C h a p t e r19

FORGIVENESS AND SELF-ATTACK

In this chapter we will take a look at the role self-attack plays in thwarting forgiveness (whether it be forgiveness of others or forgiveness of the self). While forgiveness of others is important, this will not be the main focus; the main focus will be on forgiveness of others as a byproduct of forgiving the self.

There is a direct relationship between our own self-attack and our inability to forgive others; the more we attack ourselves, the less able we are to forgive others. Usually when attempting to forgive others for their transgressions, our focus is on overcoming our judgments of them, thus letting them off the hook. However, the way to actually accomplish forgiveness of others is to let ourselves off the hook.

When we are holding judgments against others and cannot seem to forgive them, it can be difficult to see that there is an element of self-attack in play. At first it is not obvious because we are fixated on the offending parties, impugning their actions, actively disliking them, wanting to retaliate, and in general being stuck on our inability to pardon them. But underneath, something else is happening.

Underneath all this focus on the other person, we have most likely been pronouncing ourselves to be unlovable, disposable, forgettable, worthless, unwanted, foolish, meaningless, bad, useless, incompetent, contemptible, shameful, guilty, disgusting, or deficient. We may be feeling like a big nothing, a big failure, or a big disappointment. Most likely we are straining under the yoke of being used, abused, oppressed, invaded, kicked aside, misunderstood, vilified, scapegoated, and/or humiliated, and are now redirecting our outrage for the perpetrators to ourselves.

Once this happens, we need to get busy working to turn our anger around. We have already discussed elsewhere how to identify and assign our anger to the correct person(s) before it gets redirected and morphed into bullets with our names on them. We also know how to identify the feelings of fear, sorrow, and helplessness that lie beneath our anger. However, there is more that we can do. Now we have to start gaining a greater understanding of the matter at hand.

So what would this understanding look like? It could be allowing ourselves to register the degree to which the offending parties are disordered and/or emotionally disabled. It can be coming to an understanding that we have given too much credence to others who in actuality have no idea who they are, what goes on inside them, or what drives their actions. It could be coming to understand how affected the offending parties are due to things they have suffered in their own past, thereby helping us get a grasp on the issues they have carried forward. It may also be coming to understand the full impact of their immaturity, character flaws, substance abuse, narcissism, or sociopathic tendencies.

The thing we are attempting to do through this understanding is overturn the belief that whatever occurred took place because of something that we said, did, or are. We are trying to comprehend the situation in a broader sense so that we do not take it personally.

Unfortunately, many of us carry the belief that all life events can be traced directly back to us. There is no consideration of the bigger picture. Everything seems personal. Assuming this to be true, we ply ourselves with self-recriminations. This particular belief is spectacularly wrong. In fact, it is downright outlandish.

Of course, there clearly are things that happen due to our choices and ways of being. We are all busy creating things in this world. This is obvious. However, when interacting with others, we do not have the luxury of creating in a vacuum. We are now in a zone that depends on a plethora of factors, all of which we do not understand or control.

When we interact with others, we are interacting with the following:

We control none of that. Whatever another person is walking around with internally is a wild card for us.

This is not even a complete list. There are so many factors at play within another person that they cannot all be listed here. When you think of all the possibilities and all the potential combinations of factors within another person, it is mind boggling. These are the people whose every word and behavior we take to heart and use to attack ourselves based on their presumed validity. What? Are we crazy?

No, we are not crazy. We probably hold this belief simply because we are lacking in individuation and still hold the perspective that we are connected to every life event. Or perhaps we are partially individuated, but still lack a well-defined sense of self. We do not yet have the strength of our own feelings, our own opinions, our own likes and dislikes, our own ways of being. We are on our way, but still do not have the ego strength to believe in ourselves and to turn aside some of life’s absurdities.

Alternatively, we may be engaging in idealization; we may be seeing others to be more aware, mature, and capable than they really are. Or at the very least, we see them as able to be consistently in control of themselves. Then, when something does happen that feels personal, we assume that they did it, not because of their own limitations, but because they did not value us.

The truth is that sometimes others do not know what is going on within us. Nor do they always have control of themselves and their behaviors. They get overloaded, anxious, or depressed and find themselves impulsively acting on their feelings. Even the best of us struggle with maintaining control in stressful situations. This is unfortunate, but it has nothing to do with us.

