Category Archives: Radical Forgiveness

December 30, 2014 · 7:49 pm

Day 26: Radical Forgiveness

Selfies

I haven’t been actively doing a lot of forgiveness exercises because I’ve been reading more about self-forgiveness, specifically, about all the “selves” that fall into “self.”

I often hear people talking about having different parts of themselves. Most commonly people talk about their “inner critic” and “giving myself a hard time.” Sometimes someone will also say, “I’m the one getting in my way.”

These are good examples of those other parts of ourselves.

What I’ve discovered so far is:

  • We all have parts of ourselves that we’ve disowned in order to get along better with other people. For example, I often tone down my creative side when I’m working with people who are focused on doing things in a logical, step-by-step way.
  • I was happy to realize how much progress I’ve made when it comes to rediscovering and integrating those parts of myself. It’s been fun and exciting to remember the things I loved doing when I was a kid.
  • There are still things I push down but I see myself making a lot of progress.
  • I don’t have any regrets about the way I’ve lived my life. That’s good too. I feel like I’ve usually done my best with what I knew at the time. Also, the things I might regret have ended up working out for the best.

This is encouraging.

Tomorrow I’m going to be reading about my “shadow” self and my “sabotage” self. I’m really curious and kind of excited to learn about these because these are parts of me that have kicked my ass in the past. I’m excited about the possibility of “diffusing” these selves. Not getting rid of. These are parts of me that have served a purpose in the past. It would be like saying, “I want to cut off my nose.”

But I would like to be able to say, “Thank you for doing what you did because you were wanting to protect me. I’m not going to need you anymore, you can go now.” More like, leaving these selves behind me as we leave old beliefs and habits behind that no longer serve us.

I really can’t wait to learn more!

Leave a Comment

Filed under Radical Forgiveness

Tagged as , , ,

December 23, 2014 · 2:59 am

Day 19: Radical Forgiveness – Time to Create a Doorway?

draw a doorway

When I wrote my post on day 17, I mentioned that one thing I wanted to look at was my inability to make a decision about the direction in which I wanted to take my work.

I’ve been obsessing about the direction in which to take my business for years and as of today I still have no crystal clear direction to follow. On the other hand, I do have a few directions I’m clear I don’t want to follow and that’s progress.

Today I completed the Radical Self-Forgiveness to have more peace with myself and my lack of direction. It’s challenging not having a sense of what’s next but it’s a lot more difficult when I make that challenge all about what’s wrong with me.

One of the main insights I had was on how many beliefs I carry about the right way to go about finding my “right work.”

Although I had good grades when I graduated from college and I was a marketing major, I wanted to find a job in consumer research and at the time there weren’t many companies offering entry level positions in marketing research. The easiest marketing-related job to get was in sales and I pretty blew all the interviews I had for sales jobs.

What most people I knew did was read the want ads and send resumes to the Fortune 500 companies. I lived in Chicago and there were plenty of big companies to go after.

But because I wanted a job in an area most people had never heard of I did things differently. I followed the advice in What Color is Your Parachute and I did informational interviews.

I know my parents were really nervous about the fact I wasn’t sending my resume like everyone else. They thought I was spinning my wheels and probably that fast forward 30 years into the future and I’d be living in the basement with six cats and still no job.

It turned out that the best thing I ever did was those informational interviews. It’s the reason I got a job in my field of interest to begin with and I probably spoke with more leaders in the field than I ever would had I used a different route.

It took me about 18 months to find the “job of my dreams” and I made a lot of mistakes and detours along the way.

Then I kind of forgot that experience because I decided I “knew” what my career was supposed to be. I guess I decided the soul-searching part was over and I knew enough about what I wanted and didn’t want to be in a position to make quick decisions.

I’ve done a lot of zig-zagging: technical writing, life coaching, business coaching, creating information products, etc.

At this point, where I’m leaning toward is going through the self-assessment process again as outlined in Parachute and that will probably be my next major project. For one thing, it doesn’t exclude the option of technical writing. For another thing, I think I needed to cast a wider net than I’ve allowed myself in the past. Finally, I suspect I’ll end up creating something original to fit my particular set of talents and whether I work for someone else or decide to make it a business, it’s going to be important that I’m clear about what I do, who I help, and the value I bring to the table.

For the last ten years I’ve been trying to force myself into a particular value definition and it’s been more or less an exercise in frustration. Not unlike throwing myself against a brick wall and wondering when it will stop hurting.

