Tag Archives: blame

Forgive yourself: You’ll not only feel better, you’ll be better

Psychological growth, Spiritual direction, , , , , , ,

We usually think of forgiveness as a relational matter. They hurt me; they need to apologize. I did some wrong; I have to admit it and ask forgiveness. You may theoretically believe that is true, right? But living it out in the real world can be difficult. It is much easier to blame or avoid than reconcile.

We need to figure out forgiveness to save the world from its perpetual lack of reconciliation. As we do that, we actualize our own true self and get reconciled inside. Because forgiveness is not just between two people, is also an internal, psychological, and spiritual necessity. You also have a relationship with yourself, too. If we don’t sort out all the different voices that make up our inner dialogue, there is perpetual conflict going on inside of us, too!

For instance, last week I put out my weekly blog post a day earlier than I intended —  no big deal really. But I made the mistake because I thought Sunday was Monday! I was ready to call some computer someone somewhere to find out why my machines were all off! I finally figured out I was off and felt ashamed of myself for jumping to a wrong conclusion that cost me an hour of turmoil — so embarrassing! I accepted my “sin,” but the feelings of guilt and shame stuck with me. I did a dumb thing. Then I felt ashamed because I couldn’t let go of those feelings! What a flawed psychotherapist! I was not forgiving myself. I needed some inner reconciliation. Otherwise, I might have carried around my secret shame right through the terrific meeting at Salt and Light!

We know Jesus will forgive our sins when we confess our sins. But will we cooperate by forgiving ourselves? Some would say “Forgiving yourself is not that important if Jesus already did it.” Maybe. But I know a lot of people who are forgiven in principle but have never experienced a minute of that forgiveness in their hearts. Their presentation of themselves in the world is forgiven, which is good as far as that goes. But their inner being is unforgiving, critical, harsh and living under the law of some childhood jungle in which they grew up. Maybe you aren’t fully forgiven by Jesus if you won’t forgive yourself.

by Jaroslav Samoilenko

Hard on yourself?

How many times have I heard, “I think it will all get better if I just try harder. I’m having trouble doing what I want to do, but when I do, it will all be fine.” Such a person never even gets to square one of life with Jesus because they are still negotiating whether his lovingkindness is something they can live in and express, especially toward themselves. As a matter of fact, they may be quite loving to others but hard as nails with themselves. They might have a loud inner voice that even says, “Look how bad you are at forgiving yourself!” Or even harder, “If you don’t love others rightly, you’ll be damned!” Or very logical, “If you ‘forgive yourself,’ pretty soon you’ll never confess a sin and not even be a Christian!” Rather than letting guilt and shame pass through like regular emotions, every criticism and failure sticks to them like they are flypaper, until it is hard to hear the voice of love for all the buzzing. Does any of this sound familiar?

Do you struggle with forgiving yourself? Probably. I think most of us have been quite confused about  the subject. Most of us seem to be balancing whether we are too easy on ourselves, or rationalizing our bad behavior — at times wondering whether we are too hard on ourselves, and at times condemning ourselves. Such questions are what any wise person would want to ponder, of course. But the Bible tends to go beyond them. Paul assumes we are all unjustifiable (Romans 3:23), and we’re all likely to think too highly of ourselves (Romans 12:3). His remedy is not to admit we are self-condemning and self-congratulating at the same time; he wants us to accept where we are at and accept that Jesus is with us there. Likewise, Jeremiah asserts that we deceive ourselves about our condition; we’re a mystery to ourselves, but God can truly interpret our hearts (Jeremiah 17:9-10).

Don’t you think it qualifies as a “sin” to hold ourselves in contempt even when God prizes us and has forgiven our sin (2 Corinthians 2:6-8)? Let’s consider how to forgive ourselves and be reconciled inside as well as out. Then we might be able to feel God’s compassion in our anguished souls. If you already feel some resistance to the very thought of that, this post might be for you, especially.

Why forgive ourselves?

Only God can forgive sin, so we are not talking about that, OK? I’m talking about cooperating with the Spirit of forgiveness beating on the door of our guilt and shame. We’ve been gods to ourselves and it is strangely different to come at our sense of responsibility for being good from the place of being forgiven. We are born again by forgiveness and, like so many things in Christ, we need to grow up into it.