Worse yet, sometimes we are dealing with more than human limitation; we are dealing with someone who is downright disordered. The damaging behaviors of such individuals are not transient, but in play most of the time. This can be anything from untreated addiction to personality disorders to psychosis. Unfortunately, we are usually unaware of this reality. We assume the other people are normal, and we are shocked and hurt when they do whatever it is that they do. Sometimes we may know about the disorder, but have no real idea of all that their disorder entails. Either scenario is fertile ground for personalization.

An example of this would be dealing with narcissists. People’s level of narcissism is a factor in the hurtful things that they say and do. Narcissists are so invested in defending their protective image that they react very poorly to the threat of being unmasked, exposed, or challenged. If threatened, they can lash out with very hurtful comments. If very narcissistic, they do not even know we exist as real, live, four-dimensional individuals who can be hurt by their words and actions. To them we are two-dimensional individuals who exist more as objects to be used. This can lead to exploitive, abusive, and disrespectful behaviors.

If we are facing this without knowledge of the disorder in play, we do not stand a chance in the personalization department. However, if we can acknowledge and register another’s disorder, we can reduce or fully eradicate our tendency to take things personally. Once we have done this, it becomes all too clear who has the problem. In these instances, it might even be helpful to ask ourselves the question, “What am I dealing with here?” It can be an eye opener.

When we put all of the above together, it pretty much obliterates the idea that most everything that happens in life is because of us. Really, there is very little that we should take personally. This is not to say that we should not take responsibility for ourselves, but it is to say that our responsibility in any given matter may constitute a very small part of a larger picture.

Now let’s switch gears for a moment. So far we have been looking at others’ contributions to our taking things personally. However, everything related to personalization is not about the other person. There are certain things that we may be doing that contribute to our tendency to personalize as well. This may seem counterintuitive in that we are trying not to attack ourselves; however, taking responsibility for our own ways of being can rescue us from the painful conviction that someone did something to us because we were not lovable, worthy, or valid. On the contrary, if we can identify a misstep of our own, it can increase our understanding of the matter and actually be very relieving.

In these instances, it can be helpful to remember that taking responsibility does not mean taking blame or being bad. It does not involve a personal judgment so much as an assessment of reality. It is entirely possible to assess reality without pronouncing ourselves worthless, incompetent, stupid, or unlovable.

Let’s look at a few possibilities for how we might be a contributing factor in the personalization of our life events. The possibilities listed below are specific, but are all related in some manner to taking responsibility for ourselves.

The first of these is our propensity to engage in self-attack. Do we use this defense regularly? Is it our “go-to” position? We need to take a look and see. In particular, we need to see how we are working with our anger. When someone has done something that is unkind or malicious to us, we can either experience our righteous anger toward the other person or turn it against our self. Turning it against our self will probably result in the hurt of taking things personally. Turning it outwardly against the other person will short-circuit personalization. Of course, this does not mean to outwardly harm someone; it means being appropriately angry with them.

A second thing we have to do when attempting to get past personalization is look at our capacity to set and maintain boundaries for ourselves. Anytime we feel abused, smothered, put upon, used up, manipulated, or disregarded, it is time to set a boundary. We may have to say no and mean it, we may have to defend ourselves, or we may have to leave a bad situation. Whatever it is that we need to do, others need to be apprised of where we have no more ground to give. Then they need to see this demonstrated.

Having healthy boundaries means that we are willing to be the protector of our own self rather than assigning that job to someone else. When we assign our self-care to another, we are deep in personalization territory, for when he or she fails to adequately protect us, we will be personally hurt.

When in a relationship we are famous for abdicating our self-care in favor of being cared for by our loved one. This is how we related to our parents when we were children. However, we should never approach another with the boundless innocence of a child, for others are only human and will, at some point, let us down. When they do, we will take it very personally if we have trusted them beyond reason and without bounds. We need to stay realistic.

A third thing we have to look at within ourselves is our level of self-esteem. The less self-esteem we have, the more we tend to take things personally. Another way to say this is that we are more easily hurt when we have lost sight of our worth. We need to be responsible for the fact that when our self-esteem has bottomed out, we are not as emotionally hardy as usual. Taking responsibility for this can make things seem less personal.