When I stop throwing myself against a brick wall and create a door to walk through, that’s when. Not unlike the Pink Panther tossing a black circle onto the ground and jumping into the hole he just created.

Not a final decision as of today but feeling like the most promising direction. Having a promising direction I’m willing to commit to is real progress.

Leave a Comment

Filed under Creating Possibilities, Radical Forgiveness

Tagged as , , ,

December 20, 2014 · 9:32 pm

Day 17: Radical Forgiveness – Sales and Self-Worth

chasingsuccess

Yesterday I wrote about how I have a tendency to want people to hire or buy from me. This is regardless of whether the person is a prospective customer or even makes sense to be a customer.

This is embarrassing because it’s so illogical and I also know it’s disrespectful and often inappropriate in the context of the relationship. There’s no better way to lose friends and irritate people than to turn every encounter into Let’s Make a Deal.

And no matter what I tell myself, the impulse stubbornly comes up.

To get at the bottom of this, I did a Self-Forgiveness Worksheet yesterday from the Radical Forgiveness program.

I learned something really interesting about this compulsion.

Like a lot of Baby Boomers, I was raised by Depression Baby parents. Although my parents both grew up in relative comfort, one grandfather was a successful salesman and the other ran a successful menswear store, they heard stories and saw evidence everywhere of how easy it was to go from comfort to poverty. They had close relatives who couldn’t find work and heard all the time what a “terrible thing it was when a man couldn’t find a job.”

So although they were comfortable, they constantly heard “be grateful because you’re lucky your father has a job.”

They also grew up with lots of stories about how even the most menial job was not only a JOB but it was a FOOT IN THE DOOR to show your employers what you were made of and make something of yourself.

When I was working for other people, for example, working in the corporate world, I usually felt successful when I had a job. Being employed meant someone thought I was valuable enough to be worth hiring. The desire that other people buy from me didn’t cross my mind.

When I started my coaching business, it seemed like the main way I could judge how well I was doing was by how successful I was when it came to enrolling clients.  So I began to equate my sense of self-worth and value based on whether or no someone wanted to buy something from me or wanted to hire me.

This is what I discovered as I did the self-forgiveness process.

Having seen this clearly helps me have a lot more compassion for myself because if this is one of the few ways I can find to feel good about who I am as a human being of course I’m going to constantly desire getting this kind of affirmation.

So this brings up some questions for me to contemplate (without any pressure to come up with answers):

  • What are other things from which I can find self-worth
  • How can I feel secure in my value as a person that aren’t dependent on what is outside my own control? This is because ultimately I have no control over other people nor do I have control over most events. My control ultimately comes down to my choices including how I choose to respond.
  • What would it take for me to truly believe in my intrinsic value (which would pretty much address point #2)

That last point is my dream, to feel so secure in my own self worth and the value of what I create through my work that I don’t require the approval of other people to feel fulfilled. It isn’t that I won’t love it when my work makes a difference for people and when I’m paid. But what I receive from other people makes things that much more sweet. It isn’t what I require to feel successful and good about myself.

I believe the answer is in me. I don’t see it right this moment. So for now I’m going to continue putting my energy into what is immediately in front of me.

Maybe one thing I could do is to do the self-forgiveness process on this very situation…to forgive myself for not knowing because I do feel like I’m failing somehow by my lack of direction. I also feel bad because it feels like I’m letting my family down as well.

Leave a Comment

Filed under Radical Forgiveness, Uncategorized

Tagged as , , , ,

· 1:15 am

Day 16 – Radical Forgiveness – How to Win Friends and Influence People

carnegie

My main motivation for doing 30 days of radical forgiveness was inner peace. I was seeing how I used online shopping and other addictive behaviors as a way to suppress feelings of disappointment, resentment, depression, and anxiety, and I reasoned if many of those feelings were the result of grievances, especially toward myself, why not go right to the source?

But in addition to self-compassion and inner peace, one of the biggest gifts resulting from the radical forgiveness process is better relationships.

I’ve been skeptical of this benefit because I’ve been largely disappointed by most processes I’ve used to improve my relationships.

For many years I’ve been doing different things to deepen friendships and cultivate community but I’ve never gotten the results I most wanted. For example, I often find that despite my efforts, most friendships don’t go beyond a certain point. I also find it’s hard to maintain relationships even at that relatively superficial level.

