Much has been written about forgiveness.  Some see it as the only route out of permanent victimhood.   These therapists and theologians believe that it is at the heart of physical, psychological and spiritual healing.  They point to studies that show how forgiveness can promote openness , and relieve unnecessary physical and mental burdens.   They further cite evidence of  lowered blood pressure, better relationships, and  less depression, stress and chronic pain.  

Others see the “forgiveness path” as a cop out, a kind of spiritual and psychological shorcutting where the person avoids doing their real work.   In jumping to forgiveness, they maintain, we court denial and avoid the painful route to justice and personal accountability.    

A third group might describe forgiveness as a work in progress:  a genuine practice of letting go that can be very useful for some under certain circumstances.   

The Delimma

When is the forgiveness path genuine and clear sighted, and under what circumstances is it indeed a continuation of the practice of unhealthy denial?  What does it mean to actually forgive or “let go” of an old hurt or grudge?  Does it mean excusing terrible acts, denying responsibility  or somehow condoning bad behavior?  And can there be real forgiveness or letting go if the other person doesn’t acknowledge or accept accountability and make amends? 

Jumping to “forgiveness” after the experience of severe abuse, for example, can  indeed be a cop out and perpetuate a pattern of generational abuse.   But hanging on to old grudges almost like a rainy day fund can also block our connections and lead us to unhealthy practices.

I come from a family of elephants.  ”Elephant family systems” have never mastered the process necessary to acknowledge, apologize, make amends and move on.  Individuals in such systems hang onto wounds, hoarding them them  as a caution and protection against possible future wounding until it becomes an ingrained habit.   It was a pricey method for me and my siblings, but one that felt necessary for survival in a difficult world.  In examining this system, I’ve come to several conclusions.  

Perhaps forgiveness is not quite the right word for the process that can also be referred to as “unhooking” or “letting go”.   The word “forgive”  can be freighted with many types of unhelpful baggage, including the implication that something is wrong with the person who can’t “forgive.”  It’s often paired with the cliche, “forgive and forget,”  and can raise false hopes that forgivenss means that  the other person will change or be transformed. 

Requirements for Authentic Letting Go

Authentic letting go can best be accomplished if the proper preparation and readiness has been achieved.   

Lasting and genuine  unhooking from past emotional trauma or significant abuse requires adequate self-valuing , a way of understanding the world that allows for both appreciation of our own and others errors, and the ability to recognize and reject abusive traps.  The practice of authentic letting go is complex and does not involve forgetting or rationalizing terrible acts.   It’s not about giving up the right to be assertive and the necessity of establishing personal boundries.  Unhooking is about relieving our alienation and the need for endless rumination, but does not guranantee a close relationship with the person who’s hurt or offended us.  It instead means divesting from or writing off bad emotional stock that that have long ago ceased to pay real dividends.   

Cultivating Self-Forgiveness

Several months ago, I attended a workshop hosted by Jack Kornfield a noted Buddhist psychologist.  Among other topics, he discussed his own forgiveness practice.    One of the his important exercises was self-forgiveness, asking our own pardon, as we are often our most harsh taskmasters.  Authentic divestment or letting go is about cultivating compassion and generating kindness to ourselves as we come to terms with our own shortcomings. 

Ultimately, forgiveness often includes arriving at  a different understanding about the ways people are and the way the world works:   a sense that our commonalities far outweigh our differences.  For some, there is an important spiritual dimension.    Sometimes,  peace can only come from the acceptance of a basic truth:  that to be forgiven, one must learn to genuinely forgive . 

In closing, only you can decide if the timing is right and you are ready to embrace the forgiveness process.   It’s also important to note that if you’re  not able or willing to let go of past hurts at this time, that this is not a character flaw or a personal weakness.  It could in fact be an attempt to establish boundries or to solve other deeper issues or concerns.

There is a relatively new book out on the life of Charles Scultz, the developer of the the Peanuts cartoon.  Because of a difficult childhood, he grew up in a family where love was withheld and food insecurity was the norm.  “Security is knowing that there’s more pie left.”  He constructed a myth about himself as a loser who was dumb, dull  and meek, even when he was pulling in 40 million plus a year with the Peanuts franchise.   Despite that achievement, he apparently never lost this sense of himself.  Some of us might say, well, if this is low self-esteem, I’ll take it, particularly in this economy. 

Self-esteem.   We want our kids to have a good measure of it.  We might feel that “it” is a necessary quality in order to have a good,  fulfilling life.  But how does this mysterious “it” develop?  What separates someone who has high self-regard from someone who doesn’t?  Is it possible to have too much self-esteem?  Is lots of self-esteem necessary for personal happiness? 

Most of us diagnose “low-self-esteem” by the results:  we create a negative story about ourselves, engage in constant self-put downs, feel that we might be  holding ourselves back and don’t stand up for or express ourselves in important situations.  We might also react defensively and find it difficult to avoid having our buttons pushed.

