The first was at the Keener Financial Planning blog, where Jean Keener talked about how forgiveness can help you with your financial life, especially in this down economy. My article, Forgiveness: 5 Reasons It’s Good for You was also posted to the blog.

Then, today, my pastor posted a review of my book at the Sunflower Chalice blog.

What happens if you are lucky enough to get an interview and you are still full of bitterness toward your last manager? Even if you don’t say something overtly derogatory about your last job, your resentment will be felt on an unconscious level by the interviewer. What interviewer, in a very tight job market, wants to hire someone who is full of negative emotions? In a recession, employers have the pick of the field in hiring, and will almost always choose a candidate who exudes confidence, forgiveness of past employers and a broad perspective of market conditions and human frailty.

During a period of unemployment, your time would be well spent in working through your feelings about how and why you were terminated. Writing down your deepest thoughts and feelings is a good way to extract them from the inside closet of your mind and apply them to paper. In that way, your analytical brain can process them, see patterns, gain perspective and forgive the past. Forgiving yourself will be part of this process for those who feel some responsibility for losing their job.

For how-to advice on forgiving, please refer to my book, A Forgiveness Journal: Letting Go of the Past, found at www.aforgivenessjournal.com

Another example is the quote I use in the beginning of the featured article this month. It is from the Prime Minister of Bhutan, a small country in the Himalayan mountains that is dwarfed by its two neighboring countries, India and China. This country is pursuing and attempting to measure happiness within its borders. Instead of the Gross National Product, Bhutan has identified 72 indicators that measure the Gross National Happiness index.

It’s heartening to read about countries and people that are making a difference and setting an example for the rest of us.

You can see that the stops on my tour are starting to fill in. They are regularly updated on my official Virtual Book Tour page, as well as in the sidebar of this website.

If you would like to participate in the tour … there are some perks, including the chance to win a copy of my book, as well as being spotlighted on my webistes … just contact my assistants at info@brioleadership.com.

This highlights the contrast between values such as the pursuit of happiness (a value first espoused in the United States’ Declaration of Independence) and greed. In order to resolve the current economic crisis, businesses must inspect their operational values and ensure that greed or profitability is not the only one in evidence. It seems that we didn’t learn this during the early 2000’s when we watched corporations such as Enron and WorldCom self-destruct under the influence of greed and the pursuit of profits, at the expense of integrity, honesty and compassion. It is time that we learned to do better. Being an unabashedly proud capitalist, I am the first to espouse profitability as an important corporate value (otherwise, there would be no corporation) but there is trouble when profitability is the foremost – or only - value in operation.

The trouble is, valuing profitability above all else may create short-term benefits but produces long-term disadvantages. It does nothing to contribute to employee engagement and happiness. Employees need to find meaning in their work and understand how it helps others. Modeling values such as integrity, wisdom, compassion and forgiveness creates a positive, happy work environment and contributes to the long-term profitability of the company. James Collins and Jerry Porras document the exceptional financial performance of what they call visionary companies in their book, Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies.

How can an organization create a positive, values-based climate? It employs a balancing act that creates organizational well-being. The five elements that need balancing are represented in the holistic well-being diagram shown above: values, body, heart, mind and spirit. Some of you may recognize this diagram from a previous article I wrote about individual well-being. What can be applied to the person can also be applied to the organization. Let’s explore these elements briefly:

1. Values: An organization defines its values through its vision and mission statements and perhaps a values statement. These strategic documents are common to most companies and need no further explanation. However, what is uncommon is a dedication to living the espoused values, using them to make everyday decisions, and executive commitment to walking the talk. We know that when leaders model the organization’s values and explicitly use them in their decision-making, the rest of the organization follows suit.

• Self-assessment questions: Leaders, are you modeling the values of your organization? Do you consciously base your decisions on corporate values? Do you hold people accountable to the organizational values, and recognize others when they do?

2. Body: The corporation or organization must take care of the basic physical needs of its employees. This includes paying fair wages, providing adequate employee benefits and creating a safe and comfortable work environment. This includes also making sound business and financial decisions, which contribute to the fiscal health of the organization.