Remember: All who are in Christ are freed from condemnation (Romans 8:1) and freed to love (Galatians 5:13). We are meant to display the mercies of God as sinners forgiven of their sins (1 Timothy 1:15-16).

Extending grace and kindness to oneself and others is the transformation God effects in those who have received His grace and kindness. God’s kindness leads to repentance, that is, the Presence of kindness leads us to agree with God’s loving way of seeing us. Such gentleness is only possible for us because Jesus has set us free from the power of sin, the tyranny of self-rule, and the oppression of evil. Jesus said “If the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed” (John 8). The starting point of forgiving ourselves is experiencing God’s forgiveness.

Keys to forgiving yourself

Clarify responsibility

Blame is tricky. Sometimes we blame ourselves for the injuries other people cause. For instance, many neglected or abused children think they must be to blame for not being cared for because they are unlovable. On the other hand, we sometimes blame others for things that are really all about us —  it is called projection. What we find shameful or unbearable, we cast on others and despise it, or assume someone else made us feel and act as we do.

When we are blaming ourselves or others, we need to sit back and do some mentalizing. Before we start reacting inside with self-loathing or outside with abusive behavior, we need clarity: What is mine and what belongs to someone else? What might be coming at me from the society, in general?

“Clarifying” who is responsible for the injury might sound like we could get caught in an endless inventory of our troubles, as if more clarity is all we need. But I think we need to go deeper than that. I am really talking about simple self-care. We feel better when our feet are on the solid ground of reality, even if that reality initially causes us some pain.

One of the reasons we shy away from clarity is because we feel things about it. We might be angry. We might have unfinished business with a perpetrator we have displaced  on people who bumped into our trigger. We might feel confused, even paralyzed. But we need to risk seeing it all clearly, since if we do not clarify who to forgive: ourselves, others, or whoever, lack of forgiveness will probably make us sick. It’s terrifying to face our pain, and so it seems easier to take the blame for it or cast the blame for it. But it is better to have a clear look at what is really going on so we can be appropriately responsible and appropriately gracious. It is deeper to have compassion for ourselves. Clarifying who needs forgiving is a good first step.

Renounce the dark comfort of your badness

You have probably heard someone say this, too, ” God can’t forgive me; I’m beyond grace.” I heard someone say on TV the other night, “I’ll see my mother again in hell.” Sometimes an unwillingness to seek forgiveness and live in God’s grace is a matter of pride – I did it my way. But more likely, doing life our own way is a matter of despair — it is all we think we can do, we’re alone. You may hear a voice that tells you. “You need to earn God’s favor and that of others.” But then you likely have another voice chime in to say, “You are too flawed to do that. You keep trying and you never make it.”

Self-justification is the universal spiritual disease that leads to spiritual death (Romans 6:23). Self-condemnation also leads to spiritual death: “For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation and brings no regret, but worldly grief produces death” (2 Corinthians 7:10). We need to give up both of them. We need to be forgiven by God and then work with her to forgive ourselves — feel the love of God healing us and the power of God transforming us.

 Seek repair/make amends/foment reconciliation

 One of the best feelings in life is to sincerely say, “I am sorry I did that to you. Please forgive me.” I think someone read that line and immediately thought sarcastically, “Right.”  Some of us choke on the words “Please forgive me” because they are among the most vulnerable words one can say. They admit we’re guilty. We did something bad. We did not earn it. We are not perfect. We need something from the other person: forgiveness.

As hard as each may be, every act of forgiveness changes the world a little more, or at least stops it from going down the drain so fast. Jesus is quite radical when he tells us to go to our brother and sister and win them to a reconciled relationship (Matt. 18). That’s what God was doing in Jesus. His whole life is an invitation to connect in love, forever. His suffering is not just to fulfill some cosmic law, it is the natural process of being self-giving. When we acknowledge our responsibility for pain or the responsibility of others and seek to make things right, our experience of God’s love and forgiveness opens up, maybe even because someone forgives us or receives our forgiveness! When I experience the forgiveness of God and others I can extend it more readily to myself. (Ephesians 4)

The same experience Jesus describes going on between people, needs to go on inside us. We need to seek repair and foment wholeness in our hearts, as broken as they may be. We are prone to duking it out inside. The things we say to ourselves! I won’t write any examples because they are often unprintable. The shame that locks us into a secret view of ourselves that haunts our days! Forgiveness is an inside and out revolution.

