Brio Leadership

Forgiveness is good for you.  The process of forgiveness has been shown to have both psychological and physical benefits to the person who is doing the forgiving. Shocking, isn’t it?  You may have heard the old axiom, “Holding a grudge is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die.”  Now, thanks to recent research conducted by venerable psychologists, there is clinical proof that non-forgiveness is bad for you. Dr. Fred Luskin, in his book called Forgive for Good: A Proven Prescription for Health and Happiness notes that the results of his and other scientific studies show that “People who are taught to forgive become less angry, more hopeful, less depressed, less anxious, less stressed, more confident, and they learn to like themselves more.” (p. 78)

Would you like to have less anger, depression and stress in your life?  Would you like to be more confident and like yourself more?  Forgiveness is an answer.

Although I admire many of Dr. Luskin’s techniques for teaching forgiveness, I’d like to offer my own “Seven Steps to Forgiveness” in a nutshell in this blog.  Perhaps I’ll have an opportunity to expand on some of the steps in future blogs.  You let me know if you want to hear more!

Some preliminary words: Forgiveness is a process, not an event.  If something or someone has deeply hurt you, you may find it difficult to forgive quickly – although it is possible, and to be able to forgive immediately is my personal goal.  Believe me, I am not there yet. You may not even be aware of people or situations that you need to forgive, but their memories may be festering in your cellular tissue, unconsciously depleting your energy and vitality.  As you become aware of these issues, practice these steps to lighten your energetic load, clear your heart and live more peacefully, knowing that forgiveness will happen on your own individual time table.

Also, this technique is what works for me today.  I reserve the right to amend and change this approach as I learn more!  As mentioned before, I intend to get to a point of grace in which I can forgive people and events as they happen. But I know I am not there yet.

Step One: Identify exactly how you feel.  Write extensively and expressively about the situation/person/event, sharing your deepest thoughts, emotions and needs. Many spiritual teachers understand the power of writing – it wrests your feelings from the more primitive emotional brain and allows the analytical brain a chance to examine the subject. Both my husband and I keep a journal because it helps rid the psyche of negative emotions.  Write until you feel you can write no more.

Step Two: Talk to a trusted friend, partner or advisor about this subject.  This is an important step to help you fully identify and acknowledge the emotions, but also to get another person’s perspective on the situation.

Step Three: Consider and write about the situation from the other person’s point of view.  What might they have felt?  What was going on in their life behind the scenes, as it were? What were their needs? What did you do to contribute to the situation?  In my experience, this is a difficult but transformational step.

Step Four: Consider and write about the situation in the third person, as if you are a newspaper journalist writing about it.  Include only the discernable facts about the event, only what a neutral third party would have observed if they had been there.  This step helps to build perspective.

Step Five: Construct a forgiveness letter to the person who aggrieved you, acknowledging the emotions that person might have felt, their needs and what elements of their background might explain their actions.  You do not need to send this letter or talk to the person in order to benefit from this step. 

Additionally in this step, consider how you can move from being a victim in this situation to the hero.  Forgiving is certainly heroic.  In what other ways can you write yourself as the hero/heroine?

Step Six: Decide what actions you will take, whether it is legal action or a conversation with the other person. Remember, forgiveness is not the same as condoning, and there are times in which legal action is needed.  However, legal action taken in the spirit of forgiveness will be much less stressful for you than otherwise.  Your energy will be clear.

Step Seven:  Your brain has been trained to tell your grievance story about this situation every time you think about it or the other person.  You need to re-train your brain to rest in forgiveness, you need to stop your negative, blaming or self-blaming thoughts in their tracks. Catch yourself immediately upon thinking of the grievance, take a deep breath (see my blog on breathing, http://kristinrobertson.com/breathing-to-relax.htm) and bless the other person and yourself. In this manner you will re-pave the neural pathways in your brain so your habitual thoughts won’t do the blame game like a CD on repeat.

In addition, you may need to meditate on forgiving the other person (see one of my several blog posts on forgiveness at http://kristinrobertson.com/forgiveness-redux.htm).

Prayer:

Holy One, forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.  Amen.

Positive intentions are powerful!  Many scientific studies have indicated that our thoughts are not private, and our thoughts create results.  Here is an interesting story from my recent experience that demonstrates the power of positive intentions.

I have an eleven year old car that I love, but it is beginning to have some maintenance problems.  On the advice of a mechanical friend, I started bringing the car into the dealership to have its major maintenance done, so I could get it “done right the first time”. In December, I brought the car in to have the radio replaced because the display panel had worn out and was no longer readable.  I paid an insane amount of money to install a factory-built replacement radio. Since then, the radio’s reception has been intermittently beset with extreme static, so extreme that I have to turn off the radio.  The next time I turn it on, it’s fine.  Recently, the car has demonstrated another maintenance problem, a high pitched squeal when running cold.  I realized it was time to bring the car back to the dealership.