I tended to blame this on:

  1. Most people don’t want close relationships. They think they do but they aren’t willing to take the risk and do the work.
  2. It’s hard to find people who do want those relationships.
  3. The processes that help you develop relationships are generally created by extroverts for extroverts and as an introvert I seem to lack the fortitude to get out and meet enough people to find the few who would be good friends.

I also perceived most communities, particularly online communities, to be stuck at the “getting to know you stage.” Most members seem interested only in showing off their expertise and trolling for leads. I’ve seen a lot of generous gestures and I’ve gotten so good advice but I rarely felt people were sharing what was really important to them.

Bringing this back to radical forgiveness, I believe the limitations I perceived in others were mostly reflections of my own perceived limitations. I have a couple reasons for this perspective:

  1. As I do the radical forgiveness process I see my friends and family approaching me with more appreciation and trust without me doing or saying anything to initiate this behavior. This is evidence that my beliefs and the way in which I am present has a strong effect on the way I experience my world.
  2. Since October, I’ve been listening to the audio version of How to Win Friends and Influence People in the Digital Age which is a rewrite of the 1936 original updated to apply Dale Carnegie’s original principles to relationship development online. One of the primary points in Dale Carnegie’s work is first be the friend you want to have…kind of a specific application of the Golden Rule. If you want trustworthy friends, be trustworthy with others. If you want others to sincerely engage with you, first engage sincerely with others. And so forth.

What keeps coming up is that I’m not the only one who desires more trust and authenticity in relationships. Nor am I the only one who feels at a loss about how to have more of those relationships. The Dale Carnegie book also talks about how social media is great for giving the perception that people are out there connecting but that those connections are often superficial and fragile. Not the kind of relationships that are any kind of foundation for creating community.

What now appeals most to me is to begin reaching out more in an authentic way while practicing radical forgiveness. Some of the things I’d like to do more are to become a better listener and to ask better questions so I can get to know people better.

I realize that although I’ve wanted to be a better listener and know about people, I’ve spent a lot of of time talking about myself and trying to make myself look good in the eyes of others.

I’d also like to let go of that subtle need for people to want to buy from me or hire me. Even when I go into interactions with people in which it is not my intention to sell something I still find myself feeling vaguely disappointed when someone doesn’t express an interest in either buying or introducing me to someone who might.

I especially dislike this side of myself because it reveals an extremely not-cool level of neediness…something I’m constantly trying to suppress for fear my friends and colleagues run screaming from the room. When I do my self-forgiveness work this part of my character is one of the first on my list to make peace with.

The benefit of the radical forgiveness process is it enables me to have and offer what it is that I’d like to receive from others. I can only give what I already have however much I may want things to be different.

Leave a Comment

Filed under Radical Forgiveness

Tagged as , , ,

December 15, 2014 · 6:36 pm

Day 12: Radical Forgiveness – First Completed Process

Young Girl Wearing Fairy Costume in Mid Air

Today I completed the forgiveness process for a situation that was troubling me…bringing up the “Big Three” negative emotions: sadness, fear, and anger.

There are a number of ways to go through the radical forgiveness process. The method I used was to complete a radical forgiveness worksheet.

Initially when I began my 30 days of radical forgiveness I thought I would complete one worksheet a day. But in this case It’s taken me 12 days to complete one worksheet. One reason is the situation that triggers the need to complete a worksheet is rarely in isolation. Usually there’s a a whole string of previous situations that are very similar which occurred in the past and I found myself not just writing and processing the immediate issue but seeing patterns and having insights related to those past events.

The whole point of radical forgiveness is to heal those hurts and transform the beliefs which are interpretations of facts into the truth: that I am here to experience these situations and heal the resulting hurts. Not to carry the wounds around and feel the pain every time a similar situation arises. In fact, the idea behind radical forgiveness is that my higher self will continue creating these situations until I have fully healed and can move on.

I have no illusions that healing one trigger will make my life perfect. I’m sure there are other situations that will trigger this belief or perhaps a different belief I didn’t realize I was holding but at least this particular situation will no longer carry a charge for me.

As I write this I feel the process has worked! The situation for which I was seeking relief is no longer creating emotional distress. I don’t feel any resentment or disappointment.

A couple other issues have come up and this time i’m going to try doing worksheets on each with the intention of completing the process faster. However, I want to give the process the time needed and if it takes me another 12 days, that’s what it will take.

