In my experience, the path to being truly spiritual can be blocked by many self-imposed doors. A big problem for me was being able to forgive myself. I turned to spirituality to feel graced by God’s forgiveness to heal my own guilt, but much later on came to understand that I was keeping a door shut which prevented the true Divine blessing of forgiveness from being a part of my life. Maybe you can relate to this - “I know that God forgives me, but I still can’t forgive myself.”.
Later, when I saw the trap in this way of thinking, I came to realize that I was only accepting God’s forgiveness on a superficial level. I now believe that the deeper aspect of forgiveness from another is that it must lead to self-forgiveness. If I believe that God has forgiven me, I now must see that He is inviting me to forgive myself. I don’t know about you, but when I came to understand this invitation to self-forgiveness, all I could think was “I can’t do that!”
It took me a long time to overcome this way of thinking, but now that I have acted on the invitation, I see a big change in how I feel about myself. God must be taken up on this invitation - if not, I believe that one can never genuinely experience God’s forgiveness which includes the fullness of redemption and reconciliation with oneself. Even worse, only accepting God’s forgiveness, but not self-forgiveness, causes a contradiction that can lead to even more pain in life. Because of this pain, I went through many years punishing myself. What better way is there to withhold self-forgiveness than by self-punishment, self-pity, and self-condemnation?
Why did I find self-forgiveness too hard to do? It hurts! To forgive myself, I have to first come to terms with what I have done and convict myself on it. I tried many ways to avoid this painful experience -
The first was to think that I didn’t need to forgive myself and just needed God to forgive me (we talked about why that doesn’t work).
The second was to cop out on a plea of ignorance, or insanity. Though there might be some truth in this - the guilt is still based on the fact that I chose to do these things, regardless of the circumstances. (this didn’t work because the guilt can’t be dodged by excuses)
The third was to be vague on the crimes that I committed - instead of really looking at what I had done in detail, I just clumped them together and said, “I forgive myself for being the asshole I used to be”. (this didn’t work because it still avoids the depth of the guilt that I am trying to forgive).
For me to find self-forgiveness IT HURT! The good news is that now that I passed through that dark trial, I have come to find true sense of self-forgiveness and allowed God‘s into my life. I no longer carry a heavy load of resentments, regrets, and guilt around with me. I haven’t forgotten what I have done, but I don’t still beat myself up over it. This has allowed me to enter a new, grander phase in the path of my spiritual awakening.
[Howard Falco responds]
ReplyDeleteHi Steven
Thanks for sharing your story and your encouraging words.
In my experience there is nothing to convict yourself of, only those behaviors and acts that require your acknowledgment. What may help is the truth that what you did is not who you now are (unless you allow it to be so). You choose who you are in this moment.
When you resist what previously occurred and the fact that your acts represented who you were, pain and suffering are a natural result. Fear is usually generated from the idea that it is who you now are, IT IS NOT. When you accept that it is who you were but also realize that it does not have to be who you are, it becomes easier to embrace and learn from. The ego seems to find many ways to avoid what it does not want to acknowledge, denial and delusion being the top two. Freedom of mind is found in the realization that this eternal moment is always a new one to create yourself from, as you said, no baggage necessary =)
Best,
Howard
Steven responds - When I speak of conviction, I do mean of the person that I was. The problem that I had was that I was still carrying the guilt from that past person with me still. But, when I went through the process of convicting that past person it helped me let go of the old guilt (even though it was no longer mine).
I do practice living in the now (the moment), sometimes though I find some emotions that carry on from the past. I have learned that some emotions must be allowed to resolve themselves - they can not just be turned off intellectually (by just saying "its OK that's not me anymore")
I did not dwell in the past by convicting myself. I was letting this past guilt be resolved IN THE NOW. It was a painful moment, but necessary for me. This act also showed me how much I have changed. It showed me who I am now. I felt transformed by it.
Maybe this is something that most people don't need to do to get past this. All I know is that it worked for me.
Its always good to hear from you Howard.
K H comments - Self conviction only leads to doubt and depression.
Steven responds - If self-conviction is the final destination, yes I agree that it will probably lead to doubt and depression. However the act of self-conviction that I am talking about is being used as a path to self-forgiveness. When self-forgiveness is the final destination it should lead to new self-confidence and serenity.
Many people (me included) can carry guilt with us that can be crippling (even if it is not easily noticed in our awareness. Guilt is the awareness of doing wrong and feeling shame and regret over it. Most people never want to face the wrong doing, so they never forgive themselves for it. I believe that this act of self-conviction brings the guilt to the for front. Once exposed, it must be confronted.
If you are the same person, doing the same thing - this will not be helpful, except to encourage you to change. But, I am focusing this self-forgiveness exercise on people who have changed and not the person that they were. Even though they are aware that they have changed from the person that did these wrong things in the past, the FEELING on guilt can remain. It may not make logical sense, but feelings don't have to make sense to be real. Self-conviction can put the past behind you if you deal with who you were and see who you are now. This can bring on the FEELING of forgiveness.
I think that bad feelings MUST be healed with other feelings. To try to debate with your misaligned feelings with intellect will only work superficially.
I think that some of you are taking 'conviction' in a much stronger sense than I mean. First off, conviction has noting to do with punishment. Conviction only means owning up to the past bad behavior. Its confession - "yes I did that". I'm not saying that you should start to punish yourself over this. When I speak of the pain around this self-conviction, I just mean bringing this buried guilt to the surface and confronting it.
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