Life has been a challenging teacher recently, allowing me to discover some places in me where I wasn’t as aware as I would have liked to have been.  Because of this, I’m having an opportunity to revisit the practice of active, conscious, self-forgiveness, of understanding that, had I known then what I know now, things would have been better.  I’m also having another opportunity to look deeply into an internal mirror and get to know aspects of myself that haven’t been reflected back as consciously before.

My recent experience reminded me of the power of self-forgiveness, of the importance of the gift of compassion for ourselves, and of what an active practice this is when we are confronted with letting ourselves and others down.  And, it also drove home how important it is to be able to arrive at forgiving ourselves for being human, for not knowing everything we’d like to know, for not acting in every way we would prefer to act, for being normal, regular, fallible people.

Recently, someone pointed out to me the value of healthy remorse – that we’re sorry when we don’t measure up – as compared to self-criticism, which tends to beat us up for what we’ve done, or not done.  This is different from burdensome guilt.  With healthy remorse, we can decide not to do a particular thing again, and can also decide what we’re going to do to support our intention.  It’s a proactive stance rather than one that collapses into feeling helpless or like a bad person.

There’s a spiritual service I attend sometimes that has a “prayer of forgiveness” as part of its ritual.  In part of the prayer, we ask forgiveness for any of the ways we have harmed ourselves and others, knowingly or unknowingly.  I’m always moved by this particular section, as it is such a direct invitation into compassion and self-understanding, and allows us to accept the fact that we *will* inadvertently harm ourselves and others somewhere along the way.

And so, for this week’s experiment, I invite you to think about a time – recently or in the past – where you didn’t measure up to how you would have liked to be, or how you experienced/expected yourself to be.  The key piece here is to realize that you know more now than you did then, that you’re not in the same place, and that you probably see things with a wider lens than you did before.  Then, once you’ve identified something you want to use as the focus of the experiment, allow yourself to notice what you learned from discovering that you behaved in a way you wish you hadn’t.  Notice what changes you may have made as a result of that.  How has the experience strengthened or deepened you and your self-understanding? 

As you explore the experience, please be sure to bring along non-judgment as your constant, gentle companion.  This is an exercise in accepting the places where you wish you’d been different, and taking some time to look at what you’ve done – or want to do – about it.  This most definitely is not an exercise in having one more opportunity to criticize or punish yourself.  And, maybe that’s the biggest part of the experiment – how to support self-forgiveness rather than what may be a more habitual self-criticism, guilt, doubt, or any of the other myriad ways we have of leaning on ourselves. 

The real plus in allowing ourselves to recognize our shortcomings is that this awareness offers an opportunity to change our behavior, beliefs, or ways of moving through certain experiences.  This is a great gift, as we are works in progress and there is always the option to generate change when we don’t like the way we or things are going.