My challenge I suspect is to repair at a subconscious level my relationship with my mother. I never held anything against her in my thoughts. As early as I can remember, I had always said to myself, I wish the best for her. She left my brother father and I when I was 3. Only in my 20’s and a year before she died did I learn that my estranged mother was schizophrenic. I felt a great sadness for the losses of her life and for my losing a mother and a friend (we likely would have shared many interest I learned). I never felt angry at her. Perhaps at life for its unjust treatment of my family. But we inherited a wonderful step mother with a number of extra siblings. So all worked out well… ?
I think perhaps abandonment before knowing what that meant has figured gravely in my feeling of self worth. I have trouble spending time with my “inner Child”
Very challenging to repair relationships with someone who no longer exists. So the work is perhaps with myself… as a child.
I absolutely disagree with some (not all) of her methods and statements. This is not the forum for me to expand on my reactions to what I would NEVER, EVER say to a client nor say to anyone else. I just know that I cannot in good conscience continue watching nor supporting this method of counseling.
This is so powerful. Thank you so much, Tara. I am reflecting upon my own actions and my own patterns as I listen to you. I am so judgmental of myself that it is affecting my relationship with my boyfriend because I do it to him as well.
Genuinely forgiving myself, frees up more energy to direct towards my other relationships. If my energy is focused on self-judgment, I do not have the energy reserves to use in other relationships.
Chere Douglas, Marriage/Family Therapy, Alameda, CA, USAsays
So appreciate the gentle way you help me and everyone you touch. Love the idea of “Vengeance is a lazy form of grief.” “When we strike out at ourselves or others, we are often trying to avoid our suffering and we are also missing out on our healing.” Thank you!
Sometimes real self-forgiveness brings out a lot of pain that I need to soothe first with Tools of Self- Compassion before I can forgive myself or the other. If I succeed afterwards I feel lighter, more tolerant and open to my partner and myself, am less judgmental, have less high expectations and more compassion.
So I hope my clients may experience similar.
Eileen Marie Connor, OP EdD, Teacher, Amityville, NY, USAsays
Genuine forgiveness empowers the individuals concerned to be the best that they can be in that grace filled moment. The individual(s) are able to “let go” of the anger, hurt, shame and be more compassionate to oneself and to others. May you be blessed and not stressed… continue to invest your best and leave the rest to God! Be well and Stay safe!
These sessions have been so helpful to me. As I’ve gotten older and after the end of a relationship, I found myself really being burdened with self judgment and guilt. I find that not being in a relationship for the first time in my adult life has finally, finally given me an opportunity to get to know myself in a deeper way and become more conscious of what my feelings and opinions are and to not be afraid to speak up. Everything you speak about speaks to me and what I’ve started to say to myself is that I am my own best friend.
In one particular friendship, I become plagued with this person’s judgment of me and I realize as I’m typing this that what I’m feeling is anger. She has no problem showing her anger and judgment about me but it’s been hard for me to accept that I can be angry with her for being so harsh. I have a brother 3 years older who told me as soon as I could understand what he was saying that I was stupid and did not know what I was talking about. He was a bully. Now that he’s turning 80 and I’m 77, I can actually have a friendly phone conversation with him (I live in Calif. and he lives in Mass.). When he gets sarcastic and hurtful, I try not to take it personally, but it always has that sting.
Thank you for all that you do. I’m so looking forward to receiving more wisdom from you.
Once I was so guilt ridden about how I kept letting my children down that I kept apologizing to them. The twelve year old boy said, “We don’t want a regretful mother, we want a happy one. That was 60 years ago. I will never forget it.
Excellent video. The statement: “it’s not your fault” is very powerful to use with clients to give them a sense of freedom and release from their anger, pain, and grief. I will definitely keep this in mind in my future work with clients.
I would love to get the resource to see the exercise that you utilized with your client to help them gain that sense of freedom and demonstrate self compassion.
The forgiveness, I, as a practitioner, am will to give myself, is a channel of how I can relay and bring light to to how freeing it can be for my clients.
Thank you for sharing your wisdom and insight so generously. A wise one once said:
Know the world and you will know yourself
Know yourself and you will know the world.