There’s a Radical Living community created by the author of Radical Forgiveness, Colin Tipping, for people who are interested in being part of a larger group of people committed to living the radical forgiveness principles. I feel intrigued about this community and I’m thinking about checking it out perhaps after I’ve gone through the process a few more times and don’t feel quite so overwhelmed with learning and integrating the ideas.

Being a perfectionist and someone who has high expectations of what I should be accomplishing, I’m aware of how I’m already thinkig about all the things I want to accomplish in the future so I want to end this by writing what Colin Tipping wrote about the final step in the Radical Forgiveness worksheet:

“Remember all forgiveness starts as a lie. You begin the process without forgiveness in your heart, and you fake it until you make it. So honor yourself for doing it, yet by gentle with yourself and let the forgiveness process take as long as you need it to. Be patient with yourself. Acknowledge yourself for the courage it takes simply to attempt to complete the Radical Forgiveness worksheet, for you truly face your demons in the process. Doing this work takes enormous courage, willingness, and faith.”

Radical Forgiveness, © 2009 Colin Tipping

Leave a Comment

Filed under Radical Forgiveness

Tagged as , , ,

December 14, 2014 · 8:55 pm

Day 11: Radical Forgiveness – Why am I Doing This?

Forgiveness_logo

I remember attending a coaching conference and one of the topics was how to coach people who want to be less sensitive to things that that trigger negative emotions. After I shared a comment, the presenter looked at me and said, “Wow, you’re just one big button!”

He wasn’t trying to be mean. He was just making an observation but he was right, an awful lot of people and situations were making me angry and defensive.

It made sense because I had only recently made the decision to start a coaching practice and I was feeling really vulnerable.  I couldn’t rely on any of the coping mechanisms that worked in the corporate world. Instead of limiting my resentment to my boss, co-workers, and “management,” the world became my minefield. So many opportunities to be hurt, made angry, offended, etc!

Up until fairly recently, I had a certain comfort level with being a victim of unfairness and other people’s bad behavior. I usually just found other people to complain to or complained in my journal.

But I’ve gotten tired of feeling like every other step trips an old resentful or frustration. It’s like just waiting to be attacked so I can go into defensive mode. It is emotionally exhausting and it isn’t surprising that I wasn’t waking up in the morning rarin to go.

The appeal of the radical forgiveness process it that it is designed to transform the hurt energy that lies in my old stories (keeping in mind these stories are ones made up by 3-year old me) into love and gratitude. As absurd (or wishful) as this may sound, I’ve had some experience in spiritual awakening and I know from experience that this can happen. It just requires some commitment and willingness to be open to the possibility. Oh, and a deep desire to stop dwelling in the beliefs and actions that are causing so much pain.

I noticed yesterday how impatient I was feeling. It’s only the eleventh day I’ve been studying radical forgiveness and working the process and I’m already thinking, “So why do I still have so many resentments and hangups?” I haven’t even completed the all the steps to address one situation because so much stuff comes up and I want to give myself time rather than rush the process.

Yesterday was a particularly tough day because multiple incidents occurred and i was feeling like as soon as I felt resolved about one thing, two additional issues popped up. Like some kind multi-headed monster.

Part of me was thinking, “Jeez, do I have to sit all day completing forgiveness worksheets? Will I ever get some relief here?”

Fortunately, the Radical Forgiveness book is very clear about doing your best and that more effort doesn’t mean you speed up the process. The point is to simply spend time on the process and the process will work on you.

This makes a lot of sense in light of my personal experience. Spend an hour on the process and get on with my day. Allow my unconscious mind to work on it and integrate it while I’m doing other things.

I HAVE already noticed a sense of lightness in my daily presence and if nothing else, I have the awareness that when I get triggered, I remember “You don’t have to remain stuck in the victim story. Maybe there’s a higher purpose working here that will help me heal in a more complete way.”

 

Leave a Comment

Filed under Radical Forgiveness

Tagged as , , , , , ,

December 12, 2014 · 12:09 am

Day 9: Radical Forgiveness – Big Ones

Captain           Tritura            Leopardo

Those Big Bad Negative Beliefs that Kick My Ass

When I initially decided to practice radical forgiveness for 30 days I assumed I’d be doing one worksheet a day … or nearly so.

Instead I’ve found myself working on the same worksheet and on the same situation over the last 9 days.

