Tara Brach - Radical Self-Forgiving

Episode Date: October 12, 2023

Radical Self-Forgiving - When we can't forgive ourselves, we remain imprisoned and separate from our world. This talk explores forgiving as a process of relaxing open the clenched fist of self-blame. As forgiving becomes deep and full, we discover the freedom of a spacious, awake and loving heart.

Greetings. We offer these podcasts freely and your support really makes a difference. To make a donation, please visit tarabrock.com. Namaste. Welcome, friends. I recorded today's talk before the tragic war broke loose this weekend in Israel and Gaza. So I wanted to start by expressing my shared grief. and condolences to any of you who are listening. Whether you're directly or indirectly impacted, I know the heartbreak for so many, for this violence and for the suffering that's so many places in our hurting world. So my condolences, my prayers. I think you'll find the theme of this week's

talk, which is forgiving ourselves as actually deeply relevant. If we're to bridge the divides of hatred and vengeance in our world, we need to bridge the inner divides, the ways that we make war on ourselves. So as you listen, may you engage in that spirit, may these reflect on awakening our hearts, ripple out, and be part of the healing of our suffering world. Okay, I thank you always for your presence and your kind hearts. Namaste. Welcome, friends. I'm really glad to be with you.

There's a line from a spiritual teacher, Sri Narcadata, that comes to mind a lot for me, and it's this. He says, the mind creates the abyss, the heart crosses. The mind creates the abyss, the heart crosses. It feels so true, you know, that our core beliefs and habitual thoughts, they're often driven by fear, and they create feelings of separation. They create mistrust, you know. They bring on the sense of me and the world. out there, a sense of us and them, superior, inferior. And they lead us to defending and judging.

One of the most painful abysses the mind creates is through self-blame and self-hatred, dividing us from ourselves. When we're fixating on and not forgiving our human imperfections, It's a super painful abyss. So our reflection today will be looking at how we can cross this abyss by cultivating a forgiving heart. I think of not forgiving ourselves as a kind of imprisonment. So if you're caught in strong self-glaim, let's say recently, something's come up in terms of your parenting or feeling of failure at work or hurting someone's feelings, maybe it's an addictive behavior. But when you're down on yourself in that way, you know what it's like. That feeling of badness, it's like a prison. You know, it can feel like we're defined by our flaws and they lock us into a feeling of basic badness.

when that happens, we're forgetting. We're forgetting the real dimensions of our being. We're forgetting our capacity to love and we're forgetting our creativity and our humor. We're forgetting what it's like to feel wonder. We're forgetting our yearning to be awake. We're forgetting. I often think of Brian Stevenson, who has worked with many people on death row. And his message, his teaching is, you are more than the worst thing you've ever done. It's so powerful. You know, we are more and we need to remember and trust this. And this is the message of all spiritual paths, of all wise therapies. There's a cartoon I saw of a psychologist, dejected dog is on the couch and the psychologist.

is saying, well, you know, there are no bad dogs. They're only good dogs who make bad choices. It just says it like it is. And yet, as many of us are aware, and this is, it's throughout society, this mistrusting of ourselves, this focus on personal failure, self-blame, self-hatred, it's such a source of suffering. Carl Menninger, famed a psychiatrist, he once said that if he could convince the patients in his psychiatric hospitals that their sins were forgiven, 75% of them could walk out the next day.

It's huge. It's right at the core of so much pain. And feeling forgiven, it's truly like getting out of prison. And I've seen in my own inner work, and I'll speak some more about that, and teaching, working with so many people clinically too, so much healing and freedom is possible in those moments that we really start forgiving ourselves. So let me say what I mean by forgiving. and you might imagine clenching a fist of blame, you know, clenching a fist of aggression. And it's really a squeezing of the heart, that fist. So when we're not forgiving, there's this clenching fist, squeezing our heart. Forgiving, which is really, it's a verb, it's an activity, is releasing the clench.

