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Week 27: Guilt and Forgiveness

This week's email looks at one of the barriers to connection and how we can dissolve it.

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I recently was interviewed for Yoga Journal on the topic of forgiveness. The journalist's invitation to be interview intrigued me: she wanted to know if there was any value in trying to make amends with someone who refused to forgive you.  

This brought to mind the central teaching in yoga about "social" emotions: they are all still internal experiences. For example, you cannot "love" someone in a direct way. You can only have an internal experience of love, while thinking about or interacting with someone else. The love is something you do; it is inside your mind and body. The same is true of the feeling of being loved by someone else. They didn't do it "to" you; you conjured up this experience yourself.  

It is for this reason that the practice of metta meditation (lovingkindness meditation) is central to learning how to experience connection with others. You practice creating the social emotion yourself. You learn how to conjure up compassion, love, empathy, and good will. And you start to get that maybe the point of these practices is to learn how to create and live in the experience of these emotions - the practice is really for yourself, and not the objects of your meditation. Your desire for others to be happy and free of suffering may never actually make others happy or free them from suffering. That's not actually the point. The point is your experience. The whole practice supports your ability to live in connection.

Which brings me back to forgiveness and apologies. Is there a benefit to creating for yourself the feeling of forgiveness, making amends, and letting go of guilt and resentment - even if the person on the other side of the conflict is not interested in making amends? Of course there is. Your guilt is an internal experience, and does not change how another person feels. Your suffering does not relieve the other person's suffering.

Guilt is a destructive emotion (like anger). Two weeks ago I shared a quote from the Buddha, "You will not be punished for your anger, but by your anger." All destructive emotions work the same way. But guilt can be particularly tricky to let go of, because we believe we deserve to be punished. It is helpful to recognize that punishment does not work. According to yoga philosophy, all actions and experiences generate karma, and suffering only creates more suffering. You cannot trick your internal experience of guilt into some kind of positive action. Positive action is motivated by positive intention (such as compassion and good will); guilt keeps us stuck, frozen, unable to act. 

So this week, I'd like to share a yoga ritual for making amends that does not require another person's acceptance. It is an inside job, like metta meditation. The point is to free yourself from an emotional experience that can only create more suffering.

A Ritual for Letting Go

Begin with breath awareness and centering. This practice is too easily derailed by an imagination that loves to suffer - so this is not a practice well-suited to idle daydreaming. Practice with the intent to stay centered.

1. Acknowledge the action that created harm for another person. What did you do, say, not do, or not say that another person felt harmed by? 

2. Recall a time when you were treated in a similar way. Remember how it felt. If you cannot remember a specific experience, imagine how it might feel.

3. Whatever this brings up, feel it in your body. Notice how it feels. Allow yourself to experience any emotions like you would experience a yoga pose - noticing sensation, but also knowing that it is a transitory experience that you are practicing at will. 

4. Now, imagining that this other person has felt, or is feeling, something similar, think to yourself: "May we both be free of this." Follow this with the breath: each exhalation, "May we both be free of this." Feel a sincere desire to release the suffering that both of you have experience. I find that some yoga poses make this desire more "real" - child's pose in particular, as a gesture of surrender.

5. Set an intention toward a positive action. Imagine yourself behaving a different way in a new situation. Feel a strong desire to create a new cycle of action and consequence. Imagine both you and the other person experiencing joy, and make a commitment to acting in a way that might make this so. 

This ritual is designed to replace a destructive emotion with positive social emotions. If you want to make "real" amends with someone, it is best to practice this ritual first. Apologies motivated by the desire to relieve your own guilt will always come across as not genuine. End your own suffering first, and don't make another person responsible for ending your suffering by accepting your apology. 

Self-forgiveness is a wonderfully powerful practice. It is not limited to letting go of guilt over things you have done to others.  In my own experience, I have practiced such a ritual for making amends with myself, for actions I took that were self-destructive. 

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