Help us forgive, for we would be at peace.
-ACIM-W-359:1:5
Forgiveness brings peace.
One of the emotions we resist that keeps us from peace is shame and many of us know what that is. Well we think we know what that is. We can conceptualize it and think we know it but do we really? Shame is a sign, according to Pema Chodron in Going to the Places that Scare You, that we are afraid of feeling something very intense. When we catch ourselves cringing and wincing over something we might have done...we can become aware that there is an intense emotion of unworthiness that we are resisting feeling. Our resistance may come in the form of numbing with things or substances, brain deadening activity like TV binging , crying or over reacting. Instead of just being with the feeling we actively push it away.
Well the more we resist, we know, the more the thing persists. Resisting shame and more accurately the feeling of unworthiness beneath the shame leads us to experience it even more acutely in different ways. Like all suppressed, denied, repressed and intellectualized feelings...shame and fear will pop up in other ways. (I wrote a book about this btw lol) Hmmm!
So what do we do about it? According to the Buddhist tradition, we open up to it and experience it once and for all and then we let it go. We can use a modified form of the Tonglen meditation practice of breathing in suffering and releasing with , in this case, forgiveness, that Pema Chodron guides us through in the video link below.
Steps to breathing in shame/unworthiness and releasing with Forgiveness
1) We begin by visualizing ourselves standing outside our experience watching it. Then we close our eyes and think of one shameful experience that makes us 'wince' when we think about it...something we did or were a part of that we truly regret. Her advice is not to start out with the truly shameful experiences...start with the fairly minor and work up to the big things.
2) We breathe in that 'feeling' of shame and the unworthiness it triggers...breathe in that emotional experience we were resisting. We breathe it in fully and imagine it coming into a very big and open heart. We breathe it into an immense space, attempting to see it for what it is: unobstructed, open, clear energy. Without the story attached to it, without the thoughts and the words...that is all that feeling is. Yet we have avoided it and resisted it...closed up to it our entire lives. Now it is time to open up and see it for what it is. We do this on the in breath. It is normal to feel the usual resistance and defenses at first...keep practicing.
3) Then on the out-breath we send loving kindness and forgiveness to that self that is watching...in whatever way she/he appears to us. As the adult we are now, or a small child...it doesn't matter we embrace and send loving kindness and forgiveness to self.
4) Keeping that cringe-making experience in mind, we continue to breathe in the 'feeling' of shame and unworthiness but this time we breathe in all the shame others might be feeling that is just like ours. We are not alone in our shame. Many people do things they regret and feel guilt and shame for afterwards. Many, many others live with it and attempt to avoid feeling shame. So we breathe in for them as well.
5) We breathe out forgiveness and loving kindness to them too. Sometimes it is easier to forgive others than it is ourselves.
6) Practice that repetitively for many breaths until we feel a certain 'relief' and release. Until we feel the body relaxing into the feeling.
The point is to "feel" the feelings we were spending so much of our energy resisting. We open up to and we experience it fully so we can let it go ...seeing it as an open unobstructed energy. We forgive ourselves and we forgive the world.
Tonglen is the meditative practice of expanding our intentions from the little self to the greater Self, offering forgiveness and loving kindness to all. We can use any form of universal suffering as our focus but in this particular example it is shame.
And in a slightly different way, this is taught in ACIM as well. Let me not forget myself is nothing, but my Self is all. ACIM-W-358:1:7
Forgiveness brings peace.
All is well in my world.
ACIM
Chodron, Pema (Septemeber, 2018) Going to The Places That Scare You. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sLw5QFaFUgI
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