• Self-assessment questions: Is your work environment ergonomically sound? Are your employees paid at or above marketplace averages? Is the organization using its financial resources wisely and producing a healthy profit margin?

3. Heart: The heart pillar represents the emotional intelligence and the quality of interpersonal relationships in the organization. It assumes that leaders treat employees with compassion, respect, forgiveness and fairness. This element can be measured by the number of positive values in operation in the workplace, which contribute to employee loyalty and therefore customer loyalty. This progression looks like this:

Employee treatment = Employee loyalty = Customer treatment = Customer loyalty

• Self-assessment questions: Is there an absence of fear and suspicion in your workplace? Are employees comfortable expressing their opinions and offering suggestions? Do managers create an environment of trust and respect?

4. Mind: The organization can create an environment of continuous learning and discovery. This is accomplished on both an individual and corporate level. The organization should be open to feedback and take action upon receiving it. For employees, it is important to know that the employer will offer job-related training and the opportunity to advance in their careers.

• Self-assessment questions: Is there a defined career path for all employees? Are employees offered continual learning and training opportunities? Does the organization seek feedback on its performance from both employees and customers? Do managers act on the feedback received?

5. Spirit: The human spirit longs to serve others, find meaning in work and to make a difference in the world. In order for work to be meaningful, it must provide an opportunity to serve others, both inside and outside the organization. The spirit is fed by working for an organization that stands true to its vision and mission and lives its values everyday.

• Self-assessment questions: Do employees understand the overall mission of the company? Do employees understand how they contribute to the mission? Are employees provided opportunities to serve their community through their actual work and through charitable activities? Does the leadership discuss and act on ways to make a difference in the local and global community?

Construct your organization on the solid foundation of values while caring for the body, heart, mind and spirit, and you will create a sustainable and ethical business that enjoys long-term profitability!

With Mother’s Day is coming on May 10, you might want to give your mom the gift of forgiveness. Mothers take the blame for all of their childrens’s failings – addiction, juvenile delinquency, obesity, learning difficulties and more. And every adult child blames their mom for at least one thing the poor woman did to them or continues to do. This Mother’s Day, give your mother the gift of forgiveness. Forgiveness, which is simply reaching a feeling of neutrality toward good ole Mom, is a priceless gift that benefits both the giver and the receiver.

And – don’t forget to forgive yourself first. I’ve received numerous requests from readers to write about self-forgiveness, so this month’s featured article is on that important subject. If you need permission to forgive yourself – if that will make it easier for you – then here you go: I officially extend you permission to forgive yourself!

Blessings,

Kristin

You probably can relate to Barry’s situation. Everyone has multiple instances in their past that beg for self-forgiveness. Here are some self-forgiveness opportunities you might experience:

• You blame yourself for being laid-off or not getting a promotion
• You are angry at yourself for having to learn by making mistakes (like saying something hurtful, sending out an inappropriate email, doing something unethical)
• You deeply regret harm that you caused someone else
• You are caught in a cycle of self-talk that endlessly repeats, “I shoulda, coulda, woulda”
• You regret lost opportunities to create harmony or show love, such as losing your temper at work or missing your daughter’s soccer game
• You aren’t ready to forgive someone else

Naturally, your first step in self-forgiveness is to take responsibility for what you did. That means that you make amends for any harm you created, and do your best to right any wrong. You might have to apologize to the person you hurt, or reap the natural or legal consequences of what you did (such as paying a fine, going to court, losing a job, not closing a deal, and more). Taking responsibility is the mark of a mature individual.

However, if you think you need self-forgiveness, you already, by definition, realize the part you played in the situation and are aware of your responsibility. This awareness is positive, and you must give yourself a pat on the back for being responsible for your actions.

Then, you deserve your own forgiveness. Remember that forgiveness is achieving a feeling of neutrality toward the situation and not feeling surge of negative emotions when you think about it. Self-forgiveness is part of exquisite self-care, in which you fulfill your own needs and take full responsibility for your own happiness.

