip on our lives.
Shame doesn't want to be revealed. Shame wants to live forever, unchanged.
Exposing shame is a powerful experience.
Such power requires an application of strength... some of which is really hard (if not impossible) to do on our own.
I believe shame is the root of why we don't say anything... and this is what makes self-forgiveness so damn difficult.
I've been doing a lot of self-reflection this year... (well, even more self-reflection than usual, I suppose.. for my standards..😜)
I've been pretty critical of my own writing and struggling with what I believe is good and helpful and meaningful. And one of the things I want to address this year is the practicality of my 'actionable' items. So here it goes.
If I were a doctor and I wanted to prescribe you something for your shame, I would say: connection.
Take these [connections], 3 times a day for 30 days. Talk to someone in the morning, in the afternoon, and at night. Take them with every meal.
Say hello and good morning at first.
Laugh about something ridiculous later.
Share something irritating about work.
Empathize with some disappointment from the day.
Talk when you usually shut people out.
Breathe when you usually shout.
Begin a sentence with "I feel..." and end it with "when..."
Have a full on rant session.
Cry and then laugh together.
Start over and say hello.
Seeing the humanity in someone else, healing them and healing yourself in one fluid motion. Or 1000 disjointed motions grouped together. After all, the beautiful thing about a mosaic is the brokenness banding together.
I'm not a doctor. And I know connection is not as simple sometimes as that.
What I do know:
* We often discredit the power of personal connection with each other. People are saved from anxiety-depression-grief-suicide, not by applying logic or scientific reasoning (in the moment), but by bravery to reach across and through painful moments to pull out the human inside.
* Connecting with others has given me the chance to practice the kindness I truly do want for myself. It's given me the power to repeatedly look shame in the face and say:
But what lies beneath?
More often than not: shame.
When I was researching this topic, I found a groundbreaking author, Gershen Kaufman, who described shame as thus:
The differentiating of shame from guilt is essential.Shame is the experience of being fundamentally bad as a person.It is the breaking of the interpersonal bridge.Nothing you have done is wrong, and nothing you can do will make up for it.It is a total experience that forbids communication with words.
Guilt knows what we did wrong. Guilt knows what we can do to fix it.
The exposure of shame is the antidote to its grip on our lives.
Shame doesn't want to be revealed. Shame wants to live forever, unchanged.
Exposing shame is a powerful experience.
Such power requires an application of strength... some of which is really hard (if not impossible) to do on our own.
I've been doing a lot of self-reflection this year... (well, even more self-reflection than usual, I suppose.. for my standards..😜)
I've been pretty critical of my own writing and struggling with what I believe is good and helpful and meaningful. And one of the things I want to address this year is the practicality of my 'actionable' items. So here it goes.
Take these [connections], 3 times a day for 30 days. Talk to someone in the morning, in the afternoon, and at night. Take them with every meal.
Say hello and good morning at first.
Laugh about something ridiculous later.
Share something irritating about work.
Empathize with some disappointment from the day.
Talk when you usually shut people out.
Breathe when you usually shout.
Begin a sentence with "I feel..." and end it with "when..."
Have a full on rant session.
Cry and then laugh together.
Start over and say hello.
Seeing the humanity in someone else, healing them and healing yourself in one fluid motion. Or 1000 disjointed motions grouped together. After all, the beautiful thing about a mosaic is the brokenness banding together.
What I do know:
* We often discredit the power of personal connection with each other. People are saved from anxiety-depression-grief-suicide, not by applying logic or scientific reasoning (in the moment), but by bravery to reach across and through painful moments to pull out the human inside.
* Connecting with others has given me the chance to practice the kindness I truly do want for myself. It's given me the power to repeatedly look shame in the face and say:
"Goodbye."
I'm in the process of working on posts as well as projects having to do with building the necessary tools for genuine human connection - and educating people on resources and vocabulary of current mental health therapies and other modalities. If you have questions or insights, I'd love to hear them! Please comment or email me at chaymultaneously@gmail.com 💚
More resources on self-forgiveness:
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