Forgive Yourself

How can you forgive yourself when the person you wronged won't?

By Dawn Friedman

So I worried away at my mistakes just the way a dog worries a bone. I replayed the drama constantly, from the heady intensity of our early relationship to the adrenaline rush and disappointment when my shaking hands unfolded his letter. When I caught myself staring at the phone, contemplating leaving yet another message on his machine, I knew I needed help to be free of this fixation.

"In Buddhist philosophy, guilt and shame are considered very destructive," says Kelly McGonigal, who teaches yoga and is a research psychologist at Stanford University. "These emotions may consume us, but they don't do any good for the suffering of the other person."

Then why do we get so attached to these negative, destructive feelings?

"Much of our identity is tied up in narratives about our past," McGonigal says, adding, "We cling to emotional experiences that are familiar to us."

Breaking away from those habitual responses is an important part of making amends, says Bo Forbes, a yoga therapist and clinical psychologist with Elemental Yoga in Boston.

"We all have samskaras, or patterns, that lead us to behave in certain ways," she says. "To learn from our experiences, we want to look at those patterns in detail. Have you done this before? What were the triggers? The last step is looking at how you can move out of that pattern. This brings us to real change."

As I contemplated this, I realized that feeling guilty was indeed familiar to me. I remembered how petty and small I felt during that time in my life and how self-centered my thinking could be. I began to understand that accepting Matthew's image of me as someone undeserving of forgiveness—and obsessing over that image—was playing into the same self-absorbed drama that drove that time in my life. It also let me pretend to continue to have a relationship with Matthew by making this story central to my self-image.

"He is the one that can't let go," Forbes says. "That doesn't mean that you can't."

In fact, I realized, letting go was something I had to do. I was the one who held the keys to the prison of my guilt.

Turning Outward

McGonigal offers a four-step practice rooted in Tibetan Buddhist philosophy that can take us through the process of making amends.

"First," she says, "recognize that you've done something that caused suffering or harm. Second, sit with the feeling of remorse and regret. Feel it in your body, and experience the emotions. Don't push them away or wallow in them."

When we are remorseful, we recognize the harm caused by our behavior but we don't relive it. Instead, we are moved to action. It was my recognition of having done wrong, and my feelings of remorse about it, that drove me to stop ruminating and look Matthew up on the Internet.

"Remorse," says McGonigal, "leads to approach—as opposed to guilt, which leads to withdrawal."

The third step, McGonigal says, is moving into a place of compassion for yourself as well as the person you harmed.

"This was something I learned in a talk given by Buddhist nun Pema Chödrön," McGonigal says. "Take a deep breath and let it out and think to yourself, ‘May we both be free of this suffering.’ The whole purpose of the compassion practices in yoga is that when we practice compassion, we experience compassion. There is tremendous value in that."

Page 1 2 3 4

See All Philosophy Articles »