I do not enjoy bringing my car into the dealership because a) it is extremely expensive,  b) it is not always done right the first time, and d) this dealership fails to provide the details of excellent customer service, like returning calls when asked and responding to negative feedback in a constructive way.  I was not looking forward to dealing with them again, I was especially not looking forward to the possibility of paying big bucks to repair of the squeal, and I was worried that they’d make me pay again to have my newly replaced radio fixed.

Then I caught myself in this maelstrom of negative thinking, and I pulled myself up short.  I realized that I was attracting the wrong kind of service from them with my “expecting the worse” thoughts.  So, the morning of my appointment at the dealership, I set the stage for a positive encounter: I dressed up like a true business woman, right down to the stockings and high heels (not the jeans and tee-shirt I usually wear when working at my home office!).  As I drove to the dealership, I affirmed that I was going to get great service, I visualized (or imagined hearing) the successful repair of the squealing belt and the radio.  I anticipated that I was not going to have to pay an exorbitant fee for the repair of my car.   I put a smile on my face, and had great expectations.  I arrived at the dealership curious to see what would happen.

Long story short – the dealership tightened the car’s doo-hickey belt to fix the squeal and checked the connections on the radio antenna.  Although they couldn’t reproduce the radio problem, it hasn’t acted up since. Here’s the kicker – I got a bill for ZERO dollars.  And, they called me “ma’am” the whole time.

Affirmation:

I monitor my thoughts with lovingkindness, knowing that I have no private thoughts.  My intentions create positive outcomes for me.

I am fascinated by the intersection of emotions and spirituality.  I don’t pretend to have all the answers right now, but I know that the ability to control run-away emotions – both positive and negative ones – is vital to keeping us grounded, spiritually centered and in the present moment.  Managing  - not suppressing – emotions is the goal of Brio Leadership.

You have probably heard about the fight or flight syndrome which is our automatic response, mediated by our emotional brain, that allows us to react quickly to dangerous situations.  I often tell the story of my sister-in-law who jumped in our swimming pool to save her energetic two-year-old daughter who had just fallen in.  Lisa’s brain did not debate the merits of saving her daughter over ruining her own clothes or hairdo – she just jumped in immediately and pulled my niece to the surface so quickly that they both came up laughing.  That is a perfect example of the spirit of my wonderful sister-in-law, but also of the positive aspect of our fight or flight syndrome. 

The fight or flight syndrome doesn’t serve us as well in most other, modern-day situations, such as those with co-workers, bosses, family members and just the stress of living.  Generally, we don’t have the option of fleeing the scene of a tense encounter with our boss, or of fighting her.  Neither choice is recommended in civilized society. 

Plus, many of the stressors we encounter are generated by our knee-jerk reaction to certain situations.  For example, most of us get stressed if we get a call or email from our boss that simply says, “Please see me now.”  We jump to the worst conclusion and assume that we are getting fired.  Our emotional brain perceives a possible threat and mobilizes the body for its age-old reaction – fight or flight.  Our physical symptoms might include increases in our heart rate, respiration rate and blood pressure, butterflies in our stomach, or weak knees.  Anticipating the worst, we walk into our boss’ office and are surprised and relieved that she only wanted our opinion on a report.

In those stressful situations, it should be our goal to stop the cascade of emotional hormones before it even starts.  This means being able to identify your personal stressful trigger AS IT HAPPENS and catch yourself before your body has a chance to react.  One of the best ways I know how to stop the fight or flight response is a simple breathing exercise.  This came to me from several sources – several whispers from the Universe, so I know that it is true for me – including my yoga teacher, a Harvard Business Review article on stress relief and a fax from a friend.

The breathing exercise is easy: Your inhalation is half the duration of the exhalation.  In other words, you breathe in quickly and fill your lungs completely and exhale slowly.  On the first breath, count to 3 on the inhale, then 6 on the exhale.  On the next breath, elongate it to 4 counts on the inhale and 8 counts on the exhale, then count to 5 and 10. 

I recommend this technique from my own experience.  I often wake up in the middle of the night, panic and then cannot go back to sleep.  If, immediately upon awakening, I breathe in to the count of 4 and breathe out for 8 counts, I can rollover and go right back to sleep.  Another example of the power of this technique is a chief executive of an entertainment company who only lit a cigarette when he was stressed during the day.  He smoked about four times daily, always in response to stressful triggers.  After discovering this breathing technique, he successfully substituted it for his cigarette habit and discovered that what calmed him was the opportunity to inhale and exhale fully and deeply.  He was able to kick the nicotine habit and use the natural power of his breath to calm him.

What are your experiences with this wonderful breathing technique?

Meditation (from Thich Nhat Hanh):

I breathe in, I feel love.

I breathe out, I feel peace.