Is Self-Forgiveness the Key to Upgrading Our World?
How can we overcome the division in our society? It's hard, but it may be simpler than we think.
In this essay, I’ll be talking about forgiveness, accountability, and reconciliation. I’ll be addressing how we can defeat black and white thinking for the good of humanity and how forgiveness is the key to unlocking society’s progression.
Firstly, I want to share one of my favorite quotes from Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn that's very meaningful to me. It’s very relevant right now, and it has profound implications.
If you didn’t know, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn was a writer, historian, and Marxist-Leninist Captain of the Red Army in the Soviet Union. He was arrested under Stalin's regime and brought to the Gulag, a system of forced labor camps. He wrote a book called the Gulag Archipelago, telling the story of how people across society got snatched up and put through these camps.
14 million people went through these camps, and 1.5 million of those people died. During all of Stalin's regime, historians estimate that 20 to 60 million people died, and many of those were direct choices of Stalin. Solzhenitsyn was highlighting very dark times. Here's his quote:
This “good and evil” reflex is alive in our culture right now: Everyone and everything falls prey to our black or white thinking. While we're not sending people to forced labor camps (yet), we have a strong desire to exile the evil people in our culture. Of course, we think we're the good people. It’s very human to resist recognizing the evil in ourselves and the treatment we know we’d receive as a result.
We can't get rid of all the evil people. Let’s follow that to its logical conclusion. Trying to win something by eliminating your enemy is genocide, which only happened 75 years ago. Surely we learned from that?
“Good” and “bad”
Here's what happens if we organize the world into good guys and bad guys: We're saying these people are permanently right or wrong, or good or bad. We don't allow them to change, so we don't have anywhere to go, and that's not a good plan. It's an illusion that there are good and bad people.
Antanas Mockus, an academic and ex-Mayor of Bogota in Colombia, called this concept, "delirio social" or social delirium. He described it as the idea that “I'm one of the good guys and I'm doing good things, and those are the bad guys, and they do bad things. But those bad guys? They also think they're the good guys, and you're the bad guys.”
This is inherently why it can’t work. We can't be good and bad guys and all disagree about who falls into which group! Instead, we need to recognize our complex shared humanity and see beyond this social delirium. Our inability to reconcile the nuance of good and bad and us and them is part of the problem.
The lesson from Solzhenitsyn’s quote? We can't exile, reject, or destroy all the people we think are evil. We could only do that if we did the same to ourselves. The hard truth is that we all have the capacity for evil or weakness inside of us, which creates a really interesting challenge around forgiveness and accountability.
Kazu Haga, an amazing Kingian nonviolence teacher, was a guest on my Fractal Friends podcast (check out the episode here.) He pointed out that reconciliation is forgiveness plus accountability. This equation is important because our world is in dire need of reconciliation. It's not just our political situation: It cuts into our families, relationships, and capacity to function as a society.
Forgiveness
How do we get out of this thinking trap? We can start by figuring out how to forgive evil people rather than trying to destroy or exile them. We could also recognize our own capacity for evil and find peace with that. And I think the latter supports the former. If we're able to acknowledge that we have the seeds of evil inside us, we can find forgiveness for ourselves and others. Hopefully, this realization will give us the strength to create healing and move towards a better approach.
Brené Brown makes a powerful distinction between shame and guilt. Shame is the idea that I am wrong, and guilt is the idea that I did something wrong, but that's not me. Elizabeth Bruenig, a writer at The Atlantic, delivered some incredible nuggets of wisdom in her interview with Vox Conversations. She pointed out that it’s the action that’s evil, not the person. It’s worth remembering that some actions are evil, and we need to separate them from the person.
While people are inherently good, they can do harm and evil. That's especially true if they've experienced harm themselves. If you see someone doing something bad, that person probably needs more love. And that's true for yourself, too. Forgiveness is key to moving forward.
What is forgiveness?
Elizabeth Bruenig gave a great definition in her interview: It’s “letting go of your right to pursue some kind of recompense.”
Essentially, it's a way of saying I don't need anything more from you: no more apologies, amends, or anything like that, I'm finished. The other interesting part is that it doesn’t deny that harm happened, and Elizabeth points out very clearly that it doesn’t mitigate harm. It's not a denial that there was an impact, that hurt happened, or that someone caused harm. Forgiveness and apologies only work if there is real harm.
Why should we forgive?
