On Guilt, Shame, and Forgiveness

It’s time for a bit of vulnerability.

I don’t know about you, but it’s been a challenging few weeks for me, emotionally. Many deeply rooted issues have surfaced, mostly surrounding feelings of guilt and shame. Brené Brown describes guilt as an emotion that comes from believing we’ve done something bad, whereas shame is an emotion that stems from believing we ARE bad. In my conditioned mind, I don’t often experience them as separate.

For example, if I make a comment that hurts my partner’s feelings, I immediately feel I’ve done something bad, which to me, naturally means I am bad. Guilt and shame shower over me simultaneously. As a result, I reject myself. This manifests outwardly in two possible ways:

1) I project my self-rejection onto him and feel inexplicable anger and coldness toward him

2) I close my heart down in an effort to force him to reject me. It’s a rather painful experience, and I tend to avoid it as much as possible.

It’s my wholehearted intention to change this pattern of guilt and shame, which, as Teal Scott says in this video, is essentially self-abuse.

I thought that I had done my share of shadow work (for more info, google “shadow work” + Carl Jung, Teal Scott, or Debbie Ford) in the past year and a half: facing all the things I don’t like about myself, diving into many negative feelings I have, bringing to consciousness experiences that have deeply hurt me.

But what I discovered the past week when I made the scary decision to travel once again into feelings of unworthiness and fear (my higher self, angels, and the Universe assisted greatly in this process) was that I had only touched the surface with my previous shadow work. Not that it hadn’t been beautiful, powerful work. It was. And it was exactly what I could handle at that time.

However, a few nights ago I was ready to go deeper. What I found was that though I had indeed seen my dark aspects and acknowledged them, that was as far as I dared to go. I had looked at my shadow for many months, felt the sadness, felt the guilt, and had even begun to understand the causes of my suffering…and then I ran like hell in the other direction.

Forgiveness.

(An A-HA moment for me.)

What I now understand about forgiveness is this:

Forgiveness does not signify that you’ve been bad or you are bad. There can be no such thing as forgiving yourself or another person for being bad, though many attempt this.

Because we are not bad.

That doesn’t mean we don’t make mistakes or sometimes cause harm (sometimes unspeakable harm) to ourselves or others. And this is where the difference between guilt and shame comes in again. Guilt involves feeling remorse for a particular action. It can be a helpful emotion when it is accompanied by the desire to not repeat that action (and of course, when the person doesn’t not transform the guilt into shame). Teal Scott explains that guilt basically indicates to us, through emotion, that we don’t desire to have this experience again.

The Oxford dictionary defines the verb “to forgive” as “to stop feeling angry or resentful toward (someone) for an offense, flaw, or mistake.” When we forgive actions we release resentment for the fact that the action took place.

However, my deep sense is that many people believe that when we forgive, we forgive THE PERSON. But to forgive the person would mean that we are letting go of our anger for the mistake that the person IS, or for the faultiness or “badness” of the person himself. How is that even possible? This twisted understanding of forgiveness is like saying, “You’re bad…but ok. I’ll grant you the favor of not being angry about it anymore.” That’s why forgiveness often feels like it’s being bestowed from one person unto another.

Can you feel how that affects our energetic field, particularly when this distorted message is repeated over and over again?

I believe that the deepest layer and vibrational core of forgiveness is the appreciation of the truth that we are good, whole, and a pure extension of Source energy. After all, we can only truly release anger for actions that have caused harm if we don’t identify those actions with the essence of the person.

Forgiveness requires recognition and appreciation of our true nature.

It requires no energy or effort. It is a release of blame, anger, and resentment. On a deeper level, it is an allowing and acceptance of what is, what happened — NOT an allowing and acceptance of “badness.”

My intuition feels that the majority of people in the world today, openly or secretly, believe they are sinners. I mean “sinner” in a certain kind of institutionalized Christian understanding — an understanding which has been secularized and adopted (or forced) into mainstream consciousness for centuries already. But the original Hebrew word for “sin” never had anything to do with being bad. It had everything to do with forgetting who we really are (hey, it happens!), and as a result “missing the mark.” The root of the Hebrew word “sin” is forgetfulness.

Wave upon wave of these realizations hit me that night. I realized that I haven’t forgiven myself (released resentment, anger, and ultimately self-hatred) for experiences and actions in this lifetime, nor in previous lifetimes. It was so hard to forgive. How could I? My face literally writhed in pain. I have done so many things which have harmed others. How can I forgive myself?

The simple, gentle, loving message that came in response to this question was: Remember who you are.

Another message that helped me soften my self-judgement is that we are all co-creating together. We chose to be here. We chose to experience everything. So even when you conjure up your most guilt-provoking memory, particularly if it involves other beings (it always does, doesn’t it?), remember that, from the universal perspective, they chose to experience this too. Humans, in our interactions and relationships, foster each other’s growth and evolution. We provide each other with contrast. We generate incredible lessons. We help each other understand love.

I  feel that the next leap in our evolution of consciousness, individually and as a species, is coming through learning to truly forgive ourselves and others. Through forgiveness we remember our divinity. It sets us free.

It’s no wonder that forgiveness was Jesus’ greatest teaching, as well as his most dramatically misunderstood, contorted, and misused.

Doesn’t this tell us something about the crushing power of the emotions of guilt and shame? And why so many have sought to manipulate them? And why Jesus was determined to teach us how to let them go?

Freedom. It’s where we are headed. Unity. It’s the nature of reality. Love. It’s in our DNA.

I see you for who you really are.

I love you.

I forgive you.

I give you permission to forgive me.

I forgive myself.