(McKay et. al, 2005,) distinguishes two  types of self-regard:  situational, where an individual is not confident in a single area such as academics, and characterological, where the individuals sees him or herself as basically flawed. 

There are many factors leading to a poor self-image.  Our sense of self is often learned in our families, where some of us have been made to feel “less than” or inadequate as a result of shaming, or unskillful and excessive criticism and sustained degredation.  We learned to unfairly criticize and degrade ourselves as a result.  Although it is good to appreciate some of the origins of self-image,  of greater importance is the cultivation of effective antidotes to the negative beliefs and underpinnings that maintain poor self-regard.  So, how can we claim or reclaim our deeper sense of basic value? 

“Wouldn’t it be nice if our lives were like video recorders and we could ‘fast forward’ through crummy times?”  (Charles Schulz).  

Not so fast.  Some would point to missed experiences and lost opportunity.  But whatever your sentiment, there are  a number of methods and techniques that  can be practiced to  improve self-image, and bolster our inherent resiliency.  Many go deeper than the cosmetic.  I will mention three. 

Your internal critic as helpful coach

We all need to engage in self-monitoring to keep us on track, look out for our safety and help us to evaluate our choices.  Some of were taught that we had to be perfect in order to be “OK,” and that mistakes marked us as “stupid.” 

The job description of a good critic/observer is to support us when we’re operating with competence and integrity and come up with helpful prescriptions when we are stuck or off-track.  An unhelpful critic stance may be a way trying to get things back on game.  However, self-criticism for it’s own sake isn’t usually helpful. 

A good critic is like a wise and helpful coach who can offer useful advice.  I remember my high school driver’s ed. teacher, Mr. Thrombitis, who instead of yelling at me when I almost ran a stop sign, drove above speed limit on the freeway and backed into the ditch, he just pressed his brake and said,”  I know you’ll look next time.”  

What kind of a self-monitor are you?  What do you say to yourself when things don’t go well?   How do you handle mistakes?  Misfortunes?  Things that are our of your control?  If you degrade yourself, ask if these judgments or appraisals fit the circumstances.  Are they useful?  How would a friend or good coach see or judge the same events?  What might be more helpful?

Recording your thoughts and experiences

Writing things down can allow an “on-the-job” analysis of your situation.  Record your automatic thoughts in different contexts and discover which assist you, and which undermine your sense of value.  Learn to trace these thoughts back to your feelings about yourself.  What are you thinking or telling yourself about  the situation?  Is it really true?  What would your good friend say?  With awareness, and commitment, you can change and alter those perspectives that aren’t moving you forward by generating more realistic beliefs about yourself and others.

Done In By Competition and Comparison

In my family, my two sisters and I were in a constant  war of comparison.  We competed for my father’s blessing,  clamoring for tidbits of priase with respect to who was the smartest, strongest, prettiest or best at a skill that dad valued.  There seemed to be insufficient praise and acknowledgment to go around and each of us felt we weren’t  perfect enough to earn it anyway.  It took some years to develop a healthy appreciation for my sisters’ unique achievements and skills and to learn that their talents didn’t diminish me. 

Are you caught in a cycle of unhelpful comparison?  It’s never to late to recognize and appreciate your own unique narrative.  Despite what your early conditioning may have been, you can change your basic “story line” and improve your self-image with practice and reflection.

As Snoopy says,  “To live is to dance, to dance is to live.”  So, why not take the risk of putting aside old mental habits and unhelpful ways of structuring your life and learn some new dance steps? 

Reading Resources:

The Self-Esteem Companion:  Simple Exercises to Help you Challenge Your Inner Critic and Celebrate Your Personal Strengths, McKay, Matthew, et. al, New Harbinger Publications, Inc. 2005. 

Schultz and Peanuts:  A Biography, Michaelis, David, Harper Collins, 2007.

The other day I was talking to a friend who was trying to motivate herself to lose weight.  “I’m going to tape a wedding picture of me on the fridge so that each time I want to overeat, I’ll think about how gross I am,” she said.   She was ashamed that she had “let herself go.”

I wished to support my friend’s spring intentions,  but wondered how resurrecting a picture of herself taken forty years ago could help, since she had tried this approach before with marginal results.

In the next few months, I will offer occasional posts about weight concerns and body image.  This  is a complex topic and I am in no way providing a comprehensive or exhaustive view of the range of issues or antidotes. 

In my practice, each person’s individual history and circumstances as well as previous successes and mishaps are taken into account in treatment planning.  As always, I welcome your feedback and comments!

My Journey

Many years ago when I lived on a small farm in rural Ohio, the ritual of diet and makover would arrive each spring.  Not more than 1,000 calories, absent all kinds of foods including rice, pasta, and the tasty whole wheat bread that my parents made, the “diet” was what I lived for and with for the next six months.  I went through grapefruit, soup, Atkins, and inventions of my own.  

My motivation was high as I knew that I would become desirable, beautiful and popular, all qualities that an awkward, shy unpopular fourteen year-old girl yearned for.  Miss America was my ideal.  Over the next few months, I would lose my twenty to forty pounds and get my new school outfit, only to discover that shyness and social awkwardness don’t disappear with weight.  Six months of penance and restraint followed an equal number of months of unlimited foraging. 

