Sep

Self Development and Forgiving Ourselves Part 2 giving up the self torture game

This is the second post about self forgiveness. This was prompted by a comment from Tera,

My biggest pain stems from having difficulty forgiving myself for my past transgressions. How do I let go of what I have done and realize that who I am now is all that matters? I continue to have an aching feeling that I will always know what I’ve done and can’t forgive myself fully.

Sometimes I’m overwhelmed with all that I want to accomplish because I spend copious amounts of time learning and feel like I’m not spending enough time applying those things to my life.

The next post will be about the overwhelm. The last post was why we would want to forgive ourselves and how to deal with feeling guilty.

The second reason for wanting to forgive ourselves I think is so that we don’t get stuck. We can get stuck in self-accusation. It is not pleasant. This is sometimes called ‘the self torture game’.

But being told that it is bad and unproductive and knowing it is not pleasant is different to finishing with it. Most advice comes down to: this feels bad and isn’t productive – so don’t do it. All true, but how do you stop?

I think the answer is that we do the self-torture game for a reason. And it will help us to stop when we know the reason. There are different kinds of reasons:

In the (remembered) past – we developed an idea about ourselves, others and the world which the self torture game fits (it reassures us that we, others, and the world are the way we decided they were).

In the present the self torture game offers us benefits – perhaps confirming ideas we have, perhaps giving us something we know how to do, perhaps meaning we don’t have to do something else that we think would be worse.

In the (imagined) future – getting us ‘rewards’ or achieving goals. Perhaps ensuring that we care about ourselves and others (if we gave up the self-torture game we might fear that we would have no conscience and ‘do anything’). Or we might believe that torturing ourselves is the only way to achieve some particular worthwhile outcome (not believing that there is a pleasant way to achieve what we desire).

The self-torture game is a way for us to get some valued outcome. It is our best attempt to get something that is important to us. Such as:
Confirming that we are bad, or,
Persevering in pursuit of an achievement.

How do you know what the valued outcome is for you?

If you do the same thing and get the same result it is likely that at some level you want the outcome.
Map the process. Describe the game as best you can. Become as clear as you can on the what the moves in the game are.
Sit with what your idea of the game is. Note any strong feelings that come up and what provokes them. These are clues to what is going on.

Once you know . . .
there are things you can do.

This may involve up-dating old beliefs about yourself, others and the world. (Most of us had very unrealistic expectations dumped on us as children. Being angry at the people who did this to us is entirely appropriate in my opinion; yes, they may have been well intentioned; yes, they may not have known any better – but it is still appropriate for us to set boundaries so that we are not hurt.)

Once you know what the self-torture game gets you, it is likely that you will find that the intention is healthy. And you will be able to find more enjoyable ways to get this for yourself.

You can find your own rhythms and interests as a way of achieving.
You may find that you can be realistic about your strengths and weaknesses without needing to be unkind to yourself.
You may find that just being interested in what you are doing and learning is more productive than criticising yourself for not being perfect.

When you can get what the self-torture game gets you in a more enjoyable way then you don’t need to play that game anymore. It may take a little while but you can drop the need to play the game any more.

So this is my second way to forgive ourselves. Knowing the self-torture game: that is, paying attention to how we don’t forgive ourselves.

I hope these suggestions are useful to Tera and that others of you find them useful too. The self-torture game is a big thing to deal with. If you have experience of dealing with it, I’d love to hear about it in the comments. Also your experience of forgiving yourself and how you have managed to do this (or not).

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I would like your help.

I want to know what your biggest pains or passions about living an authentic life are, or about self development.

I hope to write a great book on self development and living authentically and this is the kind of information that I need to write it.

I wrote this post about it which will give you more detail and where you can leave your comments.

To find out how to live authentically you can download my manifesto.

It has exercises that will help you experience what authenticity means for you and so experience a more satisfying life.

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