Looking within and being compassionate with yourself will gentle your relationship to others; you know the suffering within yourself and in this way can relate to the suffering of others. If you are impatient with yourself for being inadequate you probably will also be impatient with inadequacies around yourself. So a quiet mind and peace in your heart will open up the world quietly and peacefully.
Thank you so much. I wrote a letter to the person I wronged, but don’t think he cared to read it. We are not on speaking terms, therefore in this case the forgiveness is only for my small self. Couldn’t make amends
Accessing the underlying grief behind my harmful actions can short circuit the defensive reactiveness and spare the other person from having that grief inflicted on them.
As always, listening to you is such a learning experience. What you said about holding myself “dear” when being self critical in the presence of my daughter-in-law
is a great tool. I can already feel its impact…
If I feel the truth that the things I don’t like about myself are actually manifestations of suffering, it becomes easier to look on them with curiosity and compassion when they arise, rather than with resistance and aversion, and this allows the true feelings at the root of the experience to come to the surface and begin to heal.
Connected with my self-judgment that I did not respond well to my young niece when her Dad died when she was 8 and she asked if her mother died could she come live with me.
Today I reframed that as I was unskillful and needed to say that I would help her through any decisions that needed to be made if her mother was gone.
It’s impossible to offer compassion to others while we’re too busy protecting our own anger, fear and ignorance to be open and vulnerable another. I get to practice this soon. Thank you, Tara
Forgiving ourselves can be so difficult at times. More so, in my experience, when I blame myself for things that I had no control over – like things that happened at a very young age and, although I cognitively know and understand that there is nothing I could have said or done that would have lead to a different outcome, there is this deeply felt sense of shame and blame toward myself – still, sometimes, trying to unravel the situation to figure out what it was that I did or said. This can get complicated at times – when my healthy adult mode (or whatever term you want to use for the executive control over our actions that we often – but not always – have over our own actions now that we’re older and learned more about how to self-regulate) doesn’t seem to be around. I’m angry at myself for something I had no control over, and then I can get angry at myself for being angry about something I had no control over … and … I can get angry at not being able to get out of that trap of contraction I’m in, like I’m loosing the sense of where I am, what year it is, how old I am – and that part of me (the adult) can’t seem to calm me down and become less angry. It probably sounds like I’m totally crazy when I say this – but it’s at times like this, when I’m in a state of overwhelm, that I feel like I’m full of holes and fragmented – and my “other parts” don’t seem to trust the adult me to de-escalate the situation. The good news it that I always get out of these states – and yoga and meditation can help me to get balanced and centered (and self compassionate) again. In my experience, in situations like this, thinking can sometimes help – but it can also get in the way. A more somatic approach works better for me – and I can apply that as soon as I get back to the present and experience my body as a safe place to be in again (whether what I’m feeling inside of it is pleasant or not – feeling connected is often enough). Thank you so much for sharing this Tara – and for the opportunity to reflect on it, even though it may have been from a somewhat unexpected angle. Thanks again and have a wonderful day!
Tara first of all thank you for sharing…
To answer this question goes too fast for me, I feel I can not simply forgive myself and by doing that answering your question right away… It takes some time to practise what you teach…
Thanks so much Tara this exercise, even though my husband is not longer in this realm, brought tears to my eyes. I’m feeling more compassionate towards myself🙏🙏🙏
My challenge I suspect is to repair at a subconscious level my relationship with my mother. I never held anything against her in my thoughts. As early as I can remember, I had always said to myself, I wish the best for her. She left my brother father and I when I was 3. Only in my 20’s and a year before she died did I learn that my estranged mother was schizophrenic. I felt a great sadness for the losses of her life and for my losing a mother and a friend (we likely would have shared many interest I learned). I never felt angry at her. Perhaps at life for its unjust treatment of my family. But we inherited a wonderful step mother with a number of extra siblings. So all worked out well… ?
I think perhaps abandonment before knowing what that meant has figured gravely in my feeling of self worth. I have trouble spending time with my “inner Child”
Very challenging to repair relationships with someone who no longer exists. So the work is perhaps with myself… as a child.
I absolutely disagree with some (not all) of her methods and statements. This is not the forum for me to expand on my reactions to what I would NEVER, EVER say to a client nor say to anyone else. I just know that I cannot in good conscience continue watching nor supporting this method of counseling.
