Letter 10: To forgive yourself

Letter 10: To Forgive Yourself

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Your own brain ought to have the decency to be on your side.
~ Terry Pratchett

“I’ll just mess it up again.” Tears are welling up in Amber’s eyes.

It’s such a poignant, treacherous doubt:
Even if the world were willing to bring me what I wish, I’d spoil it anyway.

Amber is weathering the ending of a romantic relationship. It was n0t horrendous, but it wasn’t great. The thought keeps niggling at her that there was something that she’d missed. Some sign of trouble that she should have spotted from the start.

Could I have seen it coming?
What’s wrong with me?
Anybody else would have spotted the red flags!

As if every relationship — or decision, for that matter — arrived with all the potential weak points outlined in red pen. 

I thought it was good…
I got it wrong…

Amber seems to be trying to make an apology — but to whom? and for what?

People set great store by someone being contrite. As children, we get taught to apologise, to show that we’ve understood the error of our ways. The point of making an apology is so that we can be forgiven. If that’s what Amber is attempting, who is meant to receive her apology? Who holds the power to absolve her of her supposed error?

Amber seems to be trying to make an apology... who is meant to receive her apology? Who holds the power to absolve her of her supposed error?

In the absence of an external arbiter, it seems as though Amber has taken on both roles. Some part of her is sitting in judgement, while another part is penitent, wringing her hands in anguish. Amber is both the judge and the accused.

She’s told me that her friends have tried to persuade or console her. I am not surprised to hear that their reassurances did not sink in. The scene of judgement and pleading is being played on the inside. Voices from the outside may struggle to break into the conversation.

I set out to check which of the two voices fighting inside Amber might be willing to talk with me. 

The Champion’s secret wish

It is the voice of Amber’s remorse that first steps up to the mic.

Amber’s Remorse: I missed something that mattered. I’m so sorry!

Margarita: If your efforts to take care had worked, how would things have gone?

A’s Remorse: I would have managed to keep Amber safe.

In archetype psychology, the function of keeping safe belongs to the Champion (sometimes also known as the Hero or the Warrior). The Champion in Amber is holding up her hands to apologise.

Margarita: What sign would let you know that you are forgiven?

Amber’s Champion: I know it’s too much to ask for…

M: Suppose it were okay to tell me?

A’s Champion: I’d like… I'd like to hear the words “I’m proud of you.”

What kind of voice can rightfully speak such words? On a ship, it would be the captain. In a family, it might be the grandmother. On the inside, it is the voice of your inner Sovereign, the part of you that sets the direction, the leader of your inner crew. 

It is also the voice that holds you to account. Chances are, it’s Amber’s inner Sovereign who’s been playing judge.

Before I attempt to invite the Sovereign to take centre-stage, I have a couple more questions for the Champion.

Margarita: How would it be to receive those words — “I’m proud of you” — from the rightful voice?

Amber’s Champion: I don’t know… It would feel like a blessing.

M: And if you had such a blessing, given unreservedly and in full?

A’s Champion: I would stand up extra-tall, and feel like I’ve done my duty. Like my efforts have been received and appreciated — even if not all of them were a complete success.

Amber’s Champion has dared to dream of what she’s longing for. She hasn’t received it yet. But there is, often, unexpected relief in even just knowing what your wish is. She is, essentially, asking to belong. To hear that there is a place for her. That beyond blame, there is a place not just for her ‘debts’ to be written off — a place where she is included, appreciated and even celebrated.

Amber’s Champion has dared to dream of... a place not just for her ‘debts’ to be written off — a place where she is included, appreciated and even celebrated.

I thank Amber’s inner Champion for our interview. 

The Sovereign’s favor

Now might be the right time to ask Amber to pass the mic to her Sovereign voice. At first, she is reluctant. 

Amber: I know exactly what this voice says. It says, you should have been more vigilant.

M: Yes, I’ve noticed that this voice has been sounding stern. It’s part of the Sovereign’s role to lead and encourage — and perhaps at times to berate or reprimand. 

Amber’s Sovereign: The Champion should have taken better care.

M: It seems that Amber’s inner Champion agrees with you on this. I imagine it’s not easy leading your motley crew?

A’s Sovereign: No, it’s not. It’s a lonely job.

M: What helps you be at your best as a leader?

A’s Sovereign: Feeling my crew by my side. Like they’re with me. Like they appreciate what I bring.

M: That makes sense. What’s it like to hear that your crew’s Champion dreams of you saying you’re proud of her?

