As a specialist in forgiveness, I’m always interested to see what other people have to say on the topic, so an article I found in Psychology Today on The Dangers Of Self-Forgiveness, from Juliana Breines caught my attention. There was a lot that I agreed with, but there were some fundamental points where I profoundly disagreed with her conclusions about how to deal with a lack of self-forgiveness.
This article argues that self-forgiveness is important for mental and emotional health, because not being able to forgive yourself can lead to depression, suicide and so forth. So far, so good. This is common knowledge. Many of us have experienced the reality of this for ourselves. She then goes on to suggest that ‘self-forgiveness has a dark side’ because it can reduce empathy for others. I think the idea is that you’re so OK with your own mistakes that you stop worrying about the impact your behaviour has on others. She also argues that you need to let go of shame, but guilt is a good thing, and you should hang on to it.
Juliana Breines is a working academic and I am not, but I am not convinced by this argument. I talk to so many people, especially women, who are busily beating themselves up until they hurt. They limit themselves with so much shame, hurt disappointment, and guilt that their relationships suffer, their careers and businesses suffer, and in some case their physical and mental health suffers. Briends suggests letting the shame go, and I’m 100% behind her on that. But holding on to the guilt? I’ve met too many people who are eaten up with and damaged by guilt to trust that view.
She also talks about the importance of owning up and taking responsibility for your own actions. Absolutely! Taking responsibility for your own actions and how you create your own experience is key to empowerment. However, there’s a fine balance to tread between taking responsibility and beating yourself up for creating bad experiences, or not having your life as you want it.
The more I think about it, the more I’m convinced that she and I are talking about different things, when we talk about self-forgiveness. She is talking about situations where your behaviour has hurt someone else, or at least had a negative impact on someone else. She’s not talking about the self-talk, the should, shouldn’ts, must, mustn’ts that many of us – including me – are prey to. Or if she is, she thinks of it as shame. It may very well be that the dangers of self-forgiveness are important when you’re talking about forgiving yourself for things you’ve done to others, but not when it comes to things you done to or said to yourself.
If you are experiencing that self-talk, that sense of beating yourself up or believing that you are not good enough, or that you’ve let yourself or other people down, get in touch to organise a complimentary coaching call. I’m here to help – whether it’s shame, guilt or lack of self-forgiveness that’s causing the problem.