Radical Forgiveness series

Wrestling with your own demons to find life

I’m writing today in sweltering 90-degree heat with humidity over 85%, because each of you are important. Our air conditioner failed. I despise August swelter and don’t make money on these blog articles, but no matter who you are or what you’ve done, or how lowly you feel, you’re important. Your spiritual growth and abundant life are important to you and me.

Forgiving yourself may be the hardest thing you ever do. But the successful outcome lets you continue successfully in life toward better relationships, more compassion for others, improved feelings of being worthy, enabling you to be more helpful with others, and gain more achievements—a better servant of Christ with a much more fulfilling life.

Watching others’ suffering and limitations because of their inability to move beyond either things they have done, or what others have done to them, really bothers me, as I’m focused on personal growth and seeing people excel—I love seeing growth happen for others.

The path forward has already been created

But it’s full of obstacles. Jesus created the path through forgiveness, but we find it hard to forget. Our opinion of ourselves is low. In this we delve even more deeply into personal psychology, so I’m primarily going to reference research. This article is very compatible with Jesus’ teachings on forgiveness, which was his primary theme in the Good News. He sacrificed himself to end the tyranny of guilt and shame in our lives so that we can have eternal life and have life abundantly.

It’s one thing for the Bible to say you’re forgiven. But many people can’t accept it without help.

You may have already taken some difficult steps. These are:

If you’ve caused harm to others, go to them and make them whole again. They may or may not forgive you, but that’s their choice, not yours. You did your best and that has to be good enough. We are all supposed to forgive others.
Identify if the guilt you feel, and resulting shame, is unwarranted or irrational guilt. You may have worked on resolving that. But this is very difficult and may require the help of a clinical psychologist.

Reference:

Unwarranted guilt and irrational guilt: Irrational guilt is “shame, judgment, self-criticism for seemingly mundane, uncomplicated parts of daily life. Questioning if you’re working enough, if you’re a good enough partner/parent/friend, if you’re making life harder for those around you…Wondering if you’re falling short or have done something wrong even if life seems fine or even good.” – Mindful Care Therapy.

No deep hole is deeper than God’s boundless love

So why is it so difficult to forgive ourselves?

Shame looks up from the bottom of a very deep hole with the chains of trauma holding us at the bottom. This is the best visualization I can come up with. The chains are traumatic experiences that pirate away our emotional and irrational mind and keep us mired in guilt and shame. They never turn loose.

Kola Superdeep Borehole in Russia is the deepest artificial point on Earth, reaching a depth of 40,230 feet (12,262 meters), or over 7.5 miles. The Mariana Trench in the western Pacific Ocean is approximately 35,814 feet below sea level. It’s the deepest point on Earth. God forgives us and our sins are so much farther away that they are forgotten. They don’t exist.

For God, forgiveness means forgetting. We’re no long accountable for what we did. But for us, we never really forget.

The depth of the hole caused by your own misdeeds or by other’s visited on us can be caused by:

Unresolved justification for what you did,
The profound impact of trauma caused to you by others,
Exaggeration of the “badness” of what you did,
Learned habit from everyday response to what you did,
The “hot breath on our neck” of those you think are looking at and judging you,
Self-image caused by perceived as “less than” others,
Revisiting trauma so that it stays large in your mind.

Your challenge is to overcome this, and you can do it with good direction from others and persistence.

Please keep in mind, I work with social psychology. I don’t do any kind of analysis or therapy. All I can do is raise your awareness of what oppresses you and point you in the right direction. I urge you to consult a licensed clinical psychologist to help you through this difficult journey. It will reap major benefits in your life.

Brene Brown, who has researched nearly 1300 participants about shame, plus many other related topics, created two very important YouTube podcasts that can help you.

The High Price of Pretending You’re Okay | Brené Brown
Trauma Trained You to Accept Disrespect — Here’s How to Unlearn It | Brené Brown

The Hidden Roots of Guilt and Shame

Often, we don’t even think of the lasting impact some things have on our lives. We just “keep on keeping on” and endure. This is very sad. Everyone deserves a better life.

Unexpected divorce: You may feel you didn’t do the right things to keep a good marriage. People often blame their spouse for leaving them, but more often the spouse is the entire cause or part of it, not the person unexpectedly divorced.
Family Member’s Legal Troubles: Your children or spouse having problems with the law.
Moral Injury: Soldiers witnessing or committing things that become a moral injury. Moral injury can manifest in intense feelings of guilt, shame, anger, and self-blame. It can disrupt one’s sense of self and purpose, lead to social withdrawal, and even impact spiritual beliefs. Research suggests a link between moral injury and increased risk of depression, substance use, and suicidal ideation, even after accounting for PTSD. Moral injury could include things such as:
1. Killing or harming others (especially civilians and children).
2. Failing to prevent harm to others.
3. Witnessing immoral actions by others (e.g., disproportionate violence).
4. Feeling betrayed by leadership or comrades.
5. Following orders perceived as immoral or inhumane.
Early Childhood Trauma: Parental violence toward each other or toward you as a child. This early childhood trauma is a cause of lifetime PTSD. Children feel responsible for keeping parents calm and nonviolent, whether because of their parents’ actions related to alcohol, anger, psychosis, or for their own behavior.
This type of trauma can cause intrusive thoughts, nightmares, avoidance of trauma-related stimuli, hyperarousal, anxiety, substance abuse, depression, and dissociation. These behaviors can be passed down for generations. Perhaps the most insidious and devastating aspect of this is the inability to find meaning and purpose in life so spiritual progress is ended.
In family trauma and shame, the children model the submissive or aggressive behavior of the parent. They’re at the very bottom of an incredibly deep well in very strong chains.