A’s Sovereign: I hadn’t realised… 

M: When you were scolding the Champion, what response were you hoping for?

A’s Sovereign: Umm… Ha! That she stands up tall and does her best.

M: Apparently, the swiftest way to get that effect is to tell her that you’re proud of her. 

A’s Sovereign: Well, I am proud of her.

M: Would you be willing to say that to her directly? In full and without reservation?

A’s Sovereign: Yes. I will.

Before you ask, both the Champion and the Sovereign are Amber. They are like voices in a choir: each distinct, yet each part of the whole.

The Sovereign’s attempt to "encourage” the Champion had not been working to her own satisfaction. My sense is that she had been doing the best she had. Once an alternative approach presented itself, she was willing to re-align her efforts to the outcome she wanted.

I find it poignant and reassuring that both voices express longing for belonging, acknowledgement and appreciation. In my work, I’m constantly reminded how vital these three are.

I find it poignant and reassuring that both voices express longing for belonging, acknowledgement and appreciation.

It’s time to thank Amber’s Sovereign for our conversation.

Amber is sitting back in her chair. I watch her eyelids flicking rapidly, as though her thoughts are playing catch-up with each other.

Margarita: So much seems to have happened, in such a short time?

Amber: Yes! I’m not sure what to make of it all…

M: Did your Champion hear what the Sovereign said?

A: I think so. Yes, she did. 

M: It seems like there’s the you who wants to receive forgiveness, and there is the you who can forgive. As those two voices start to hear each other better, what’s happening for you on the inside?

A: It feels… peaceful. Calm.

What becomes available when it gets calm inside? 

It gets easier to pick up on and trust your inner stirrings, the subtler signals within: your hesitations and misgivings, your impulse to pause and check. In short, it gets easier to do exactly what Amber was reproaching herself for not having done enough before. 

It gets easier to feel like you can choose.

From analysis to synthesis

But it turns out there’s more to self-forgiveness for Amber.

Amber: This calm inside feels so good, but…

Margarita: Go on?

A: There’s still a bit of me insisting that there must be more to this.

M: Something else that still needs to happen?

A: Sort of… yes.

M: Okay. Suppose it’s happened. What would you notice that would be different?

A: I will have learnt my lesson.

M: What lesson does this part of you feel that you need to learn?

A: Uhmm… I will have faced the truth of what was going on, before the issues in my last relationship came to a head.

I’ve heard other clients say similar things. That they need to face the truth. Like many phrases from the Bible, “The truth shall set you free” has become a familiar aphorism of the English language. It sets us on a quest to uncover the hidden truth that we hope will…

What is it that we hope truth will do for us?

I’ve had lots of opportunities to ask people about this. Their answers circle the idea that the truth will keep them safe.

When I looked into the origins of the phrase, it seems that the promise in the Bible was that knowing the truth will bring freedom from sin. 

It seems Amber’s sense of guilt has not entirely cleared. She worries that there is a fault in how she’s approached relationships in the past. A fault which may bode trouble for the future.

In the last century or so, the search for the hidden fault, the sin enslaving us, has been handed from religion to psychology. In recent decades, this search has stepped beyond the confines of an analyst’s consulting room. Robert McKee, one of Hollywood’s foremost script consultants, describes the psycho-thriller movie genre as speaking to our culture’s realisation that “our toughest task in life is self-analysis as we try to fathom our humanity and bring peace to the wars within” (Story, p 94).

The word analysis means taking things apart. Is Amber hoping that we can analyse her relating style, take it to pieces, so that we can identify and remove the faulty element, leaving her fault-free?

I'm reluctant to follow that line of enquiry. The search for a fault can send you on a fruitless quest. In its insistence that the fault must be there to find, it’s apt to blind you to the possibility that something is not so much wrong as missing.

The search for a fault can send you on a fruitless quest... it’s apt to blind you to the possibility that something is not so much wrong as missing.

Analysis as an approach to psychological assistance focuses on insight. Its great gift is the catharsis of revealing hidden truths. But what if, sometimes, a face-off with the truth is not enough?

This is the focus of PsychoSynthesis, a lesser-known approach to psychology. PsychoSynthesis was pioneered by Freud’s younger Italian contemporary Roberto Assagioli. Synthesis means putting things together. Assagioli started out as a psychoanalyst, but he soon came to feel that analysis did not go far enough to assist clients with creating the future they wish for.