This is so powerful. Thank you so much, Tara. I am reflecting upon my own actions and my own patterns as I listen to you. I am so judgmental of myself that it is affecting my relationship with my boyfriend because I do it to him as well.
it feels like a weight gets lifted. I feel more at home in my body
Genuinely forgiving myself, frees up more energy to direct towards my other relationships. If my energy is focused on self-judgment, I do not have the energy reserves to use in other relationships.
I felt a release, peace, and smiled. I felt free to be without hesitation with this person. Thank you.
So appreciate the gentle way you help me and everyone you touch. Love the idea of “Vengeance is a lazy form of grief.” “When we strike out at ourselves or others, we are often trying to avoid our suffering and we are also missing out on our healing.” Thank you!
Sometimes real self-forgiveness brings out a lot of pain that I need to soothe first with Tools of Self- Compassion before I can forgive myself or the other. If I succeed afterwards I feel lighter, more tolerant and open to my partner and myself, am less judgmental, have less high expectations and more compassion.
So I hope my clients may experience similar.
Genuine forgiveness empowers the individuals concerned to be the best that they can be in that grace filled moment. The individual(s) are able to “let go” of the anger, hurt, shame and be more compassionate to oneself and to others. May you be blessed and not stressed… continue to invest your best and leave the rest to God! Be well and Stay safe!
Genuinely forgiving myself would release my need for defensive reactions to disagreements
Hi Tara,
These sessions have been so helpful to me. As I’ve gotten older and after the end of a relationship, I found myself really being burdened with self judgment and guilt. I find that not being in a relationship for the first time in my adult life has finally, finally given me an opportunity to get to know myself in a deeper way and become more conscious of what my feelings and opinions are and to not be afraid to speak up. Everything you speak about speaks to me and what I’ve started to say to myself is that I am my own best friend.
In one particular friendship, I become plagued with this person’s judgment of me and I realize as I’m typing this that what I’m feeling is anger. She has no problem showing her anger and judgment about me but it’s been hard for me to accept that I can be angry with her for being so harsh. I have a brother 3 years older who told me as soon as I could understand what he was saying that I was stupid and did not know what I was talking about. He was a bully. Now that he’s turning 80 and I’m 77, I can actually have a friendly phone conversation with him (I live in Calif. and he lives in Mass.). When he gets sarcastic and hurtful, I try not to take it personally, but it always has that sting.
Thank you for all that you do. I’m so looking forward to receiving more wisdom from you.
Blessings,
Frayda
Once I was so guilt ridden about how I kept letting my children down that I kept apologizing to them. The twelve year old boy said, “We don’t want a regretful mother, we want a happy one. That was 60 years ago. I will never forget it.
The only relationship I can think of in which I’m hurting someone is the one with myself.
If they can genuinely forgive themselves, they will feel better about themselves and bring the best version of themselves to their relationships.
Excellent video. The statement: “it’s not your fault” is very powerful to use with clients to give them a sense of freedom and release from their anger, pain, and grief. I will definitely keep this in mind in my future work with clients.
I would love to get the resource to see the exercise that you utilized with your client to help them gain that sense of freedom and demonstrate self compassion.
“Self punishment plants the seeds for future acting out” is a powerful observation. Intention and result are not the same.
The forgiveness, I, as a practitioner, am will to give myself, is a channel of how I can relay and bring light to to how freeing it can be for my clients.
Thank you for sharing your wisdom and insight so generously. A wise one once said:
Know the world and you will know yourself
Know yourself and you will know the world.
Looking within and being compassionate with yourself will gentle your relationship to others; you know the suffering within yourself and in this way can relate to the suffering of others. If you are impatient with yourself for being inadequate you probably will also be impatient with inadequacies around yourself. So a quiet mind and peace in your heart will open up the world quietly and peacefully.
Wow, wouldn’t it be wonderful to forgive ourselves daily, and not carry the burdens of guilt and shame into each next day?!
Thank you dear Tara.
Thank you so much. I wrote a letter to the person I wronged, but don’t think he cared to read it. We are not on speaking terms, therefore in this case the forgiveness is only for my small self. Couldn’t make amends
Accessing the underlying grief behind my harmful actions can short circuit the defensive reactiveness and spare the other person from having that grief inflicted on them.