I mean, if you're clenching your fist now and just release it, that's forgiving. it's seizing to attack or aggress or punish ourselves. It's disarming what is around our hearts and keeping us separate. Unclenching the fist. Now, for those of you who are listening, some of you might not have an acute sense of, oh, I can't forgive myself for this or this or this. but most are familiar with that subtle background clenching of judgment towards ourselves, feeling disappointed in ourselves, feeling of kind of that chronic feeling of falling short

or never enough, that we should be different. The self-narrative feeding the clench, if we really start investigating, one woman put it this way, you said it's like an invisible gas we're always breathing we keep sending messages of what's wrong so for some people the language of forgiving might not be that might not be the resonant word then instead in the face of your own imperfection can you accept can there be an accepting can you regard with compassion? Now, most of us know that we're in the midst of a society-wide mental health crisis, many of children, the stats on young people are heartbreaking,

45% of teens saying they feel persistently hopeless and depressed. I mean, think of that, 45% of our teens. and if you look inside depression and anxiety, there's self-hate, there's a sense of I'm broken and I don't belong. And so it's both individually and society-wide, we need pathways of consciously disarming, unclenching that fist, and re-embracing our life. We need pathways for healing the inner divides, if we're going to heal the outer divides. It's a really the necessary gateway to belonging to each other in our world, forgiving ourselves. In the Buddhist teachings, forgiveness of ourselves and of others is the precursor to loving kindness. Forgiving

allows us to love without holding back. So I've mentioned a few times now that this is the 20th anniversary of radical acceptance and there's a new addition with some added, you know, chapters, meditations forward coming out in November. And I've been doing interviews and one of the biggest questions still, and I've gotten this through the years, is what's the genesis of self-blame? In other words, why is it so pervasive that we're so turned on ourselves? And it's an important question. So I want to take a few minutes with it because there are evolutionary roots. We know that all creatures perceive some sense of separation. The humans do that. We feel separate from the rest of the world and we have a negativity bias that comes out of that separation

that focuses on what's missing and what's wrong. So to survive, we have to strive to meet the needs that are here and aggressed to avoid danger. So that's the original clench. When you think of that clenching fist that squeezes us, the original clench is that perception of being a separate, vulnerable self. Something's missing, something's wrong. And then add in the development of the human ego. And what happens is that something's wrong sense, fixates on our own self. In other words, we take it personally. Something is missing or something is wrong with me. So it's a negativity bias turned inward. That intensifies the clench. And then, of course, think of the messaging. Religious institutions that were bad, that were sinners for the aggression

or anger or grasping or sexual passions that actually are part of our human beings. makeup. It's like we're wrong from the get-go. And certainly in the Abrahamic religions, if you think of Christianity and Judaism, Islam, there's a judge in God with a message that the self's inherently flawed and needs to be controlled. Not everybody buys in. I think of when I saw this little story of children in Catholic School cafeteria. and at the head of the line, there's a pile of apples and there's a sign written by some adult saying, take only one, God is watching. And then at the other end of the line, there's a plate of cookies, and there's a sign clearly in a child's handwriting saying, take all you want. God's watching the apples.

So the messaging, it's very much that there's punishment for being flawed. We get kicked out of the garden for our imperfections and also rejected by others. And of course, since we're social animals and the need to belongs in our DNA, being flawed has really big consequences. The tendency to feel bad about ourselves, that something's wrong with us is very much exacerbated in a culture that has few natural ways of belonging. A culture like ours in the West that sets these external standards for our value. You know, how successful are you? How much have you achieved? How much money do you make? Is your body fit the perfect body shape that the society

idealizes, what is your appearance, your education, your personality. So we get hitched to these externals and have this need to prove ourselves and inevitably have places we fall short and feel not enough. So there's all this pressure to compete and be special and there's a pervasive sense of inadequacy and it's especially toxic for non-dominant groups. know this, whether it's race, religion, non-dominant groups consistently are given and have to internalize that message of something is less about you, something is wrong with you. So we're looking at the different layers of how this fist started clenching in a way

that squeezes our heart, that divides us from ourselves in each other and the most direct messengers of the society of course are our caregivers. Our basic need to feel belonging is to be seen, to be understood, and loved. This is what gives us basic trust and belonging. So when we're not seen or when love is conditional, when there's criticism, of course when there's abuse, self-blame, self-hatred. feelings of basically at the core flawed that comes into being. I often think of Jules Fiver who said, I had my father's looks, my father's speech patterns,