Love with abandon

Jesus identified loving God with your whole heart and loving your neighbor as you love yourself as the two greatest commandments. He told his disciples to “Love one another as I have love you” – he assumed, of course, his disciples were letting  him love them. We are all invited to walk in love with Jesus. All of Christ’s teachings assume some new spiritual thing will happen in us, including that we will love ourselves like we experience God loving us. I am not sure we can keep loving others authentically if we do not experience the lovingkindness of God in our souls — and 95% of us want to do that.

Jesus is given over to love. He loves with abandon. Love requires courage and boldness because love is always costly and opens us to possible suffering. No one who has friends, lovers, children or a mate has never suffered for love. It calls for sacrifice. It is sometimes unrequited. It is easily misunderstood. Sometimes we refuse to forgive because we are protecting ourselves from the demands of love. Maybe right now you resent being told you need to do something you don’t feel like doing or don’t think you can do. Maybe you think it is unjust to forgive or you fear you will be diminished if you give into a bad person. But love and intimacy are only possible when we are vulnerable to being hurt again.

Love is kind — not only to others but to ourselves. Love keeps no record of wrongs — not only of others but of ourselves. Those are lovely seed-thoughts from 1 Corinthians 13. Our spiritual instincts tell us that even though our failure to forgive ourselves hinders our love for others, our meager attempts at doing it, met by the meager love others show for us is not for nothing. The process of bravely loving others facilitates self-forgiveness, too.

As soon as you read those lines, you may have noticed how you are not kind to yourself and how your record of your wrongs is quite complete. But don’t give up on yourself! God won’t. John lovingly writes to his disciples (1 John 3), “Little children, let us love not in word or speech but in deed and truth. And by this we will know that we are from the truth and will reassure our hearts before him whenever our hearts condemn us, for God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything.”

Get help

If you are hard on yourself and struggle with forgiving yourself, a therapist might help. Most people think forgiving others and being forgiven is the right way to go. Even so, more and more people these days are shying away from love because conflict and break ups could happen. They feel unprepared and unskilled in a fundamental feature of intimacy: forgiveness. A therapist might help you get started on better relationships with others and with yourself in many ways, including learning how to forgive yourself.

Validation: It’s basic to happy relationships

Marriage and Family, Psychological growth, , , , , ,

“The need for validation is a fundamental human desire to be seen, appreciated, and accepted by others, but it becomes problematic when this need is constant and fuels a cycle of dependency on external approval for one’s self-worth.”

That’s what A.I. summarized for me. Thanks A.I., I hear you. You scraped the internet and formed a boiled-down perspective which you were designed to present authoritatively. I get that. The best part about what you said, is that I need to watch how I respond to you, or I might become dependent on you to approve of my thinking — or do it for me.

Whether A.I. can “relate” or not, validation is a crucial component of marriage communication. But in many long-term relationships, married or otherwise, it goes missing because partners fear being over-dependent, or think they might look like they are agreeing with someone when they don’t. If fear wins out, stingy validation will undermine love, and we might end up with a lonely independence and a longing for someone with whom we can disagree.

Every day we have to discern how connected or independent we should be. Many of the questions we have and feelings which get triggered in the process of this discernment are unfinished business from our childhood, or wounds and hopes left over from past intimacies. Fortunately, the loving safety of a listening, nonjudgmental partner is one of the best places in creation to figure things out and keep moving toward wholeness. If you are not married, friends, relatives and even professionals can provide a similar space.

Rikki and Jimmy have a lot of good things to say on the subject of communicating validation if you like your info delivered by podcast:

Blame poisons validation

Suppose I am talking to my wife in the kitchen after I have returned from the office later than expected. She is already cooking dinner, alone again, as I recount traffic stories. She drops a knife on the floor and it barely misses her foot. She picks it up off the floor and shakes it in my direction as she says, “One of these days you will make me so upset, I’ll end up in the hospital.”  What does one do with that?