The good news is that because most issues boiled down to a limited number of negative beliefs, by addressing one situation, I’m addressing a lot of others and I imagine it will be easier to go through some of the steps in the future as I get more familiar with the structure.

As I’ve been processing this stuff, I realized I have a few beliefs that kick my ass on a regular basis. Kind of like my “Book of Doom” because none of the situations in which these beliefs hold true have happy endings.

The biggies are:

  • I will never be compensated for my gifts and talents because there are so few people in this world that can remotely get the value, I’ll probably die before anything I do is appreciated on a wider scale.
  • There is only one way to succeed in this world .. at least in the small business/entrepreneur world and that is to “hustle your ass off nonstop”
  • A teeny tiny number of people have been successful without hustling their asses off. They just happened to do something that although not obviously marketable attracted a cult following. And btw I’m not one of those people because if I were I wouldn’t have struggled with the first two.

I know I’m not the only person who struggles with these particular issues but I’ve yet to meet anyone who has struggled and found a way to stop struggling.

The other day my husband asked me “Do you have any kind of plan?” It’s a fair question and all I could think was “I WISH!”

Because I really don’t have a plan. I used to make shit tons of plans and have SMART goals and I hit a lot of those goals. But looking back, very few of my achievements merited the energy it took to get there because I don’t think the logical, systematic way I went after my goals fit my personality or style.

As I contemplated my lack of plans and seeming inability to sell I rephrased the issues so I might consider them in a more expansive way. I wrote:

  • What’s wrong with being unable to make a decision?
  • What’s wrong with drifting?
  • What’s wrong with not wanting to have to grind away doing research and asking hundreds of questions to find the right job?
  • What’s wrong with not wanting to pick up the phone?
  • What’s wrong with not implementing some guru’s process if the process just doesn’t appeal to me in a visceral way?

Of course there are voice inside of me that are very good at answering these questions and telling me exactly what’s wrong.

My friend Lynn asked me, “what if you reworded your questions to ‘what’s right'”?

So reworded the questions are:

  • What’s right with being unable to make a decision?
  • What’s right with drifting?
  • What’s right with not wanting to have to grind away doing research and asking hundreds of questions to find the right job?
  • What’s right with not wanting to pick up the phone?
  • What’s right with not implementing some guru’s process if the process just doesn’t appeal to me in a visceral
  • What’s right with wanting to do what I love, make a difference, and get paid?

Whoa! This just blows my little mind!

This is a situation where I’m just going to allow myself to “live in the question” and see what floats up for me. And have some fun with the questions and maybe just come up with the silliest answers possible.

I’m learning the best way to handle big, badass beliefs is instead of challenging them to a wrestling match which I’m bound to lose, I’ll invite them out for a cup of coffee and some conversation.

Who knows what Captain Gladiator might have to share?

Leave a Comment

Filed under Expansive Questions, Radical Forgiveness

Tagged as , , , , , , ,

December 9, 2014 · 7:05 pm

Day 7: Radical Forgiveness

Forgiveness_logo

Lessons Learned for Healing

Part of the radical forgiveness process involves looking for patterns in the situation that made me unhappy.

What I’ve been looking at has been my tendency to hire a business coach to help me grow my business and sooner or later I find myself feeling let down by the person I hired. I end up having a hard time seeing the benefits I received and focus on how he or she failed to meet my expectations. I then come to the conclusion that I’m “doomed” to never have the kind of business I want.

In fact in some cases, I end up feeling downright antagonistic toward my former coach and it takes time for me to recover any warm, friendly feelings towards them.

The pattern I’m seeing is that:

  • Initially, I feel very excited about the new person I’m working with because they seem to be offering something: a process or way of looking at things or perhaps they’re going to teach me how to do something better that the last person missed the boat on. For example, last year I was feeling angry and disappointed because although the coach I worked with knew a lot of great strategies and skills, I felt he just didn’t get me.
  • I felt very understood and appreciated by my new coach and was excited by the opportunity to created a successful business based on me being myself rather than having to fit a particular mold.
  • Over time, I got to the point in which I felt I was “complete” with my coach and that I was no longer receiving anything I found particularly new or useful above and beyond what I had already received.
  • Rather than tell the coach how I felt, I continued to work with her because I always enjoyed the sessions and came away feeling like I had received benefits. I guess I found it challenging to articulate this because it felt like such a subtle issue. I would question the value of  my observations.
  • I began to feel resentful because  I wasn’t getting much for what i was paying and by the time the relationship ended, I was feeling a lot of resentment, disappointment, and frustration.