my father's posture, my father's walk, my father's opinions, and my mother's contempt for my father. This is the wound of unlove. the wound of unworthiness that so many of us have to different degrees. And we're going to be coming back to this because it's underneath every behavior we just like about ourselves. The wound of unlove, the wound of unworthiness is the hurting place inside the clench of blame. Okay, so we're coming back to that. I just want to say that part of what increases the clenching,

is that we react to the wound of unlove. We try to make ourselves more comfortable, but the ways we go about it end up making us dislike ourselves even more. You know, we go into these busy behaviors, striving and trying to fix ourselves and improve ourselves and achieve, and something in us does not like the striving self. Are we used substances to try to alter our mood to feel more safe or more relaxed, more soothed, more full, you know, recreational or prescribed drugs, foods that are filled with sugar, fats, we oversleep.

We zone out to get away from the angst. We get lost in virtual reality online, video games, social media. We're in this kind of digital trance. I always like this story of this couple that are in their living room, And the man saying to his partner, you know, if I ever turn into a vegetable, please pull the plug, at which point she goes over to the TV set and yanks out the plug, you know. So we lose ourselves trying to get away from that clenched fist from feeling it, but that actually tightens it.

And the biggest way that we try to take care of things is by just, just the job. judging ourselves, by punishing ourselves, by not forgiving. It's actually a strategy to try to make ourselves better that of course doesn't work. It's more of the mind creating the abyss. So let's now shift and talk about how do we unclench that fist? How do we disarm it? and we need to bring a wise attention and understanding and care to the parts of ourselves that are clenching, the hurting places, the angry places. If I had to sum it up, we have to bring attention to the judge and the judged, that vulnerable place inside that feels its own badness.

If we start with the inner judge, that part of us that is aggressing, I talk to so many people who say, well, I try to be kind to myself or forgive myself or accept myself, but I have a vicious inner judge who always has a workaround, you know, always regains the upper hand. And it can be like that. And it doesn't help to fight the judge, you know, to hate the judge, because then the judge only digs in its heels, we need to come into relationship with the inner judge. I'd like to pause here with you and actually invite you to do a little bit of an inquiry with me. So you might, wherever you are, just take a few full breaths and scan and sense if there's something about you. Maybe it could be from the past or an ongoing behavior that feels unforgivable,

unacceptable, that the inner judge is judging harshly in some way. So just scan. It may be somewhere that you've hurt someone, maybe to do with your parenting, failure in an intimate relationship, falling short professionally, might be an addictive behavior.

Maybe it's a way that you're judgmental, or that you procrastinate, or that you're not disciplined, self-centered, self-absorbed, all of the above. But pick something where you're not at peace with yourself, something that feels unacceptable, and get in touch with the judge, the part of you that's judging, that's not accepting, that's not forgiving. You might even sense from that part what it feels is so bad about, what keeps it from being accepting or forgiving. Now communicating with the judge, ask that part,

what are you trying to do for me? How are you trying to help? And if it says, I want to punish you and hurt you, just keep asking, how will that help? What will that do? In other words, find out what it ultimately wants to have happen. What's it really trying to do? And you might find it's trying to help you be different to change. It's trying to protect you from other people rejecting you. It's trying to have you be a good person. It's trying to have you be lovable, worthwhile. You sense what it's trying to do.

Just take a few moments now. You might use your breath to help you to sense that in you which is witnessing. your wholeness that's observing this, and from that larger place, to simply appreciate the intention of the judge. And you can actually express it. Let that part of you know, I see that you're trying to help. I appreciate that you're trying to help. There may be a better way to have what we both want, and I appreciate that you are trying to make a difference. You just notice when you're communicating from that wholeness to the judge what it's like to appreciate its intent from a larger space of presence.