The need to answer such questions is why I think a lot of people refuse to get married or even get into a relationship. Intimacy is so uncontrollable and A.I. makes it seem like we ought to get it just right all the time.

So I might not get it just right when I responded. A typical response to “One of these days” might be defensive, since every time you tell your partner “you” (especially when you are holding a knife!) it will arouse their defenses, justly or not. So you might typically respond with, “I did not make you drop a knife” — or, more gently, “What the fuck?” So much for dinner. The evening might end up with the relationship in a doom loop of hurtful recriminations.

I am not sure what might be the best response to the wife’s statement; our loves all have their own context and complexities, after all. But I hope I would remember the one piece of advice I retained from marriage counseling a long time ago and “move into the emotion, even if it is anger.” I would like to take “One of these days you” and just let it move right by and out of my attention — the first thing our mates say are probably not what they will ultimately get to, if I actually listen [more on this]. And I would take the catastrophizing “I’ll end up in the hospital” and not automatically jump into saving her from disaster.

Instead, I would like to go with “emotions first” and zero in on the one feeling word she gave me and validate it with some sympathetic listening. “You’re upset. Tell me.” If you really wanted to validate her experience, you might add “Dinner can wait. You’re more important. Let’s take a few minutes.”

If we ponder how to relate, it is more likely we will feel confident about what is the best thing to say to the messy person we love. Even better, if we have spent some time in God’s care, we are less likely to sponge up all the blame igniting our reservoir of oily self-loathing. Experiencing the grace of God is eternally validating.

But doesn’t A.I. think we need to be defensive?

As I nosed around the topic of validation on the internet, I was kind of surprised that A.I. immediately did two things with it:

  1. It represented validation mostly as a need we have, not as an action we take.
  2. It immediately highlighted how we could become excessively dependent on being validated.

This is the second half of its summary first paragraph:

This intense need often stems from childhood experiences like criticism or neglect, and can manifest in people-pleasing or an excessive reliance on social media for affirmation. To reduce the dependency on external validation, it’s helpful to practice self-validation through journaling, positive affirmations, setting personal boundaries, fostering inner stillness, and connecting with supportive communities.

From what I know about A.I., which is very little, so far, it is mainly feeding back preponderant themes from the materials it purloined from all of us. My particular query makes me think there must be a lot of teachers in the last ten years who think we need to stop relying so much on external validation and learn to validate ourselves.

I don’t disagree. In fact, I care for people who fit the description in italics above to a T (see Matt. 5:18 for “T is for tittle”). This week I encouraged various people to exercise all five of A.I.’s suggestions for self-care. I didn’t really call them “self-validation,” since I think that idea can leave someone feeling terribly alone and over-responsible for correctly responding to a wagging knife. Besides, the process of therapy we were going through was intrinsically validating, so it would have been odd to act like it was important to do it by oneself.

What’s more, I think “self-validation,” as important as it may be, is still a form of “externality.” We are capable of standing outside ourselves, so to speak, and seeing ourselves as we are and accepting how we are, at the moment.

Parsing the A.I. summary a bit more, I think its takedown of social media is apt. When needy people I know have given up Instagram, they get a better chance to feel happy. But generally, A.I’s statement seems too defensive to me. It is hard to feel validated by someone if you don’t need anyone, or you think you need to look for a better mate every time they don’t get it just right.

A.I. seems to be stuck on the dichotomy of “fuzzy” vs. “bounded” sets, when relationships like marriage need to be “centered sets.” That means the problem with needing validation it points out is not really that your boundaries are too fuzzy or too bounded, it is that your relationship is not centered by something greater than either of you. That something could be the marriage itself, or love, or God, or family rather than just oneself taking care of oneself. [I talk about that third way more, here]. In the search to get validated or quest to not need to be, we could end up with a perpetually skeptical look at our loved ones; they could be guilty of not loving me until proven adequate.

We need to feel accepted and loved.