In addition, I’ve noticed that I tend to see new coaches as “the one who’s going to help me make the big breakthrough I need in order to finally be successful.”

I find myself hoping, even expecting that the coach is going to teach me that new process or create an opportunity for me to make money or introduce me to some key person who will help me get rich. I’ve sometimes used the analogy of “being discovered” like someone saying “wow, you should be a movie star,” and all it takes is a screen test and a few introductions and success is finally mine!

In reality, I’ve never experienced this kind of success. When I have been successful it’s never been because one person finally notices what I can do Even when I’ve been in situations in which one or more persons genuinely admire my abilities, it’s always temporary. In business, people are always moving on and maybe I have a great manager for a year or two and they leave or get promoted and replaced by someone who I don’t like working with.

It’s a childish desire but an understandable desire.

The point here isn’t to judge myself or make myself wrong but to ask the question, how is this current situation evidence that, even though I don’t know why or how, my soul created this particular situation in order that I learn and grow.

In radical forgiveness, Colin Tipping writes that the emotions we experience as the result of our problem are because our souls want us to heal and have the experience of unity.

In my case, the anger and bitterness I feel as the result of being let down by someone I wanted to trust is meant to help me learn that these situations are meant to help me heal and experience Divine love.

As I begin to see the higher wisdom at work I learn I am being guided from a place of Love and I can then

  • Let go of feeling like a victim (something unjust was done to me and I have no power to do anything to help myself).
  • Stop feeling as though I’m constantly moving through a war zone because instead of worrying and waiting to be hurt by someone else, I can feel safe that I can forgive the person or situation and move on.
  • When I am able to truly forgive. I can feel peace…even love and gratitude for the situation, all that negative energy dissipates and quite often the crazy-making behaviors or dynamics just stop without me having to do or say anything.

I’ve already noticed that today I a lot less anger or resentment.toward the person I was wanting to forgive. I am aware of some residual annoyance but it isn’t all consuming the way it was as recently as Monday.

I am aware of feeling some apprehension that this is a temporary respite and as soon as I talk to this person or hear their voice the anger and resentment will flare up again. However, it’s important to acknowledge that I’m feeling relief today.

Also I’m only about half-way through the steps and there is more to address the residual. Another thing to keep in mind is I haven’t yet done much to forgive my own part in the situation which I believe will also help because usually the reason there’s so much emotional charge is because the other person is doing something that reminds me of something in myself I can’t accept.

For example, I know I am almost obsessive about wanting to make good on the results I promise in my marketing. Although I can’t ever promise anything I find myself wanting to “be the hero” and wanting people to say, “Judy helped me double my sales…” I suppose I believe that once I have the evidence that I can consistently get results for other people, I can finally qualify for earning six-figures because I’m giving that value to me clients.

That last paragraph brings up a lot of interesting observations for me. For example, there are so many factors that contribute to successful clients: my own attitudes, my client’s attitudes toward success, my client’s willingness to do the work, etc. And ultimately, if I have issues accepting myself and valuing myself, chances are good those are the kind of clients I’ll attract and chances are also good that they aren’t going to do very well because they have they’re own issues that are holding them back.

One more observation worth making …

I forgot to mention, yesterday I had the realization that I wasn’t waking up in the morning filled with low-level apprehension. In the past I had noticed this was a constant issue: feeling this sense of dread and apprehension to the point it took real effort on my part to get myself out of bed.

I’m not waking up feeling like I can’t wait to get up and get going which for me is my ultimate goal (every day is like summer vacation) but it feels a lot better not to wake up feeling a sense of dread. I feel a lot more lightness in the mornings.

Leave a Comment

Filed under Radical Forgiveness

Tagged as , , ,

December 7, 2014 · 8:41 pm

Radical Forgiveness – Day 5

Forgiveness

I decided to shift my focus from online shopping to forgiveness because when I stopped shopping and buying stuff online I realized that being in a fugue state online masked a lot of negative feelings and enabled me to stuff all kinds of hurts and resentments down.

Although the distractions meant I didn’t have to deal with all the yuckiness … none of it went away. It just stayed there until I finally did something to deal with it.

Over the last week I’ve been reading Radical forgiveness (Colin Tipping) and I’ve been putting a lot of focus and energy into understanding the beliefs and preconceptions I’ve been holding as my way to interpret my world. The theme that keeps coming up for me is: I am doomed to spend my life being unappreciated and uncompensated for my gifts and am fated to a life of frustration and bitterness.