The seven-step process of forgiving that I describe in my new book, A Forgiveness Journal: Letting Go of the Past, works for both forgiving others and forgiving ourselves. Some of the highlights of the process include identifying your feelings, gaining perspective and blessing yourself.

• Identify your feelings

You must express your feelings such as regret, anger, sadness, blame and resentment. Emotions that are buried or stuffed away never die – they only cause One effective way to do this is to write about your feelings, perhaps starting your sentences with “I am angry about {blank}” or “I feel regret about {blank}”. The great thing about writing is that it is entirely private – no one needs to see what you write. One of my coaching clients types his journal entries on his computer and purposely does not save his writing, so there is no chance of anyone finding or seeing what he wrote.

• Gain Perspective

Are you even going to remember this incident at the end of your life? If not, then you realize the relative insignificance of this event. Were there good things that came out of the experience for you? List any positive outcomes. What would the benevolence of Source energy say about this? Source does not judge you but can only extend love, just as a loving parent extends loves to a wayward child. As a spiritual teacher once told me, “We must extend to ourselves the same compassion that we extend to others.”

• Bless Yourself

Understanding that you did the best you could under the circumstances, you can let go of your self-judgment and bless yourself instead. Every time you think of the situation, consciously redirect your thoughts away from “I shoulda…” and choose to practice self-love by saying, “I honor my true essence” or “I bless myself”.

Changing the world starts with changing yourself. There is a wonderful ripple effect that happens when we change our interior perspective. Our actions start lining up with our thoughts, and people begin to react differently to us. As Gandhi so famously said, “Be the change you wish to see in the world.” Practice self-forgiveness to create a more forgiving world.

• You are afraid that forgiveness will empower the other person to continue to hurt you and/or other people.
• You are afraid of giving up your victim role and the sympathy you get from other people.
• You are afraid that forgiving will make you vulnerable to experiencing hurts similar to those you’ve experienced in the past.

These fears are fallacious, as we shall see.

Since publishing my new book, called A Forgiveness Journal: Letting Go of the Past, several of my coaching clients have declared something like this, “I can’t forgive my ex-husband because I’m afraid he’s going to do horrible things to me and the kids.  If I forgive, I won’t be vigilant any more - who will protect my children?”  Or another might say, “I can’t forgive him - if I do, I’ll just attract the same type of horrible man into my life again.”  These women feel a false sense of security in holding onto their grievances - that wrapping themselves in the negative energy of non-forgiveness will somehow keep them safe.  I understand that feeling, because I was in that place for many years. 

For me, my thoughts were, “How can I forgive that horrible person for the unthinkable acts she did against me? I was right and she was wrong!  I can’t forgive her, because then, I might not be completely right anymore.”  Ouch.  To relinquish your position of being 100% right - and righteous - is to eat humble pie, and what a bitter pie that is.  Yep, that was a tough one for me!

Before I tell you why it’s counterproductive to hold on to these justifications of your non-forgiveness, let’s remember that the definition of forgiveness is not to condone the behavior of people that have hurt you, or to ignore the pain that it has caused you. Instead, the purpose of forgiveness is to achieve a neutral feeling - IN YOUR OWN HEART - when you remember the person or incident that hurt you.  It has nothing to do with the other person.  It has only to do with relinquishing your burden of anger, regret, resentment, recrimination and self-righteousness - and laying that burden down for good - so you can focus 100% of your energy on your present life.

So here is my little secret about fears about forgiving:  Unfortunately, by not forgiving, you cannot protect yourself at all. Holding onto your grievance - and the anger, regrets, resentment, recrimination and self-righteousness that go with it - keeps you in a state of mind that actually attracts those same qualities to you.  Remember the old adage that “like attracts like”.  If you are holding on to negative emotions and memories, don’t be surprised if similar events and emotions keep showing up in your life.  I’m talking about events and people that exemplify the same negative emotions you cling to.  They will continue to show up in your life until you forgive.

If you want more of what you’ve had in the past, don’t bother to forgive.  If, however, you’d like to make a clean break from the past and live a happier life, please consider forgiveness.