What happens? Just sense the value of remembering that the judging part is trying to help, that it got formed when we didn't have more conscious, healing ways to respond to the wound of unlove. So from our wholeness, from our most awake heart, if we can see this, if we can communicate our understanding inwardly from that place of wholeness that we want to heal, that we see the intention of the judge, we're taking the first step in really relaxing the armor of blame in having the heart crossing the abyss. And if your eyes are closed and you want to

open them, please do. So this is the first part of getting in touch with the parts of ourselves that are keeping that fist clenching. And the next is to start communicating with the part that feels deficient and deep down unlovable, the judged. And here's the thing to remember that the behaviors that the inner judge blames, whether it's thoughts or emotions or actions, what the inner judge is blaming, those behaviors come from feelings of woundedness. It's like that story I share so often about the dog who behaves ferociously and then it becomes apparent it's paws and a trap.

if we're causing suffering, we're suffering. We can't help it, at least in those moments. And seeing this truth directly helps unclench and free the heart. I'd like to give an example, share a story that touched me, a woman came to me. She'd had a difficult marriage, and while her daughter was growing up, she was struggling with prescription drugs, was depressed, she had several affairs. She and her husband were divorced when her daughter was 15, and her daughter was much more bonded with her dad and insisted on living with him. So there's a lot of anger and distance from her mom, this woman. So I met with her when the daughter was 30 years old,

okay, 15 years later. And her daughter had her own struggles with depression and anxiety, and she was three months pregnant and her daughter and the mom came to me and you know she was meditated she was self-aware part of a 12-step group and she just really wanted to connect more with her daughter and be there for the grandchild that was coming but whenever there was a visit it was just a very painful distance and she felt self-conscious and she was just caught in that identity of i'm a bad and all the guilt from the past. And she told me, I can't forgive myself. I was so self-absorbed.

I was a bad mother, and I hurt her. And I asked her, well, what would be wrong with forgiving? And she said, I'd be getting away with something bad. I don't deserve it. And then I asked her, well, what's the effect of not letting yourself get away with it? I mean, does it make you less self-absorbed? Does it make you more loving and open-hearted? and she shook her head.

She knew that her self-blame and self-hatred was not helping her. But she really wanted to loosen the grip of that judge who was basically saying you're a bad person. You were hooked on drugs. You're entirely selfish. You didn't take care of your child, you know. So as we did just now, we looked at how the judge was trying to make her a better person. It just wasn't working. And then we started talking and at one point I looked at her and I

asked her, well, did you get taken care of when you were young? And not surprisingly, she shook her head. No. She looked down. She said, well, my father left. My mother was alcoholic. She was always angry at me. I was the youngest of three. I was really a nuisance and a burden. And she, She had tears when she started telling me about this and there was a bit of silence and then I said, you know, it's not your fault. What happened? It's not your fault would happen with your parents and it's not your fault what happened as a parent.

It's really not your fault. You couldn't help it. The conditions were set in motion long ago. You were doing the best you could. And at that she was weeping. told me when she could talk again that it's just so painful to be in that prison of badness and so hard to trust that she was really okay. So we decided to do a practice together, a reign of self-forgiveness, which we're going to be exploring together as we close.

but I want to share first that many people have this fear that the words, it's not my fault, if they were to say that to themselves, means I'm not responsible, I'm not accountable. And I have seen over and over how when we release the toxic shame, when we release the blame, that's actually the beginning of the capacity to respond. to authentically be responsible in a meaningful way. The clenching fist around the heart, that punishing by asserting badness, by saying you should have been different, you could have been different, it does not nourish our intelligence, our consciousness, our heart.

So, again, our limbic behaviors, the ones that cause trouble that we hate ourselves for, they come from wounds. They come from unmet needs, from feeling unlovable, feeling unsafe. And we can face that we've caused harm and also realize it's not my fault. I was doing the best I could in those moments. I really invite you to explore this in your own life because there's so much freedom possible. You know, just when you remember, put your hand on your heart and notice what happens if you say it's not your fault. Notice that there's a little bit of unclenching of that fist, if your heart can relax open some. Okay, we're going to circle back to this, but I want to tell you about her experience of the reign of self-forgiveness. I invited her to get in touch with,

you know, the moments when she really gets caught in, you know, the judge has taken over telling her how bad she is for the way she mothered. And that was one. thing. She felt bad about herself for a lot of things. And she had some memories of taking sleeping pills and being so deeply asleep. Her daughter, when she was young, was sick at one point, needed her, couldn't be woken up. She has memories of times of not being at home and leaving her child at home alone when she was on the young end, you know, those kind of things. and so she got in touch with them and the beginning of rain, the R of Rain, is recognized. So she named them, you know, self-hate, shame.

