Investing in Forgiveness

This last fortnight I’ve had a really powerful experience of what happens when you put real energy and commitment into doing something that you know is an aspect of your life’s purpose.

Although I describe myself as a shaper of leaders and a teacher of Huna, for years I’ve been working on myself in terms of forgiving myself and others, and supporting other people in doing the same. I’ve put time and energy into it, but it hasn’t been consistent or sustained. It’s tended to be helping someone here, helping someone there, writing something here, writing something there, and reading a new book on forgiveness when I have a moment.

Forgiveness isn't just important for the individual: it is also important as a leadership quality in organisations. As Professor Manfred de Vries says: ‘Forgiveness is one of the factors that differentiates mediocre or ineffective leadership. When leaders forgive they dissipate built-up anger, bitterness and the animosity that can color individual, team and organizational functioning.’ (i) He goes on to say that those who forgive are demonstrating their ‘courage, vulnerability, integrity and trust’.

Very recently I finished running a 10 day forgiveness challenge for a group of 150 people, and it’s been both a humbling and uplifting experience all at the same time. Humbling because of the trust people put in me, and uplifting because a number of them have had truly great, life-changing results, including the release of long-standing blame, shame and resentment.

It’s also given me a whole new perspective on what happens when you really throw yourself whole-heartedly into something.

The Forgiveness Challenge is a 10 programme of daily activities to do with forgiveness and unforgiveness (the state of not having forgiven, according to the psychologists). Each day we post a new activity. Some are guided meditations, several are written exercises. Some are physical activities. And there are videos put out by other people to watch to broaden your perspective on forgiveness.

It took a lot of time and energy and commitment on my part, and I wouldn’t give back a single moment. As I have put energy into the project, I have gained energy back, and it’s way more than I put in. And from an Ego perspective, there’s something very validating when you’re hearing on a daily basis what a difference your work is making!

I’ve run the Challenge in the past, with smaller numbers, and with a lot less commitment and energy on my part, but this time, on the advice of my marketing expert, we did it a little differently. This time it was time bound. 16 days after we put the first daily challenge up, the group will be archived.

We’d hope that this would keep people motivated and focussed, building energy and intensity, and it has. Like many people, I’m inclined to sign up for something, particularly if it is free like the Challenge was, and then not actually do anything with it. ‘I can go back to that when I have time’ is one of my favourite mantras.

Knowing that the group, and all the resources, will vanish, concentrates the mind powerfully!

It became really clear what a profound difference people can make in their lives just by committing to do something for a short period of time. Some participants spoke of a new ability to forgive at a deeper level. Many talked about feeling lighter, which is a very common experience when people do some forgiving. Still others found their relationships or their ability to deal with challenging situations (like being a carer to an ageing parent) improved greatly. And others wrote of generational healing experiences.

What was inspiring was to have confirmation of something I’ve known for a long time. The majority of people who discussed their experiences said that they hadn’t realised just what an impact a low level of unforgiveness - the act of not forgiving, whether of self or of others – had been having on their lives. When they got in touch with it they spoke of tension, typically in the neck, jaw or shoulders, or of seeing areas of darkness. One participant even experienced it as rotting flesh – and fortunately by the end of the Challenge that had disappeared!

I also began to appreciate the relationship between self-forgiveness and shame, in a way I hadn’t done before. As people allowed themselves to forgive themselves, they found that shame reduced or even dissolved away.

And I had a few insights of my own, as I was following the Challenge in my own way along with the group. The biggest one was about forgiving the future.

During the challenge someone popped up who doesn't play a big part in my life, but when they do they can be deeply irritating. I went to do my normal ho’oponopono Hawaiian forgiveness process, as I have done over the years, and found myself struggling to forgive this person, even though I’ve often forgiven them in the past. I realised that what was getting in the way was my expectation that they would do this again. I was trying to forgive them not just for what they had done, but for what they hadn’t yet done.

By deciding that they would inevitably do the same thing again in the future, I wasn’t allowing them the possibility of changing their behaviour. I was running that old ‘I know what they’re like’ pattern. The problem with that is that even if they do change their behaviour, I probably won’t notice, because I’ve set my brain up only to notice when they DO irritate me, not when they don’t.

If you want to know more, I’m doing 3 things that are directly relevant to helping people resolve their forgiveness issues, and issues such as blame, shame or resentment, and discover that lightness of being that comes when you do that.

There’s a 2 day Huna event for women in Oxford 23/24 February. It’s not just about forgiveness for self and others, it’s also about releasing emotional and mental blocks that hold you back from experiencing joy or even reaching your full potential. https://secretartofhuna.com.live

We’re launching the Challenge as a 12 week course (more details of that soon). That will be available to all.

I coach both men and women to release those mental and emotional blocks, including blame, shame, resentment, and forgiveness of self and other others, as well as techniques for building and utilising energy. To find out more, you can book a discover call https://secretartofhuna.com/diary

[i] Kets de Vries, Manfred F. (2013) Faculty and Research Working Paper. The Art Of Forgiveness: Differentiating Transformational Leaders. INSEAD. https://sites.insead.edu/facultyresearch/research/doc.cfm?did=52275