Accepting disrespect, or being looked down on, or mistreated and abused by others, is very destructive. While you can’t change other people or avoid every abusive situation, you don’t have to accept being treated this way. Here’s the thing: It’s well known that if you accept mistreatment, the person doing the mistreatment not only won’t stop, they will also become worse. No one should be abused or accept abuse. Even being looked down on is a form of abuse. Hoping someone stops abusing is a recipe for disaster because they rarely do.

As my wife said in 1969, you teach people how to treat you. If you’re willing to live with being undervalued and mistreated, you will not only get more of it, the mistreatment will nearly always get worse. You have to set boundaries. You have to be prepared to walk away. Don’t let yourself become dehumanized.

People Will Treat You How You Let Them – Here’s How to Set the Standard | Professor Brene Brown

The causes of abuse, whether physical or emotional, are many. I’m close to people living with trauma, so I know how difficult it is. But there is hope. Faith offers a deep well of forgiveness and acceptance, and can be the foundation for overcoming this to achieve a better, more fulfilling life. Recovery will likely take help from a clinical psychologist, a pastor, and support from those around them.

If you live with, work with, or minister to people with this type of abuse in their background, be very aware that they can’t just “get over it,” and these conditions often paralyze them in their lives, often for most of their life. They aren’t weak. It often takes more strength than you yourself have just to get through their lives. Be compassionate and try to avoid things that trigger them. This will probably take years to fully overcome.

References:

Understanding the Root Causes of PTSD from Domestic Abuse. KC Psychiatry and Primary Care.
PTSD: National Center for PTSD, Morally Injurious Events
Trauma Trained You to Accept Disrespect — Here’s How to Unlearn It | Brené Brown
Why Is It So Hard to Forgive Yourself? Forgiving yourself is not letting yourself off the hook. – Peg O’Connor Ph.D. Psychology Today. Self-deception and glossing over what we’ve done to others are common ways to avoid guilt and shame, but they don’t work.

Sometimes self-forgiveness is nearly impossible – but …

A new study with eighty adults (a small sample size, but significant), revealed four central themes in why people find it difficult to forgive themselves.
First, participants who could not forgive themselves often described the event as if it were still happening. This indicates they ruminate on these past events. Rumination means “persistently focusing on negative thoughts, feelings, and past experiences, often without finding a solution or resolution.”
The article explains, “The past felt vividly present and replayed in their minds with intense emotional weight. These individuals remained “stuck,” feeling as if they had not moved forward in life.”
About half the group managed to self-forgive and moved on. Those who had self-forgiven emphasized a shift in focus toward the future. They still regretted their past actions, but weren’t consumed by them. They made an active decision to release the emotional hold of the past.
For some, understanding that they weren’t to blame because they had no control over events, freed them.

Others reframed what they had done as a mistake that just made them human. Humans make mistakes. We all do, even though I tell my wife and kids I don’t. They don’t believe me anyway.

Many people try to hide from their past mistakes rather than learn from them. They may drink excessively to numb their feelings. They may avoid thinking about the thorn that keeps sticking them and keeping them up at night. This numbs their compassionate feelings toward others and harms their relationships. Feeling underserving or unworthy prevents developing healthy relationships.

Those who had self-forgiven were successful in the group, had worked through their guilt and emotions, and learned from their experiences. It’s painful. But it’s necessary. It seems like I go through this everyday. Okay, well maybe not everyday. But if I ever forget, my wife reminds me of everything that’s happened in over 50 years of marriage.

The important point is that for half the participants, in a very short time they were able to forgive themselves and move on with their lives. You can too.

Reference:

Conclusion

You are very, very important. The most powerful being in the universe loves you and will help you. Many people around you will help you if you let them know you are suffering. Ministers will help you understand that you are to be forgiven. Others will help you and hold you accountable for self-sabotage. Therapists (clinical psychologists) will help keep you focused, and help you understand how you undermine yourself. These people exist just to help people like you, and they love helping.

Don’t you dare discount that you are just this important to yourself and everyone around you. Shame destroys lives–don’t let it destroy yours. Be persistent in breaking the chains and climbing out of that very deep well, and let others help.

Find meaning and purpose in life, and enjoy the reward of better relationships and achievements you were meant for. Enjoy what God intended for you.

Concluding challenge

Our past is a chain, but we are free to create our new selves, and we can do it. Set out each morning to treat yourself with kindness and compassion. This is your human birthright. Set reminders throughout the day to make sure you’re doing this. Stop internalizing mistreatment from others. If they mistreat or if they are unwilling to forgive or accept you for who you are, remind yourself that this is their problem, not yours. You are one of God’s gifts to this world. Don’t let this go to your head like some entitled people, but understand God cares for you and wants you to become what God intended.

Each day, when you feel “less than” others, count the many people who are for you and will help you. They are many.

This takes persistence, patience, overcoming what is uncomfortable, and time, but it’s worth it. If you’re not making progress, get help from online or in-person clinical psychologists who are trained to help. Don’t expect overnight success. This can take months or years to accomplish. A bountiful life is what Jesus promised us, and it’s worth the struggle.