When I went to college I managed to slim down to a weight far below what my body wanted.  In  eight months, I regained eighty pounds.  It took a number of years to rebalance my life and I’ve learned several hard lessons along the way.  

Take a few minutes to reflect on your life.  What has your journey been like?  What have you learned? 

Kate, 197-204 lbs

  Authentic Images

Kindling and sustaining motivation is one of the keys to managing a balanced and healthy weight profile.  Maintaining  commitment is often about believing that we can accomplish our goals, and that the day-to-day trade offs are “worth it.”   

Pictures that motivate, promote our deeper value system and speak to our reasons for healthful living.  The evolve from the “inside out.”  Sincerely rendered but shaming images such as my friend’s are coercive and often lead to broken resolutions.

What images are inspiring and motivating for you?  Do any of them lose their impact over time?

Additional  Tools

Hypnosis and self-hypnosis can also be useful for stimulating and consolidating our possibilities, motivations and intentions.  Affirmative self-talk and practical visualization can also be effective means for increasing commitment.  These and many other tools can help translate the imagined into the tangible work of our lives.

In the end, my friend kept her wedding picture in the album where it belonged, and began to fashion a new picture of herself as a healthy empowered fifty-something woman.  You go girl!

My posts will in no way be an exhaustive exploration of any of these important issues. Nor will they be a substitute for psychotherapy or counseling if that is necessary. For those who want a more in-depth response to a particular issue, I invite you to consider a confidential consultation that can offer more individualized care.

I welcome your comments and reactions, although I regret that I won’t be able to respond to every individual post.

It’s also important to note that the identities of the people in any of the case examples used have been protected. Their names and identifying features have been masked.

Letter from a Friend

A few months or so ago a friend from another state sent in an email. “Kate, I’m so stressed I can hardly breathe. I’m just maxed out.”

My friend is a competent professional and the mother of several kids, all under the ages of ten, who has coped fairly well in her life. However, she would have scored high on any Life Stressor Inventory. Recently, she’d been overwhelmed by a number of unplanned events and stressors in her life. Her husband had been recently laid off and she had been working extra hours in her home-based business. Her mother had been admitted to a nearby nursing home and my friend has had to deal with her mother’s unhappiness about the placement. If ever a person had to rework her world in a short period of time (some people’s definition of stress) it was my friend.

Stress, short for distress, has been on my mind lately as I gather ideas for my stress busting workshops for the fall. We all face stressors on an everyday basis and a certain degree of challenge is actually helpful for our focus, motivation, inspiration and overall performance. But too much strain or tension on our system all at once can feel overwhelming. The current unstable economic climate has shaken many of our worlds in painful and confusing ways, adding an uncertain edge to our daily lives.

“Enough challenge already.” That phrase might translate into the “shout out” of our physical and mental system as our bodies and minds go into overdrive to handle the added strain. Excessive unfiltered stress is often linked to depression, anxiety and mental decline. When we become chronically stressed, (too many stressors, insufficient coping strategies), the stress hormone switch can become stuck in the “on” position, thus further weakening our resources.

Worry and Blocking Beliefs.

Although worry is often an attempt at strategy development, its crippling effects can be just as negative as the original stressor. Unhelpful worry may interrupt our sleep and lead to more ineffectiveness. We may turn to excessive eating, alcohol use or other unhelpful habits to give our minds a rest. Many of us “know” that it’s important to reset the switch and “refresh” the system with a healthy diet and plenty of physical activity, but may feel like we don’t have the time, resources or energy to accomplish this. The idea of exercise for some of us may even trigger more distress and internal struggle.

We may also think we have to be locked in the “on” position to be ready for whatever comes at us, although this stance can overwhelm us much like a power surge to an already overloaded circuit board. This sort of thinking can interfere with our natural resilience, shrink the prefrontal cortex and make our problem solving efforts less effective.

Changing a Pattern: Twelve Good Breaths.

The impact of stress, no matter what the external events can be successfully navigated. Sometimes, in the heat of tense moments we forgo the basics. Most of us know about the benefits of a good diet and daily physical activity, but we may not know the fact that twelve good breaths can trigger our “relaxation response” and therefore recharge the system, lowering blood pressure and making real problem solving more doable. This simple technique that can be done in the car, on a bus, or in front of the TV, involves slowing the in-breath to four to six one second counts, and extending and slowing the out-breath in a similar rhythm.

Through a variety of other methods that include additional relaxation strategies, meditation, yoga breathing, visualization, pattern interruption such as physical exercise and changes in thinking and behavior, we can tap into our inherent resilience and insulate our system to the impact of chronic tension and change. My upcoming workshops will provide an opportunity to learn and practice more of these strategies.

And so, in conclusion, I offer the same closing that I sent to my friend. “Please remember to breathe, slowly and deeply.”

I welcome your thoughts, strategies and reactions to my first column.