Last week we started identifying actors from our movie because they were reading the scripts we wrote for them. Also, let us look at how well we had written the script for ourselves.
Obviously we don’t walk around saying “Gee I’m going to sabotage myself today. I’m going to set myself up for failure so I can feel guilty and ashamed”. However, there is some kind of an unconscious or subconscious belief about ourselves that we keep adding onto these layers of guilt and shame that just feel more cumbersome as the years go by. Sometimes you need to look at the script of your “movie” and decide it needs better dialogue!
When we say, “I don’t want to hold a grudge so I’m going to try and forget”, that’s not really forgiveness. A better way is, “You know, I’ve made a mistake in my thinking to allow another person including myself to seemingly hurt me. I recognize that that person is merely doing what I invited them to do or I’m merely doing what I unconsciously believed about myself. And in reality, neither that person, myself, nor anybody, can hurt me. I’m perfect now, always have been and always will be.”
A great affirmation to say to yourself or someone you’ve perceived to have hurt you is “I send you love from my heart _____. I’m sending you love from my heart and I forgive you knowing it is impossible for you to infringe on my perfection”.
Another cleansing, clearing thought would be, “You know what? I am perfect just the way I am and I have chosen to start setting myself up to believe that so I’m going to send love from my heart to myself and know that I am forgiven, because really there’s nothing to forgive”. That’s the ultimate in forgiveness work. The knowing that in reality there is nothing to forgive in the first place. In other words, we are creating actors to play the scripts we wrote for them and ourselves. Therefore, there is nothing to forgive because we are playing our parts perfectly. That doesn’t mean that if you have hurt yourself or if someone has hurt you, that it is okay, nor does it mean that you have to forget it. I know that people say forgive and forget, but it’s difficult to forget if you’re still holding on to the pain.
What this cleansing will help us do is to release that pain. Because many of us really want to punish the other person or punish ourselves. You have to be willing to give up the desire to punish. Punishing other people is like YOU taking poison and expecting THEM to die. It really hurts you, it doesn’t hurt them. The same is true for yourself. So let’s learn how to write a new script in our own movie…
This is a simple exercise that you can do to help bring out better dialogue in your heart and your head. We are going to use stream of consciousness writing to write down a time in your life when you were really upset with yourself. It could be in relation to your job, relationship – something you feel you failed at and feel guilt and/or shame about. Don’t edit your answers, just write down the first thoughts that come up when you read the statement and finish it.
Answer the following six questions –
- I’m upset at myself because…
- The reason I’m not willing to forgive myself is…
- My payoff for not forgiving myself is…
- The lesson I’m learning from this is…
- I’m most grateful for myself for…
- What life would be like if I forgave myself…
The first three really get you in touch with what you are feeling and why you feel the way you do and the reason why you can’t forgive yourself and what your payoff is. What do you get out of it for not forgiving yourself? Do you get to stay stuck? Not deal with things? Do you get to be alone? Do you get to stay separate so you aren’t hurt?
The last three move you out of that feeling place of shame and guilt to try and get you to a better place. You are on the road to taking responsibility for your thoughts, actions, and beliefs. What lesson am I learning about myself and what am I most grateful for? Plenty of times we forget – why we should even like ourselves or much less love ourselves. After that, visualize what life would be like if you didn’t feel guilty or ashamed.
That’s the part that I really want you to focus on. What would life feel like? What would my life be like in relationships? In my job? My purpose? With my family? With my friends? What would life be like if I felt innocent and accepted myself for who I am?
Many times we get stuck in those first three. We get caught up in what’s wrong with us. “Why didn’t I do something? I can’t get it right. I almost made it, but just can’t quite.” These are triggers for us that keep coming up like a trash compactor. We were these little tiny people with all of these outside influences pushing us down saying, “You’re not good enough, you can’t make it, you’ve got to work hard for your money, why can’t you be more like your brother and sister, money doesn’t grow on trees”. We start believing all of these sayings and feelings that bombarded us when we were little thinking, “Oh I guess that’s true. I guess I can’t get it right. I’d better not make a mistake. I’m going to get hurt.”
And then we start believing that’s who we really are; this trash compactor full of guilt and shame. Maybe we’ve done a lot of release work on ourselves and let the pressure valve go which may have cleaned out the trash compactor some and that’s great. But things will continue to happen in our lives that trigger those same feelings we had. “There it is again – I thought I’d released that. I thought I let go of that already. I’m going to beat myself up some more and then beat myself up for beating myself up because I should have let this all go.” A vicious cycle.
The answer is to start with a better and healthier dialogue in your life. I applaud many of you out there reading who have started that process, and I hope today’s exercise is going to bring about some change for many more of you. Next week, we’re going to spend time with what we call mirror work, so work through these exercises and get ready for next week!
