To Learn Not To Punish

Have you done anything of late that you are not feeling too proud of?

Perhaps you’ve spoken badly of someone or failed at achieving a goal?

If you’ve been experiencing nagging guilt or shame about something, I invite you to consider offering yourself a fresh dose of forgiveness. I would like to offer you permission, if you need it, to take the grace you consistently grant to others and offer it to yourself (if only for a little while) today.

In his Just One Thing newsletter yesterday, Rick Hanson, PhD, wrote beautifully about the why’s and how’s of self-forgiveness.

He offered important insights about the “wholesome” purpose of guilt (to learn not to punish) and how our self-inflicted “needless suffering” can undermine how we are meant to show up for ourselves and for others.

“The only wholesome purpose of guilt, shame, or remorse is learning – not punishment! – so that you don’t mess up in that way again. Anything past the point of learning is just needless suffering. Plus excessive guilt, etc., actually gets in the way of you contributing to others and helping make this world a better place, by undermining your energy, mood, confidence, and sense of worth.”

Self-forgiveness makes us better. It doesn't just give us a pass.

If we confront our guilt over our actions with a genuine commitment to learning, we can begin to move through the discomfort and make the amends that are necessary. We can resolve to do better in the future and take pride in our progress, not succumb to disproportionate suffering and hideout (thus serving no one) in our shame.

Hanson suggests a strategy that I have not considered before. We can try looking objectively at our mistakes to consider where there were “moral faults” (we knew it was wrong and did it anyway) in our behavior and/or where we just lacked the skill (maybe practice in navigating difficult conversations) to meet the situation with the tact that was needed.

“Moral faults deserve proportionate guilt, remorse, or shame, but unskillfulness calls for correction, no more.”

We do not need to relentlessly punish ourselves for moments when we lacked the right skills at the time to do any better.

We do need to be accountable for what happened and do better next time. We need to identify what needs to change, then relax and keep practicing for when there’s a next time.

For Hanson, self-forgiveness is “Seeing faults clearly, taking responsibility for them with remorse and making amends, and then coming to peace about them.”

It’s certainly not simple to go through the process, but it’s not impossible and it prepares us to better handle challenges ahead.

I hope you will give self-forgiveness a try, for you and the people around you.

If you have a minute, please let me know how it goes.

Love,

Molly