A fourth reason we take things personally is that we fail to understand the nature of life. As M. Scott Peck said, “Life is difficult.”1 This is a variation on what the Buddha said: “Life is suffering.”2 Life is not a bowling alley with a varnished pathway to success. It is not a linear passageway affording a straight shot. We can throw a perfect ball all day long and not take down all ten pins. Life is more like a miniature golf course with twists and turns and obstacles everywhere. Life’s pathways are winding, frustrating, and full of brambles. It is this way for everyone, not just us. It is the norm. It is the nature of life.

If we can but realize this, we can take life’s slings and arrows less personally. We can approach things more philosophically. We can accept the reality that struggle and failure are part of the plan for everybody. It is not just we who try and fail, make the wrong choices, or falter when the burden is too heavy. It is everybody.

When struggling with something difficult or painful in life, it is always helpful to remember that life does not happen to us. Nor does life happen to us. Life just happens. Remembering this will lift us out of personalization very quickly.

A fifth thing we need to do in order to stop taking things personally is to admit when one of our own issues or disorders is in play. For instance, sometimes we are the narcissistic ones who demand such special treatment that no one is allowed to criticize or disagree with us at all. We are so fragile inside that no one dare speak to us unless it is to admire us and support our thoughts, feelings, and choices. From this vantage point, pretty much everything that is not approving and admiring is felt to be a personal attack. Moreover, every little thing that we thought we should receive but did not is experienced as a slight and wounds us greatly.

Obviously, we cannot be in the position to dictate what others may do or say to constantly protect our egos. In such instances, we need a couple of things. We need a stronger sense of self, i.e., have a greater awareness and appreciation of who we are as individuals. In addition, we need more compassion for the actual self and less emphasis on the idealized self. Once we are more defined as individuals and accepting of our actual self, every difference of opinion or aberrant behavior will not feel like a personal attack upon us.

A sixth thing we need to do to minimize personalization is to be aware of how we are interpreting our environment, for we can concoct some pretty self-denigrating stories about why someone out in the world did or said whatever he or she did. If we are to avoid taking things personally, we cannot be our own worst enemies when it comes to seeing things clearly. We may not like what we see, but it is better than twisting incoming information into denigrating, self-attacking sagas about how unloved and unimportant we are.

A seventh thing we need to do in order to minimize personalization is to come to a compassionate understanding of the behaviors we have engaged in and the life choices we have made. Understanding and compassion always help.

Here are a few possibilities for why we might have behaved badly or chosen poorly:

There are so many possibilities for why we do what we do, but none of them should be cause for self-flagellation. Nor should they be misconstrued as the singular reason that certain things happen (particularly in relationships). Whatever another person says or does, it does not mean that his or her actions have been completely predicated upon our choices and behaviors. The workings of relationships are far more complex than that. We can take responsibility for our part in a matter without exaggerating it in such an absurd manner. The best thing we can do is to learn about ourselves from our mistakes and recognize that the other person has a lot to acknowledge as well. It is important that we learn to accept not only our own foibles, but those of others as well.

Oftentimes our choices, behaviors, and ways of being are unconscious ones. In fact, we may have no idea what is motivating us. When we come to the realization that many of our regrettable behaviors have arisen out of unconsciousness, we can begin to forgive ourselves. If we choose to do this, letting in the knowledge that our unconscious behaviors are not our fault, there may be a feeling of relief, gratitude, and humility. We may feel merciful toward ourselves. We may even vow to work on becoming more conscious human beings. In fact, our awareness of the reality that we have been unconscious has already moved us forward in the awareness department. This brings us confidence in our ability to achieve better connections with others and to improve the quality of our lives.

As we come to realize that we cannot hold ourselves responsible for choices and behaviors that are born of unconsciousness, it becomes clear that we cannot hold others responsible for their unconscious choices and behaviors either. Granted, we may have to remove ourselves from certain situations if those choices and behaviors become too unhealthy for us, but we do not have to view other people’s actions as conscious attempts to hurt us. This realization can help us take things less personally. Specifically, it can help us release the idea that we are being personally targeted and/or punished by others.

