Thankyou so much – my thoughts were that I could relax and not feel so tense and so could interact with a relaxed heart rather than a contracted worried one and be more expansive and show my love !! Wow – why did I not realise that !!!!
In contemplating the idea of forgiving myself the possibility arises of relating to the other without guilt and without the feeling of shame (and therefore the need to hide something) I can be more genuine
Many years ago when I watched the movie Good Will Hunting and his counselor (played beautifully by Robin Williams) finally told him “it’s not your fault” over and over again, it touched me so deeply I wept. For the first time I realized that it was not my fault, yet, I forgot.
Thank you for sharing your wisdom and kindness.
It worked for me. The second thought after showing myself compassion was I thought of my son and how could I help him. Tara, as usual is awesome and helping to change my perspective and therefore my life. Sending my thoughts of love and caring to her.
clients have trouble letting the idea of self forgiveness in. There was an aversion to considering those I have hurt. i do believe forgiveness is gateway to healing and relationships are trans formative in the good or not so good.
I have an old relationship that damaged me terribly. I hated myself and didn’t really understand why. I still don’t because I’ve forgotten almost all the 3 year relationship. I will continue to use the elements of your series, and thank you for doing them. I visualized this person and told myself ‘It’s not my fault’. It felt like I could breathe again. I will continue to practice.
It was hard at first, as the feelings started to brew, then I cried and that made the difference. I hardly let myself cry since I was raised without tears. Feeling them and acknowledge them and allowing them to fall, made the difference. As a therapist, letting the tears roll is important, as you can’t ask your client to do what you can’t. I have to choreograph my tears as my hat as crisis interventionist do not allow me to tear up in the moment, but getting better at it before it completely lose the ability to let myself cry.
Genuine forgiveness allows clients to connect with themselves first and to allow them to acknowledge the truth that they are suffering. With this, clients will be able to connect with the emotions brought about by the sufferings. As they connect to the sufferings and it’s emotions, it provides the platform for them to treat themselves with kindness and compassion, which would facilitate forgiveness. As such, clients will be able to connect with others more positively.
Jill Freeman Free, Psychotherapy, Tarpon Springs, FL, USAsays
When I mindfully stop and seek to ’understand’ myself (with compassion and forgiveness), I was able to ‘let go’ my (irrational reactive-) anger and choose to repair the relationship.
Thank you for this exercise!
Genuine forgiveness allows one to realize our fallibility and common humanity. If we can foegovenourses-our harshest critic-then we have the capacity to forgive others and as important understand and experience their pain.
Getting in touch with my feelings is settling for me. I feel more relaxed and enjoy getting to know myself with increasing peacefulness. Thank you Tara. It’s easy to find that part of me when hearing you speak.
We have a sense of fairness, like many other animals. I think we get angry when we feel unfairly treated. Even when the unfair treatment happened in childhood. Then we think we’re a bad person for getting angry. Then we suffer the consequences of being angry and feel we deserve it because “we’re a bad person.” We’re always trying to decide whether we’re a bad person or a good person. If we decide once and for all that we’re a bad person, we think we might as well express our anger because we’re already a bad person. The universe is unfair to us so we’re justified to even the score. We might kill our self or someone else. You could say it’s not our fault because we have that innate sense of fairness. Before there were police to bring justice to society, it made sense to take revenge to prevent others from hurting us again. Even now there are no police to bring justice when someone treats us with contempt or hurts our feelings, so it’s no wonder we feel justified in hurting them back. If we didn’t we’d be doormat. So there has to be a way to keep people from hurting our feelings without hurting them back. What is it? How do we have boundaries without destroying the possibility of intimacy?
This video has made me realise just how self sabotaging my decades of self loathing have been. It certainly hasn’t made me a better person. Self forgiveness and compassion is for sure the way forward. Thank you for these informative and very helpful videos.
My clients often struggle with a fear that if they let themselves “off the hook” they’ll repeat unwanted behaviors. To be honest, I can fall into this thinking also.
Tara, I am going to look at a situation with my (temporary) roommate in which I feel so guilty because I do not do my share of housekeeping while I am on a waiting list for my own apartment. I have fibromyalgia and the fatigue that accompanied it. In my own home I always have a cleaning person come in monthly to help me. My partner/friend doesn’t want me to do this. Feelings of guilt and shame keep coming up for me in this situation.
Also, I am apparently in the wrong group with you – I am not a therapist. How can I change to appropriate group?
Great work. Thank you.
Thankyou so much – my thoughts were that I could relax and not feel so tense and so could interact with a relaxed heart rather than a contracted worried one and be more expansive and show my love !! Wow – why did I not realise that !!!!
I will be present and enjoy my time with them instead of overthinking and worrying about making a mistake and hurting them again.
Recognizing anger and condemnation towards myself. Asking God to forgive me.
In contemplating the idea of forgiving myself the possibility arises of relating to the other without guilt and without the feeling of shame (and therefore the need to hide something) I can be more genuine
It brought tears to my eyes… but still a long way to go. Practice!
Hello Tara, as I pondered your words I felt my core soften and saw how self acceptance can allow me to be more permeable. I thank you.
Many years ago when I watched the movie Good Will Hunting and his counselor (played beautifully by Robin Williams) finally told him “it’s not your fault” over and over again, it touched me so deeply I wept. For the first time I realized that it was not my fault, yet, I forgot.
Thank you for sharing your wisdom and kindness.
Ute
It worked for me. The second thought after showing myself compassion was I thought of my son and how could I help him. Tara, as usual is awesome and helping to change my perspective and therefore my life. Sending my thoughts of love and caring to her.