Like I keep saying, it appears that the main thing A.I. thinks we need to do when we yearn for validation is to attend to our wounds so we don’t need it too much. I think it  is representing our society’s discomfort with vulnerability. We hear, “Don’t be weak,” all the time, even though we all feel weak, in some way, every day and inevitably get weaker as we age. An extreme example of this discomfort might be the “Lions Not Sheep” clothing brand that has infected “alpha-male” Evangelical gatherings. Some men grasp at personal power to feel valid (women too).

However we go about getting it or avoiding it, we all need validation. We all need to feel seen and accepted. When I look at people struggling with that, I usually see these things:

1) Wanting to be seen and valued is a normal human desire. Since most of our desires are bent, that need can trip us up if abuse or neglect, accompanied by shame makes us desperately hungry for it.

2) Being blamed kills our confidence. As children, we often take the blame for being criticized or neglected. If our parents focused more on our appropriate behavior and success than on our  inherent worth, our shaky sense of self might need propped up by someone else’s approval.

3) Toxic individualism needs to die off. U.S. society is a hypermodern place. It is every man, especially, for himself (see Chaucer). The cultural emphasis on individualism can make admitting the desire for validation feel weak or shameful, leading people to hide their need. What’s more, In the present disaster we’re in, the sense of being on a sinking ship can make saving oneself seem like the only option.

4) Most of us tend toward low self-esteem. For Christians, a lack of “pride” is said to lead to an infusion of value through the grace of God. But if one is not secure in that grace they can end up stuck, secretly manipulating others to get the reassurance and affirmation they think is selfish to need — and deeply angry about not getting it.

How to validate

When Jesus said, “Give and it will be given to you” he was not only making a promise, he was noting a universal truth. Self-giving love is the generative source of life and happiness. Our endlessly-difficult relationships are where we learn this. And even if we try not to have them, we are still going to have relationships to teach us.  To give your partner the best chance to flourish and reciprocate your love, be sure to validate them. Try not to lay in wait to get validated and keep score if you don’t get what you need.

Take the initiative to validate someone’s feelings even before you expect to get validated in return. To do that, listen attentively, ask clarifying questions to understand their perspective, and acknowledge their emotions without judgment or offering solutions. Maybe you two will come to agreement later, but that will be even more unlikely if you do not feel accepted as who you are right now.

So here are that basics of validation. Use them to follow the golden rule to validate others as you yearn to be validated.

Listen actively

Give the person your full attention. Set aside distractions and make eye contact. Be soft.

Show you’re engaged

Use non-verbal cues like nodding and verbal affirmations such as “uh-huh” or “okay” to show you’re listening. Lean in. Touch.

Reflect and paraphrase

Mirror back what they’ve said in your own words. Let them know you understand and are open to learning more about what you don’t yet know. Be brave and gentle.

Ask open-ended questions, as necessary

Encourage them to share more by asking questions like “How did that make you feel?” or “Tell me more about that.” Or just wait with a curious expression.  Anticipate good things.

Acknowledge their emotions

Listen for the feelings first. Naming it, accurately or not, is helpful and affirming. Stock phrases can be fine: “It sounds like you’re feeling frustrated,” or “I can see how that would be upsetting.” Connect.

Empathize and legitimize

“Companion them” in their experience, even if you haven’t had the same one. Say things like, “I can understand why you’d feel hurt after something like that,” or “It makes sense that you’d feel that way.” Care.

Offer support

Ask them they want without expectation. Don’t offer advice or solutions before they ask you for them or you have asked them to ask you. Often, listening is enough.

A list like that makes it sound like you should get it “just right,” doesn’t it? Whenever I am working through relationship issues with a married couple, one of them is likely to say, “I don’t think that will work” or “I’ve already tried that and nothing happened.” Such fears are what made us too afraid to validate someone in the first place. But they are certainly normal fears, aren’t they!

I think A.I. reinforces those fears. It seems to think, “People are unreliable and you are messed up. Take care of yourself!” In a session, I usually let those fears pass by and say something like, “OK. That makes sense. But let’s try it right now and see what happens. I’ll help you.” It often surprises people how much love their fear has been overlooking.