An eighth thing we can do to minimize personalization is to give up our victim status. This means that we have to relinquish the idea that we are innocent, hapless bystanders in life who, for some unexplainable reason, keep getting run over. However, that presents a problem because being a victim provides many perks. Victims are innocent. Victims are not responsible for anything that happens. In fact, they are absolved of all responsibility. They have no need for remorse. Victims are perceived to be the good ones, not the bad ones. They are loveable and worthwhile, wounded by circumstances, and nothing can be held against them. It is easy to see how we might be very attached to our victim status.

Without our victim status we would have to contend openly with our responsibility to self and others. We would have to own our self-attack. We would have to face our lack of compassion to self. We would have to confront our fears about our own worth and lovability. We might even have to admit that we have had a contribution to the matter at hand. These are the things we are trying to avoid by holding on to our unrelenting judgment of others while relishing the conviction of our own victimhood. Yet in reality it is our identification with being a victim and holding on to the feeling of being wronged that exacerbates our feelings of worthlessness, lack of lovability, badness, guilt, and shame.

Without our judgment of others and without the victim mask to hide behind, there is a calm that descends. We cease to see ourselves as slaughtered innocents and begin to see ourselves as normal human beings dealing with one of life’s curve balls. We feel less angry and helpless as we reclaim our own power to cope; consequently, there is less vitriol to turn back on ourselves. We also feel less sanctimonious as we begin to look at our possible part in the matter at hand (even if our part was no more than allowing certain persons into our lives). If there is not partial responsibility for us to declare, then at least we can claim our power to heal and once again find joy in life.

Go ahead and try it on for size. Think of someone you do not like and cannot forgive. Note how you feel like a victim of his/her behaviors. Then note what it would feel like if you had to give up your victim status. What would you have to relinquish? Do you see how you would have to give up your powerlessness? Do you see how you would have to abandon your focus on the other person and take a look at how you are processing your emotions? Do you see how it is your own self-attack that has left you feeling depressed and personally flawed? If so, you would come to realize that you were never be a victim to begin with. You were just someone who misdirected your rage, gave your power away, and then suffered the consequences of that. Do you see the difference in how you feel?

Giving up our victimhood does not mean that now we realize nothing bad has really happened to us or that now we realize what has happened is our fault. Nor does it not mean that we are expected to have no negative feelings about what has happened. On the contrary, we will have grief that we need to process. It is just that we will be minus the self-attack component of the offense or at least it will be lowered. The conviction of our victimhood has only been there to supposedly help us reclaim our goodness, our worth, our lovability, our validity, and our innocence. It has been a failing attempt to get us out of pain, which inadvertently has caused more pain.

The relinquishment of our victim consciousness shows us what we were struggling with at the outset – not the offender, but our own self-attack. It allows for a compassionate response to our loss of lovability, validity, innocence, worth, and goodness. It sheds the light of loving understanding on them. It embraces them. More than that, it takes the power away from the offender and restores it to us. We begin to see that these questions about our own value should never have been entertained. We were valuable to begin with. We see that more of our pain has been due to the questioning of our own worth, goodness, and lovability than to any action of the perpetrator. He or she just got us doubting ourselves. It is much easier to take a loss when we know we are loveable, good, and worthy.

The restoration of power that occurs within us when we realize our own worth brings an amazing release because the offending party has now lost power over us and that person knows it. He or she may have had us on the run for a while, but all that is over now, for as soon as we stop beating on ourselves, the offender’s ability to beat on us vanishes as well. It is amazing how when we forgive ourselves for our real or imagined flaws, everything turns around. Whether we see it as the best way to get our revenge, the best way to forgive other lost souls, or the best way to find our own peace of mind, our power lies in letting ourselves off the hook.

So if we are not victims, what are we? We may be individuals who have had to put up with something, we may be individuals with limited awareness, or we may be naïve individuals. We may be individuals who are sometimes driven by our historical issues or our fears or our low self-esteem. We may be individuals with less than a perfect grasp of a situation, with limited knowledge of a particular subject, or limited power to handle a situation as we would have liked. We may be imperfect perceivers of a given situation. We may even be brainwashed individuals. However, we are rarely bad individuals. We are simply fallible human beings doing the best we can.