When a client is staring at a truth which doesn't seem to take them to new places, they look at me despairing, as if they’ve reached the end of the line. Fortunately, in my work, the truth is only the beginning. It’s the ground where your back foot can be planted. After a truth shows up, my next question is invariably, What would you like to happen next? If the truth is where your back foot is pushing off from, where would you want to place your front foot?

If the truth is where your back foot is pushing off from, where would you want to place your front foot?

There is no pre-existing answer to that question, so it’s not possible to know the answer. Or to get it right or wrong. You answer that question by amplifying the whisper of your will and inspiration.

Towards harmony within

One of the old meanings of forgive is to remit a debt. As the American anthropologist David Graeber points out in his seminal book, Debt: the first 5,000 years, careful accounting of debits and credits is what you do with strangers. With people you consider your own — your family, tribe, community — the same approach to counting becomes untenable.

If you imagine bringing accounting into community-bonded relationships, it creates strange, surreal questions, like:

    Should I count how many biscuits my friend eats when she comes over 
    for a natter?
  
    Should I track how many cups of sugar I have “loaned” to my sister? 
  
    Should I consider every hug I give my child as “services rendered,” 
    and log it in some secret ledger?

The purpose of accounting with strangers is to engender fairness. Is there a way to even begin to move towards practising fairness on the inside?

Let’s imagine that Amber’s Sovereign requested some suggestions for such an endeavour. In that conversation, it would be my turn to feel in the interviewee chair:

Amber’s Sovereign: I’m realising I’ve been over-harsh. I’m catching myself endlessly recriminating and complaining. What can I do to show up in a more balanced way?

Margarita: Two things come to mind. The first is something you said earlier: I’m at my best as a leader when I feel shoulder-to-shoulder with my crew. You could look for ways to give yourself more of that sense of contact.

A’s Sovereign: Like doing morning check-ins, got it. Thank you. And the other?

M: You could — lightly and playfully — check how your reproach and praise balance each other. Your crew care about what you say. If you spend two minutes chiding about something minor, check that you devote at least as much to giving praise for something of comparable magnitude. Although that would only just “balance the books”... 

A’s Sovereign: Go on, say more.

M: There’s research that suggests that it takes five positive interactions to build enough “rapport credit” in the “relationship account” to carry you through one difficult or negative interaction. So aiming for equal amounts of praise and reproach is liable to still get you into “relationship overdraft”.

A’s Sovereign: Okay, got that. Any other tips?

M: There is a way to convert what might become a difficult interaction into a positive one. It takes a bit of effort up-front, but I believe it’s worth it every time.

A’s Sovereign: Consider me intrigued. How would I do that?

M: Instead of criticising, describe what you’d consider an improvement. If you do that, your feedback will be much better received. In fact, in education circles, there is a phrase that highlights the distinction. Unlike FeedBack, which tells your crew what you’re displeased with, FeedForward paints the picture of what you’d like instead.

A’s Sovereign: I get the principle. Thank you. Sounds like this would be tricky to do, when I’m feeling annoyed or impatient.

M: Yes, it’s not always easy. But it’s easier for you to do this, than it is for your crew to guess what you’re hoping for from them. And, if you undertake this far-from-easy task, it earns people’s respect and appreciation. It’s one thing we value greatly about leaders: their ability to form the vision that we can get inspired by and get behind.

Amber’s inner Sovereign changing tack from giving FeedBack to offering FeedForward would set a more sustainable course. Amber would stop blaming herself for every mishap. The Sovereign’s previously disparaging voice would offer her encouragement instead. Amber would cheer herself on to learn, instead of punishing when learning has been deemed “insufficient.”

After all, it’s what we need from leaders. 

The task of trying to fathom our humanity and bring peace to the wars within continues for all of us as individuals. In this quest, finding the “true” root cause may not bring an end to the war. As the phrase “truth and reconciliation” indicates, after truths are revealed, there is still the task to create a fresh conciliation. To bring into harmony or accord the many voices within each one of us.

In this quest, finding the “true” root cause may not bring an end to the war... after truths are revealed, there is still the task to create a fresh conciliation.

It can be tempting to imagine peace as a static state — filled with the sheer relief from strife and recriminations. But harmony is a term from music, and neither music nor human beings are inclined to remain still for long. How to go about harmony in motion?

My next Letter will offer a different way to encounter the archetypes: in story form.

Cherishing is healing

To trust your take in the future,
you need to dissolve blame
for what happened in the past.

Blame is a shortening of blaspheme — 
which means 
to speak amiss of something sacred.

The sacred in you asks
that you hold it tenderly,
even when others may not.