The A of Rain is allow, which means just let them be there. You know, have the courage to honestly allow the life that's here to be here and not try to add more judgment or fix it or change it. in a deep way allow is saying this belongs like a wave in the ocean this is part of things so she allowed she let that be there and then the eye is investigate and it's primarily in the body although it helps to first sense well what am i believing when i'm caught in this prison and the belief was i am not a loving or good person i'm self-observation absorbed. She got underneath that to where it was living as an emotion of shame, and she could feel

that badness as this dark, empty hole in her belly. And I invited her, as I often do, to feel what her face feels like when she's in that sense of failure and self-hatred and shame and her whole body. And I could see her tightening, and then I invited her back to the very center of the shame place and that's where she felt utterly that that full experience of unlovable. How could anyone love this? I asked her how long she had felt that unlovable feeling and it was, you know, since she was longer than she could remember exactly, but she knew that when her father left something about he didn't care enough about me to stay.

I'm unlovable. My mother didn't want me around. I'm unlovable. And then I hurt my own baby. I'm unlovable. And then I asked her to sense how has that feeling of unlovable affected her life throughout her life. And she said, it shut me down. There was never a possibility of closeness.

And then she started really grieving for all. the life lost because of that deep wound of unlovable. And that's when I said, you know, what is that grieving part most need, which moves us into nurturing? I asked her to put her hand on her heart and just say, what is that part most need? And she said, it needs to really trust and feel that I'm loved, forgiven, and basically good. And that's what the nurturing was about. And I said, what source would you like to most to nurture you? And she had this sense of God as universal love, as a kind of light, formless, universal love that fills the universe. And she said that she wanted to feel that hurting child, that child that felt so unlovable and bad.

She needed to feel God's love pouring in and surrounding her and felt. her. So I invite her to ask for that, you know, to pray, you know, please forgive me, please surround me with love, which she did and she felt more and more as she did it, that there was light and warmth and tenderness just pouring in to that young place inside her. And I just kept saying, let yourself feel forgiven. Let yourself feel forgiven. So this went on for a bit. And I'm taking my time telling you because it's a process and yet it's a life-changing process to begin to let in the possibility of, oh, this place can be forgiven.

This place can feel forgiven. This place can feel loved. When she began calming down, I suggested that she now feel her own wise heart holding that young place and again hand on the heart just saying forgiven forgiven and feeling that tenderness that really can suffuse all parts of our being letting that young place just relax and merge with that loving this is rain recognize allow investigate nurture after the rain the moments after rain are perhaps the most important because as when we rest and the presence that has unfolded. This presence is more the truth of who we are than any of the

stories or feelings. And I asked her a question as she was resting in that. I said, who would you be if you didn't believe there was something wrong with you? Who would you be if you didn't believe there was something wrong with you? And she just said, oh, tar my heart would be so open, so bright, so free. Okay, so there were many rounds. This was not a one-shot. Different times she would feel bad about herself, she'd do the reign of forgiveness. And then she more and more each time found after she did it for herself, she would extend

a real profound caring and love to her daughter. She'd bring her to mind and just feel her held in that field. And during one visit after doing rain for several months, they talked and she told her daughter some of her process and that she really wanted to be there for her and for the babe the following month when her daughter gave birth. And her daughter was wary but more open. And things lightened up after the birth. It turned out to be twins, especially as her daughter needed help. But, you know, having let in that self-forgiveness, this woman was much more free to express her love in a in a spontaneous and real way.