You may ask, “What about the times when children are harmed or have an illness and they really are victims? Or what about the times we adults are the victims of crimes? What about people who are victimized by terrorists?

To this we can say that of course there are situations in which we are powerless against forces around us. At these times, yes, we can acknowledge that we have been victimized. We definitely have losses to deal with. But this is very different from victim consciousness which singlehandedly reduces our own power and seeks further victimization in order to keep repetitively proving to the world that we are good. We can be the victim of someone or something, see it as part of living on planet earth, meet it with grace, and move on without seeking our own redemption through a pattern of victim consciousness.

Ninth, if we are to give up personalization, we must embrace the concept of acceptance. This means that we must stop fighting against life. We have to stop arguing with reality and agree to accept it. We have to stop carrying on about whether or not something was right or fair and instead jump straight to what needs to be done, given the reality that presents itself. After we have processed our initial emotions and tried to gain an understanding of the situation, we must always say to ourselves, “This is my reality. Now what do people with this reality do?”

At this point, all judgments against self or others are useless. They simply get in the way of accepting reality, finding solutions to deal with that reality, and eventually achieving forgiveness for all concerned.

The concept of acceptance does not demand that we pretend whatever happened did not actually happen. That would be a denial of truth and constitute lying to ourselves. We do not want to associate forgiveness with lying. But we need to understand that what is is and that it is our label of our life experience as good or bad that presents a problem. We simply need to overlook the judgment piece and get to a reality-based, healing solution.

This reality-based, healing solution could be:

A tenth thing that contributes to personalization is a lack of communication with the offender. Sometimes communication with the offender is not possible, but when it is, it can be a glorious redeemer of our worth. Through communication, we take in new information that can help us view the situation in a more understandable light. We can calm down, stop assuming the worst about ourselves, and get on with things.

In a best-case scenario in which both parties are working to resolve the situation, the understanding we need can be gleaned through direct communication that clears up misperceptions and misunderstandings. Healing can go forward much more easily when the offender and the wounded party are both talking. It can also go forward when the offender admits to his or her offense and seeks help to achieve a greater understanding of himor herself. Hit-and-run offenses are the worst-case scenarios. The injured party is left with the worst thoughts about him- or herself with no way to know why the injurious event occurred. Here self-attack can run rampant.

When the offending party is not ready or willing to admit to his or her offense, however, it is useless to try to achieve healing through interaction with that person. That would amount to the useless pastime of trying to change someone. That would be waiting to be heard by someone who is not listening. That would be codependency. In these instances the healing must be internal and the focus must be on self.

The hardest internal or external judgment to let go of is when the offending party did something on purpose. They knew exactly what they were doing. Maybe they were downright evil. It gets very personal here because there is less possibility for innocence (theirs and ours). The offender seems unusually heartless and we seem unusually worthless.

Yet in reality, persons who are willfully harming others are usually the ones who know least what they are really doing. Oh sure, they dimly know they are slashing and burning other people, but they are unusually lacking in awareness of themselves, of their motivations, of others, or of the effects of their actions. They are so lost in their own hostility, their own issues, and their own fears that they could not find their way out of a paper bag. They know practically nothing about themselves. Worse, the actions they engage in completely block their ability to feel anything, for action blocks awareness of emotion. In fact, they are such ignorant messes that truly we can only forgive them for they know not what they do.

The reality is that almost nothing that happens is personal. It may seem personal, but it is not. Even when something negative or hurtful is directed at us, it is largely due to the inner state of the offender; the more outrageous the offense, the more disturbed the offender. No matter how specifically directed an action is against us, it is not about us. Were we perfect in the matter? Probably not. Did we have our own issues that came into play? Probably. Does that have anything to do with deserving a beating? No, definitely not.

When we find that we are unable to relinquish a judgment of another and are simultaneously attacking ourselves, it is helpful to take a look at what the judgment is doing for us. We might try asking ourselves the following questions:

Whether we are answering these questions so that we can forgive ourselves or forgive another, they are worthy of our attention. They shift our focus inward to the self, which moves us closer to understanding and benevolence for all.