|
We, dear friends, are mere humans, capable of much compassion and loving regard, as well as the doers of thoughtless, selfish, and mean-spirited behaviors. (Angel on our right shoulder; devil on our left?)
It is within the context of offending or slighting one another and making mistakes and missteps, intentional or otherwise, that we can negatively color the neutral or positive regard of mutual connection. Awareness and a dose of "healthy shame" can serve to alert us to seek forgiveness in order to "make things right" again. We can become motivated to make amends and rekindle rapport to that previous relational baseline. Healthy shame dictates that "I did a bad thing," not "I Am a bad thing." Action and accountability can be as simple as saying, "I'm sorry," or "please forgive me"...indeed, sometimes "oops" can signal us into taking responsibility for any minor slight or pain experienced by others as a result of our doing.
Depending on the gravity of the offense, when appropriate, we must seek to make amends commensurate with the offense while offering a pledge to refrain from committing such future behaviors or slights. The larger the offense, the greater the imperative for making amends, for working to establish a "clean slate." The appropriate action can serve to reestablish rapport with the hoped-for result of resolution and a restoration to positive regard. It can, indeed, be refreshing and restorative to be the forgiver, as well as the forgiven. It embodies the elements of integrity and honor by taking responsibility. An acceptance of personal responsibility can restore trust for self as well as for the aggrieved.
So why, then, is it so much more challenging, so much more difficult to forgive ourselves? The self-directed pain with its burden of shame and guilt can linger, if not actually continue to fester, in our core when the offense perpetrated is our own. It's as if these painful emotions somehow function as some sort of coveted form of shame and self-condemnation... serving as a much-deserved, self-imposed punishment.
When no more than a toddler, I recall telling my mother, "I am ashamed of myself, and I should be." I can't recall the offense, but the shame and my subsequent not-goodness lingered in my tiny, still-forming self-image that can be recalled to this day. A healthy acquaintance with the know-how of self-forgiveness, at the time, might well have served to foster a healthier self-esteem, yet, "we don't know what we don't know"...until we know it!
| 