And she told me about one afternoon I want to tell you about where they were each holding a sleeping twin and they looked at each other and they started smiling. And then there were tears. It was very undefended. And the daughter whispered, we're going to be okay. And she knew it was true.

The mind creates the abyss. The heart can cross it. self-forgiving reconnects us. So I'm just going to make a few comments here on really the gifts of self-forgiving, just highlight a few. One is that clenched fist of not forgiving divides us from ourselves and from each other, and we can't change the past. But in a moment of forgiving, we open to fresh possibility going forward. You know, we free our hearts to love without holding back. And the second thing is that self-forgiving not only frees us from prison, it's a political act.

It impacts our world. I mean, we know there's so much suffering from judging, from making others into the enemy, the bad other. And it's the grounds for all the dividedness of war and domination. it's what allows for the demise of democracy, the rise of authoritarianism. You can just see how this fear-based bad othering is threatening our world right now. And when we dedicate to befriending our inner lives to crossing the abyss with ourselves, this radical act of self-forgiving, it's the grounds of bringing healing to our world. because as we start to include ourselves in our heart, our heart space gets large and we begin to

include others. The third gift of self-forgiving is true spiritual realization. Forgiving ourselves frees us from the delusion of a separate deficient self. And the process can go very deep. I mean, some forgiving is the obvious ways we've been blamed ourselves for hurtful behavior. But for many, it can get quite subtle. We don't realize we've been holding against ourselves and we have. And I'll share this morning I was meditating. And of course, this process is very much on my mind as I'm sharing it with you. And I became aware of this background sense of a separate self that was meditating and then going to get to work. And I got this pang of not liking this self that was doing meditation as an activity and then had its planning.

Nothing overtly wrong. So I started examining, you know, what's the not liking? And it was just this background identity of being a separate self, that original evolutionary clench of selfing. And the reason? Because identifying with a self is smaller than the truth of who we are. And so any identification with something that's less than the whole, it feels like we're not at home. We're not living in the full truth of what's here. So something feels off. So when I brought that into awareness, and as I said, forgiving goes really deep. It includes even that evolutionary clench of selfing. It's like, that's nobody's fault. and there's a natural tenderness that allows that clenching to drop away.

And when that basic clenching around a separate self isn't there, all that's left is vastness, wakefulness, and profound tenderness, real loving. So it may sound out there and all that really matters is taking the next step in tenderizing. In other words, relaxing the fist of blame when any version of something's wrong arises. It's such a powerful question. Who would you be if you didn't believe something was wrong? Who would you be if you did not believe that there was anything wrong? You can believe in imperfections, but you've truly forgiven yourself.

you've truly let go of that's something wrong feeling and for some it's a taste of freedom you know we really open beyond that limiting identity and sense since the mystery this is from the poet dana fault she says forgive yourself now is the only time you have to be whole now is the sole moment that exists to live in the light of your true nature. Perfection is not a prerequisite for anything but pain. Please, oh please, don't continue to believe in your stories of failure. This is the day of your awakening. We're going to be practicing in a few moments. I want to close with a story, though. and it's a story that I share somewhat frequently because it's like a poem. I love hearing the message again and again myself.

And it's by Scott McClanahan who writes, this is from Crapalachia, a biography of place. And he says this. He says, one time a man left home, he had argued with his mother and father that day before he left. They spoke horrible words to one another, and he left without saying goodbye. He'd gone many years.

and spent even time in jail. Years later, he finally got out of jail, and he wondered if his mother and father were even alive and if they were ashamed of what had been said and of where he had wound up. He wrote to them and told them he would be coming home on a specific day the following week. If they wanted to see him and were not ashamed,

they should put a blanket on the clothes line and he'd know to come inside. If the blanket was missing, he would then know that he was not well-female. that he was not welcome. He would know to turn back. He told them he hoped they were in good health. The man arrived by rail the next week. He was nervous when he stepped off the train. There was no one to meet him there. He walked up the worn path towards the home place and thought about the past. He thought about his time in jail. He thought about how ashamed his parents must have been.