When I write this it’s feels pretty comical because it’s oh so dramatic and seems ridiculously extreme. Yet at least a handful of my friends seem to share these beliefs. One friend emails me from time to time complaining about “Earthlings” who just don’t get the brilliant services he offers and his frustration with trying to “get them to see the value.”

I can relate and I know also that complaining does absolutely nothing to improve the situation. I’m well-acquainted with complaining and grousing and although it feels good to have other people commiserate it never got me any closer to what I wanted.

So I figure I’d try the radical forgiveness approach to see if that will shift my way of showing up in the world.

For example, because I have been moving through my life with the assumption I’m a some sort misfit and doomed to live a life of people who love me but just don’t get me at best and being dismissed and rejected at worst, I realized that I’ve seen my world as a kind of emotional battlefield in which I’m just waiting to be rejected by the people I encounter.

Rejection doesn’t mean someone out and out saying, “That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard” and turning their back on me although that’s happened from time to time. It’s often very subtle things like someone interrupting me and saying “I have to be in another meeting in 5-minutes” or saying “What exactly is your question.”

I’ve learned that people rarely intend what they do and say to be a rejection. It’s my perception and super sensitivity to all those things that has me interpreting everything as that way.

I’m also learning I have a foundation story and then there are all kinds of little variations on the theme that pop up for me as well.

I’m not sure I’ve yet healed much so far but the first step of any process is insight and awareness and I’m hopeful that I’ll be moving closer to feeling peace in the future. And I’m also hopeful that I’ll at least be able to heal in terms of my emotional responses to specific situations that I’ve found trigger me.

Leave a Comment

Filed under Choosing Joy, Habits, Radical Forgiveness

Tagged as , , ,

December 2, 2014 · 5:39 pm

Day 21: Kicking the Online Shopping Habit – Results so far …

heartinhand-300x295

From Addiction to Forgiveness

It’s the official three week mark since I decided to stop my obsession online shopping behavior.

What surprises me is that it’s been a lot easier than I expected it to be. I honestly thought I’d struggle with stopping.

Results so Far

Some of the benefits I thought I might see as a result of ending online shopping included:

  • More time because my online shopping jags could go anywhere from 1 – 8+ hours at a stretch. I’d say the average shopping period was 2-3 hours. If I wasn’t shopping online what would I do with the extra time?
  • In fact, this doesn’t even include the time I spent trying things on and returning things I didn’t like or that didn’t work! So I could easily double the time to at least 4-6 hours!
  • Saving money because I tend to spend between $50 – $200 per shopping binge. Although my husband worries a lot about me spending a lot of money the truth is most of the stuff ends up returned. Nonetheless I’m still paying for shipping returned items back and in the case of heavier items like bags and shoes, shipping can get expensive.
  • Having more emotional space because it isn’t taken up in worrying about getting refunds and disputes with vendors.

Of all the above, the most noticeable benefit so far is with the money. During the 21 day period, I’ve spent only $50 in total. Two e-books and a software app. Figuring I usually spend $200 – $250 this is a big decrease and if I could have been a bit more patient I could have saved $10 getting one of the books from the library (the other was well worth owning).

I don’t yet feel an appreciable increase in time because so many other things have rushed in to fill the space. Still just having the time to spend on journaling and reading Radical Forgiveness this month has made a big difference in my emotional state.

21 Days of Tracking Feels Like a Good Stopping Point for Kicking My Online Shopping Addiction

At this point, I’m going to stop officially tracking my efforts to stop shopping online. This doesn’t mean I now give myself permission to go hog wild and back to my old habits.

It means I’ve been successful when it comes to internalizing a new set of habits. I’m so mindful now of my tendency to lapse into mindless shopping when I feel stressed out or am considering a painful action that I believe I’ve formed a new habit.

I realize this habit is new and still may be fragile. At the same time I feel ready to take on a new challenge in my life.

Beginning tomorrow, 12/3/14 I’ll be practicing 30 Days of Radical Forgiveness using Colin Tipping’s book as my guide. I’ll write more tomorrow about what I’ll be doing during this challenge and the results I hope to attain through practicing radical forgiveness.

 

Leave a Comment

Filed under Celebration, Habits, Mindfulness, Radical Forgiveness

Tagged as , ,