As always, listening to you is such a learning experience. What you said about holding myself “dear” when being self critical in the presence of my daughter-in-law
is a great tool. I can already feel its impact…
Namaste and Blessings to YOU
Thanks for a varied perspective!
Wow! I felt an immediate softening in my body and a calming of my nervous system. More kind and tender towards myself. Thank you for the reminder!
If I feel the truth that the things I don’t like about myself are actually manifestations of suffering, it becomes easier to look on them with curiosity and compassion when they arise, rather than with resistance and aversion, and this allows the true feelings at the root of the experience to come to the surface and begin to heal.
These exercises are gold – no matter how many times we forgive ourselves, there’s always room and time for more! Thank you Tara Brach!
Relate better to self and others.
Discuss what’s really beneath- hurt feelings of not enough.
It will open our hearts to compassion and connection.
Loved it, so helpful
When does one take responsibility for one’s actions?
Yes! I was thinking the same thing. That perspective must be addressed.
Connected with my self-judgment that I did not respond well to my young niece when her Dad died when she was 8 and she asked if her mother died could she come live with me.
Today I reframed that as I was unskillful and needed to say that I would help her through any decisions that needed to be made if her mother was gone.
It’s impossible to offer compassion to others while we’re too busy protecting our own anger, fear and ignorance to be open and vulnerable another. I get to practice this soon. Thank you, Tara
More ho early and openly
tara
Thank you Tara. Self forgiving makes me feel more open, less like I need to prove myself. Anonymous Therapist
By just lifting a huge load off my shoulders.
Forgiving ourselves can be so difficult at times. More so, in my experience, when I blame myself for things that I had no control over – like things that happened at a very young age and, although I cognitively know and understand that there is nothing I could have said or done that would have lead to a different outcome, there is this deeply felt sense of shame and blame toward myself – still, sometimes, trying to unravel the situation to figure out what it was that I did or said. This can get complicated at times – when my healthy adult mode (or whatever term you want to use for the executive control over our actions that we often – but not always – have over our own actions now that we’re older and learned more about how to self-regulate) doesn’t seem to be around. I’m angry at myself for something I had no control over, and then I can get angry at myself for being angry about something I had no control over … and … I can get angry at not being able to get out of that trap of contraction I’m in, like I’m loosing the sense of where I am, what year it is, how old I am – and that part of me (the adult) can’t seem to calm me down and become less angry. It probably sounds like I’m totally crazy when I say this – but it’s at times like this, when I’m in a state of overwhelm, that I feel like I’m full of holes and fragmented – and my “other parts” don’t seem to trust the adult me to de-escalate the situation. The good news it that I always get out of these states – and yoga and meditation can help me to get balanced and centered (and self compassionate) again. In my experience, in situations like this, thinking can sometimes help – but it can also get in the way. A more somatic approach works better for me – and I can apply that as soon as I get back to the present and experience my body as a safe place to be in again (whether what I’m feeling inside of it is pleasant or not – feeling connected is often enough). Thank you so much for sharing this Tara – and for the opportunity to reflect on it, even though it may have been from a somewhat unexpected angle. Thanks again and have a wonderful day!
Tara first of all thank you for sharing…
To answer this question goes too fast for me, I feel I can not simply forgive myself and by doing that answering your question right away… It takes some time to practise what you teach…
Thanks so much! It can be our relationship with ourselves that we need to forgive and hold lightly.
Thank you 💕
When I try to forgive myself gently, I can feel a kind of warm flow inside my body.
Many thanks Tara. You made us more realize that being kind with yourself, serves not only oneself but our beloved ones also.
B. and E. from the Netherlands
This was so timely for me, thank you.
Thanks so much Tara this exercise, even though my husband is not longer in this realm, brought tears to my eyes. I’m feeling more compassionate towards myself🙏🙏🙏
Thank You.
It makes them more authentic!
Thank you Tara. I appreciate your work and also your podcast meditations. Warm Regards, Marsha Mathews, PsyD
That was lovely and very helpful. Thanks
After forgiving myself for
Being so judgemental, I’ve been able to be kinder to not just myself but to others as well!
thank you. what a gift.