Self compassion as Self forgiveness
“This moment is all there is.” #Rumi
I have been reflecting a lot on the idea of forgiveness and the differences between forgiveness in religion, as opposed to spirituality. Growing up in the Catholic faith, confessional was an integral sacrament for mitigating sin. We would go to a church, sit in a dark little booth and acknowledge our sins. Shame thrives in secrecy and dark places.
My experience of spirituality is a bit different. The origins of the word “sin” is simply to miss the mark in archery, meaning your arrow might have missed the target and accidentally caused harm to another. The archer always knows if the arrow hit or missed the mark. The mystic’s path is rooted in an intimate relationship with the Divine, in acknowledging God is already in your heart and knowing what has happened and what you are feeling about it. If you feel regret in your heart for something or feel sorry about something, it’s already known to Spirit, since the essence of the Divine is within you.
What if self-forgiveness started with compassion rather than confession? How many of us fly off the handle at the kids or our partners, and then reward ourselves with yoga, an Epsom salts bath, or meditation? If we feel guilty or in a state of shame, we might not be feeling worthy of that self-care. But the reality is it’s probably exactly what our nervous system needed in that moment, and the reason we tipped over the edge in the first place.
When we forgive ourselves, rather than self-flagellate, we raise our consciousness. Often the things we are upset about in ourselves are simply our subconscious actions come from being dysregulated in our nervous systems or from what we saw in our parents growing up. Compassion is a balm to suffering and it heals up the generations and down the generations.
When we feel like a failure, what if we wrap our arms in a self-hug, or put one hand on our head and one on our heart to sense warmth and kindness instead of ruminating on our mistake? What if we regulated in that moment rather than judged? If we can forgive ourselves, perhaps we can then embrace the courage to broach the conversations we need to make amends with another.
These days I consider the cross as slightly different than my Catholic upbringing. The passion of the Christ is a profound symbol of compassion. Forgiveness was done then and there. There is nothing you could ever say or do that would make you unworthy of love. The cross can be taken as a symbol of the past and the future on the horizontal axis, and the vertical axis being the depth with which we can go in the present moment.
How deep can we dive into self-care, self-kindness, self-compassion in our darkest hour? If self-forgiveness is rooted in self compassion it will likely extend our threshold for patience and help strengthen our nervous system so we are less likely to repeat the same pattern again. Can we meet ourselves with compassion at the intersection of the past and future, replenishing with self-care and self-reflection? We explore presence in the moment so that we can have more loving and authentic relationships with ourselves and each other?
