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This was first published on ksl.com
SALT LAKE CITY — I recently heard someone say some people and some wrongs do not deserve forgiveness because they are so bad. If the people who committed these wrongs won't be responsible for them, admit they were wrong and apologize, then you should hang onto your anger toward them, as it will protect you from further mistreatment. I wanted to address this because I believe forgiveness is one of the most important lessons we learn in life. I believe your happiness and your self-esteem largely depend on your ability to forgive — but I also realize it's sometimes hard to do. If you are struggling with anger, resentment or pain around an offense, there are some things you can do to process the experience in a productive way and get to a place of forgiveness sooner. But, this is a high-level process that may require some stretching of your current beliefs. It's also important to keep in mind that forgiveness doesn't mean you need to trust the other person, let them mistreat you further, or have them in your life again. It may be wisest to forgive them from afar. Forgiveness is something you do for yourself, so you can have more peace; it is not really about the other person. Here is a procedure for working toward forgiveness when it's hard: 1. Start journaling Write about the pain, resentment, and anger you currently feel toward this person. Describe the reasons this person deserves condemnation and to be judged as guilty. Describe the treatment you think they deserve from you. At this point, allow your ego to vent and be true to its most hateful or upset feelings. 2. Claim your power to choose how you will think and feel You get to choose all your thoughts and beliefs about your life, human value, this person and the situation. You have the power to create any experience around it that you want to have. You may need to process through many different emotions until you are ready for the forgiveness process. You are entitled to feel angry, hurt, betrayed and upset for as long as you need to. What emotions have you chosen to experience so far? What emotions would you like to have around this long term? Write them down. 3. Dive deeper into your feelings and predictions Write about what you get — what the benefits are — in staying angry and not forgiving this person. Write about what you are afraid might happen if you forgive them. What fears and concerns make it feel safer to stay angry? Write what you are afraid will happen if you stay angry. What is the cost in your own life, of carrying this resentment, anger and judgment forward? 4. Understand forgiveness vs. trust Forgiveness is not about forgoing justice or pardoning a guilty person for what they did. If you try to do it that way it will never work. The dictionary says to forgive means: "to cease feeling resentment against (an offender)." Forgiveness is about changing your perspective and feelings so you suffer less pain. Write about why this is true for you. Identify the difference between trusting this person again and forgiving them. You can forgive them and still not keep them in your life, but it is important to make that decision from a place of love for yourself, not a place of hate or anger toward them. Write down what those two options look and feel like so you are clear on the difference. Write about the boundaries you might set out of love for yourself. 5. 'You get what you give' This is one of my universal laws, a concept that means if you give judgment, condemnation and hate, and label others as guilty and unworthy because of their mistakes, you will also feel judged, condemned, hated, guilty and unworthy yourself. If you struggle to forgive others, you will likely also struggle to forgive yourself. The way you judge others is inseparably tied to how you feel about yourself. If you want to fully love and accept yourself despite your mistakes, you must work on allowing the flawed people around you to have the same intrinsic value as everyone else despite their mistakes (again, this doesn't mean you will trust them or have them in your life). The more you work on developing love and compassion toward these difficult people and see their value as the same as yours, the easier it will be to love yourself 6. Believe in the classroom of life This means to trust the universe is always working in your favor to educate you and help you grow. You can choose to believe no person has the power to ruin your journey or derail the life you should have had and that you can learn something valuable from this experience. At some level, this offense can serve you if you choose to use it that way. Take the time to write down 10 positives that this offense experience has created in your life. How has it made you stronger, wiser or more loving? Another way to allow the experience to serve you is to play with the belief that everything you experience in your life can teach you to love yourself and others at a deeper level. Play with the idea that you are just experiencing the perfect classroom journey for you to grow in wisdom, strength and love. If you choose to see this offense as your perfect classroom journey, how does that change your feelings about the offending person? 7. Choose to see your value as infinite and unchangeable Your value is infinite and absolute, and nothing you or anyone else does can change it. You will always have the same value as every other human being. When you believe this, it is easier to take a hurtful experience and choose not to be deeply hurt by it. How would that change the way you feel about the offense? Again, this is a high-level forgiveness process. Considering the severity of the mistreatment you have experienced, it might take a while before you are ready for it. I find this process serves people best after they have allowed themselves to be angry and grieve for a while. If you feel resistant to the steps, it might not be the right time for you, and that's OK too. Be compassionate to yourself and you will work this through it right on time and in the way you need. You can do this.