He thought about the horrible words they spoke. He was about to turn around and go back to where he came from when he saw a blanket in a tree. He kept walking and he saw another blanket. He kept walking and he saw another. Then he turned towards home and the house was covered in blankets. The yard was covered in blankets. The clothes line was covered in blankets. The path to the door was covered in blankets. His parents were standing there and they were welcoming him inside. Think we all long for blankets of forgiveness for this heart crossing the abyss. It's an arctypal experience, feeling a severed belonging and the longing to be reconnected and welcome back inside. So in that spirit will end with a forgiving reign, a reign of self-forgiveness. And it's short. If it resonates,

I really invite you to practice on your own and take the time needed to let the steps be full and deep. We begin by taking a few deep breaths again to gather and settle the attention. And you might sense your intention to awaken, open your heart to your own being, feeling your intention and yet letting go of expectations of the particulars, just open to however, unfolds. Then please scan and locate something about yourself past or current that brings up self-blame. It feels unforgiven, unacceptable, maybe relating to how you've treated others or addictive behavior, something to do with work. Like watching a movie, go to the situation that arouses this reaction, the judge.

See the setting, the other person, or if there's not another person, what's going on? And then check in and sense your feelings, what emotions are strong. The R of Rain recognized is to just mentally whisper or note whatever is most predominant. Maybe anger itself, shame, fear. And the allow is to pause and just let be. the way you're saying yes to the reality that at this moment this is what's going on. The eye of rain, investigate. You might sense what you're believing about yourself.

And under that, sense how the experience of self-blame feels in your body. Just notice where the sense of personal badness or fault is, throat, chest, belly, wherever it feels strongest. And you might even let your face and your body posture express what it's like when you feel caught in self-blame. If you've never done that before, it will help you get in touch somatically. And then let your attention go directly to where you feel the deepest sense of not okay in your body. And just notice what it's like. And you might even ask yourself, how long have you been living with this feeling?

how has it affected your life? What is the real hurt here? What's the wound? Is it unlove? The wound of not feeling lovable? Not feeling worthy? You might put your hand on your heart. It's a way of kind of giving a message inward that you're bringing your whole attention to this hurting place and just ask what is it most need? What does it need from you or from some larger source? What Is it need to remember or trust or feel? Is it to trust its basic goodness? To feel loved unconditionally? To feel held?

As you check in, you might sense what might be the source of that comfort? It would be your own awake heart? Is there some larger source than another person or ancestor or deity? What's the message that would most make a different? difference. And as you pay attention in this way, just sense that you really are calling on your own wise, awake heart, or you're calling on someone, some deity that you love and trust to help create a field of forgiveness. And sensing within that field, the place that's hurting, the part that feels unlovable or unworthy, and offer the message that's most needed.

Sense it coming from your own awake hard or from some other being, but offer the message. It could be as simple as it's not your fault. You are doing the best you can. Trust your basic goodness. It could be I love you and I'm not leaving. whatever message most allows that inner part to feel bathed and held in love and in forgiveness. Let your deepest intention be to let it in. Let it be your prayer to let it in, to imagine and sense light and love and profound tenderness washing through you. You might sense the possibility of forgiveness being so full, so complete, that it frees up all the dark corners, conscious and unconscious places of holding against,

that it releases all the limiting stories, so full that it relaxes that clench. Now is the sole moment that exists to live in the light of your true nature. Perfection is not a prerequisite for anything but pain. Please, oh please, don't continue to believe in your stories of faith. failure, this is the day of your awakening. Making some moments, the sense, the experience of your heart, when in whatever degree you let in forgiveness. After the rain, this presence sits here, this heart presence.

And you might ask, who am I without any belief in badness, with no belief that something's wrong? am I if everything is forgiven and relax in and as that loving awareness that's the truth of who you are. As a way of closing the meditation, I invite you to scan how this process has unfolded and notice if you're in any way judging what's happened. And if so, let there be that rye smile of mindful noticing and give yourself the gift of letting go, of honoring. and trusting your own natural unfolding. I want to thank you, my friends, for participating, because I think that takes courage, willingness, presence. If we each are willing to deepen

in self-forgiving, we'll be making more room for love to flow in our world. So thank you for being part of this. Blessings.