If I am able to do so, I am free in spirit.
Learning to pause during moments of anger and resentment. Hard but will keep trying!
The exercise at the end, it seems impossible to forgive myself. Maybe the free handout will help me work through the unforgiveness.
Hard to do,other voices come in to contradict;but practice certainly melts the critic helpfully.
It would open a door to being more present and intimate, expressing from a genuine space.
Wonderful and helpful
Nice! THanks.
I feel more patient and more deserving.
A wonderful strategy to enable us to forgive ourselves and thereby learn to forgive others.
Genuine forgiveness allows for the recognition that we are all fallible, and creates the space in which true intimacy and vulnerability are possible.
thank you for this series. some new insights and reintroduction to some buries insights. much appreciated.
By freeing them up to see what’s really there.
Thank you, these videos allow us/me to be reminded to reflect and to continue to integrate these skills into our/my life.
clients have trouble letting the idea of self forgiveness in. There was an aversion to considering those I have hurt. i do believe forgiveness is gateway to healing and relationships are trans formative in the good or not so good.
I have an old relationship that damaged me terribly. I hated myself and didn’t really understand why. I still don’t because I’ve forgotten almost all the 3 year relationship. I will continue to use the elements of your series, and thank you for doing them. I visualized this person and told myself ‘It’s not my fault’. It felt like I could breathe again. I will continue to practice.
It was hard at first, as the feelings started to brew, then I cried and that made the difference. I hardly let myself cry since I was raised without tears. Feeling them and acknowledge them and allowing them to fall, made the difference. As a therapist, letting the tears roll is important, as you can’t ask your client to do what you can’t. I have to choreograph my tears as my hat as crisis interventionist do not allow me to tear up in the moment, but getting better at it before it completely lose the ability to let myself cry.
Genuine forgiveness allows clients to connect with themselves first and to allow them to acknowledge the truth that they are suffering. With this, clients will be able to connect with the emotions brought about by the sufferings. As they connect to the sufferings and it’s emotions, it provides the platform for them to treat themselves with kindness and compassion, which would facilitate forgiveness. As such, clients will be able to connect with others more positively.
When I mindfully stop and seek to ’understand’ myself (with compassion and forgiveness), I was able to ‘let go’ my (irrational reactive-) anger and choose to repair the relationship.
Thank you for this exercise!
I have found that I begin to forgive others when I forgive myself.
It can be a challenge to forgive one’s self when great lifelong harm has been caused
Genuine forgiveness allows one to realize our fallibility and common humanity. If we can foegovenourses-our harshest critic-then we have the capacity to forgive others and as important understand and experience their pain.
Getting in touch with my feelings is settling for me. I feel more relaxed and enjoy getting to know myself with increasing peacefulness. Thank you Tara. It’s easy to find that part of me when hearing you speak.
Thank you for sharing this
By forgiving ourselves, we open our capacity to genuinely relate to others. We see the one in them who is like us and love can grow safely.
We have a sense of fairness, like many other animals. I think we get angry when we feel unfairly treated. Even when the unfair treatment happened in childhood. Then we think we’re a bad person for getting angry. Then we suffer the consequences of being angry and feel we deserve it because “we’re a bad person.” We’re always trying to decide whether we’re a bad person or a good person. If we decide once and for all that we’re a bad person, we think we might as well express our anger because we’re already a bad person. The universe is unfair to us so we’re justified to even the score. We might kill our self or someone else. You could say it’s not our fault because we have that innate sense of fairness. Before there were police to bring justice to society, it made sense to take revenge to prevent others from hurting us again. Even now there are no police to bring justice when someone treats us with contempt or hurts our feelings, so it’s no wonder we feel justified in hurting them back. If we didn’t we’d be doormat. So there has to be a way to keep people from hurting our feelings without hurting them back. What is it? How do we have boundaries without destroying the possibility of intimacy?
Coming from a standpoint of self-compassion opens more doors than any other approach I have come across.
Thank you for the insight!
This allowed me to consider some previous situations with compassion.
This video has made me realise just how self sabotaging my decades of self loathing have been. It certainly hasn’t made me a better person. Self forgiveness and compassion is for sure the way forward. Thank you for these informative and very helpful videos.
Thank u for this. Self forgiveness and personal responsibility are key to healing!
Great clip. In Sam exercise what if it’s not unworthiness but disrespected that Sam felt?
My clients often struggle with a fear that if they let themselves “off the hook” they’ll repeat unwanted behaviors. To be honest, I can fall into this thinking also.
Tara, I am going to look at a situation with my (temporary) roommate in which I feel so guilty because I do not do my share of housekeeping while I am on a waiting list for my own apartment. I have fibromyalgia and the fatigue that accompanied it. In my own home I always have a cleaning person come in monthly to help me. My partner/friend doesn’t want me to do this. Feelings of guilt and shame keep coming up for me in this situation.
Also, I am apparently in the wrong group with you – I am not a therapist. How can I change to appropriate group?
It truly makes so much sense . Thank you
Self-forgiveness can help client let go of the shame and guilt they hold that keeps them from connecting to others.
Thanks Tara!
I believe understanding, forgiving and accepting self are more helpful than punishment/self punishment
can focus on the me-part of the relatioship without feeling guilt or shame
Come to them afresh, lighter and more easily.
Looking for tools to
Let go of self judgement and guilt
I’m hoping to let go of self judgment through these videos. I’ve been trying to do so, unsuccessfully, for 50 years.
I struggle so much with self-loathing. Thank you for this series.