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SALT LAKE CITY — A lack of confidence can make you too quiet and shy, or it can make you competitive and loud. It can make you prone to gossip about and judge others. It can also create unhealthy relationships where you are dependent on others to make you feel valued.
So what may lead someone to have low self-esteem and how could they feel better about themselves? Low self-esteem happens when you battle a deep subconscious belief that you aren't good enough, and many people have this belief at some level. If you want to eliminate these problems and finally feel better about yourself, you first must understand the root causes of your low self-esteem. The following are some possible reasons your self-esteem might be low:
Work on changing your belief that human value can change The whole idea that human value can be earned and lost is belief; it's not fact. There is no universal system that determines the value of human beings. The way you see human value is just your perspective, born of subconscious beliefs and life experiences. This means you can change your system to determine the value of human beings any time you want. You can decide to believe that all human beings have the same intrinsic worth and that value cannot change, no matter their appearance, performance, property or anything else. There is nothing you can do to have more value than other humans and there is nothing you can do to diminish your value and have less worth than any other human soul. Commit to making this belief your truth. Give unchanging, infinite value to everyone around you In order to truly change your fundamental belief around how human value is determined, you must give up the judgment of others completely. You must allow everyone around you to have the same value as you. You must allow them to make mistakes and still be good enough. You must allow them to be scared, struggling and divine students in the classroom of life with much more to learn, just like you. The more you do this and give unchanging intrinsic value to others, the more you will feel it for yourself. (I am not saying you must have these people in your life though. You can and should love abusive people from afar. Still extend forgiveness and compassion toward them, but maintain healthy boundaries at the same time. You will find that allowing them to be who they are and still seeing them as worthy of the same intrinsic value as the rest of us will help you to more fully love and accept yourself.) Use the people you dislike to help you learn to love yourself Take a minute and write down the names of the people you dislike, judge or who bother you. These people are in your life as special teachers to show you the limits of your love. You are a very loving person until it comes to these people. An important practice you can do to improve your own self-esteem is to work on loving the people you most dislike. Work on seeing them as having the same infinite, intrinsic worth and as being worthy of love, even though they are flawed, broken, scared or behaving badly. Work on feeling God's love for them if you cannot summon any in yourself. Understand that your ability to see them as good enough reflects your ability to see yourself as good enough. (Again, this doesn't mean you have to have them in your life. You can do all this from afar.) Choose to forgive yourself for your insecurity and other faults We all have faults, weaknesses and fears. It's called being human. These faults don't change your value at all. You have the same intrinsic worth as every other human on the planet and you can't do anything to change that. Completely let go of comparing human beings There will never be two human beings who get the same genes, the same upbringing, the same experiences, the same wiring and the same life lessons. We are all on our unique classroom journey here and these journeys are incomparable. This means any comparison is going to be a waste of your time and energy. There is no better or worse in human beings, only different people having a different journey. There are better and worse appearances, behavior and performances, of course, but these don't affect your intrinsic value. They play into our extrinsic value and they create different classroom experiences, but no matter which experiences you are having, your intrinsic value is the same. I have spent over 30 years in personal development. We have tried everything under the sun to improve self-esteem, and most of it never worked. The only thing I have seen create real change is adjusting the fundamental, subconscious belief you have about how human value is determined. Because you are changing your belief at the fundamental level, you are changing the lens you see the world through, and this changes everything. You can teach this belief system to your children and make it the language used in your home. When someone makes a mistake, remind them that didn't change their value. When they win the soccer game (or lose it) remind them it didn't change their value. Over and over talk about how our mistakes create classroom experiences, but our intrinsic value doesn't change. Notice your dislike of some people and recognize they are teachers who can help you learn to love yourself. As you gain compassion and work on giving them infinite value, you will be giving it to yourself. The more you work on this, the more bulletproof, confident and secure you will feel. But it's a process and will take time and commitment. Start playing with the idea today and I promise it will change how you feel about yourself. You can do this. |
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AuthorKimberly Giles is the president and founder of Claritypoint Life Coaching and 12 SHAPES INC. She is an author and professional speaker. She was named one of the top 20 advice gurus in the country by Good Morning America in 2010. She appears regularly on local and national TV and Radio. Archives
March 2022
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