We know forgiveness is hard, so let’s look at a couple of reasons why we might want to forgive:
On the Hidden Brain podcasts “The Power of Apologies” and “The Power of Mercy” with Tyler Akimoto, they discussed that when offenders are forgiven by the people they harmed, they're statistically less likely to continue to harm.
That's a great reason to forgive people; we can actually create less harm in the world.
Secondly, when we give up on needing more from the other person, we're breaking the cycle of an infinite feud. As long as we continue asking for something from the other person so we can move on, we're going to be stuck in a cycle.
This kind of perpetual feud is a huge problem in our society right now, but we have to break that cycle if we're going to be a functional pluralistic society. If we think some people aren’t forgivable, then none of us are. We've all hurt people.
Another great way to think about forgiveness is as a way of moderating the situation; it's a way of tempering down. This kind of moderation that comes out of forgiveness is the opposite of extremism, and I know many people are concerned about extremism in our world right now.
When we hold a grudge against someone, we deepen our contempt, hatred, and anger towards them, which will worsen over time. This makes it even harder to reach that place of forgiveness.
For me, one of the most compelling reasons why forgiveness is worth the effort is because it gives agency to the person. Forgiveness is a personal choice. It's not about the offender: they have nothing to do with it. It's not what my friends, family, or society want. If I decide to forgive someone, that is my choice.
On the other hand, some people feel empowered by not forgiving. However, I learned through Hidden Brain that studies show that people feel a lot better when they forgive. The kind of agency and empowerment they have by deciding to let something go and not have others determine it is really important.
The hard part of forgiveness
Of course, I don't want to just give you all the sweet stuff about forgiveness because we all know it's hard. There are reasons why we choose not to forgive people, and maybe it's not the right time to forgive. Having a grudge against someone is proven to make us feel less sad. So if you're trying to avoid sadness, holding a grudge can sort of keep that sadness at bay. Recently, I learned from a meditation teacher that anger is like a thin veneer over sadness. From personal experience, I agree: I know anger protected me from sadness about some things in my life.
You can't make someone forgive. It can be really re-traumatizing for someone to feel like they're being forced to forgive someone, especially when there hasn't been adequate accountability. Perhaps it's too much, too soon, and the person hasn’t understood the effects of the harm, and the offender hasn't faced any consequences. Here, it could make things worse to try to forgive or force someone to forgive.
The really interesting part? Forgiveness is basically a choice to relinquish your right to recompense from the other person, and it pairs very well with accountability. If the person can be accountable, learn about the situation, and make changes, forgiveness becomes easier. So that's worth paying attention to.
Elizabeth Bruenig worked with people on death row and realized, yeah, these people have done horrific things, but finding empathy for them can create greater healing. Recognizing in ourselves that we might've had the capacity to be doing that if we were raised in different circumstances and experienced trauma can be a great way to find that empathy for others. Empathy can help us move towards reconciliation.
A huge part of the Omni-Win Project message is the profound significance of reconciliation. We must have the capacity as individuals and a society to find a path to reconciliation when we've been hurt by each other. It’s much easier for us to do this where there’s accountability.
As I said earlier, Kazu Haga says reconciliation is a combination of forgiveness and accountability.
What is accountability?
Well, Kazu describes it as insight, plus remorse, plus amends:
Insight into what happened and why. The introspection to understand how it happened.
Remorse for the impact and true recognition of its effects.
Amends, some form of restitution, and there are many forms of this. It can be an apology, a type of service, or maybe it's paying someone back for something. Another is sharing power, empowering the other person, or showing that you learned your lesson and making changes. There are lots of different ways to get there.
So, that's the package of accountability.
I just want to share this as a really important flip side of forgiveness. We started with that quote from Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, where we know that the line between good and evil cuts through all of our hearts.
We all have something that we might need to apologize or be accountable for. Perhaps you need to find peace about something, just as we all have things that we can forgive.
A wonderful teacher, Isoke Femi, pointed out that it would be great to give incentives for accountability. What if we saw accountability, apology, reckoning as a way to give people more belonging? “By admitting the harm you've done, we're going to welcome you into the community even more.” Let’s make it worthwhile for people to be accountable.
The power of apologies
From the Hidden Brain conversation with Tyler Akimoto, I learned that an apology is a gift to the other person. It’s a gift we give freely and unconditionally, which is a vital part of an apology. We know we're offering an authentic apology if we're giving it without expectations for forgiveness; it’s independent of the other person’s reaction. If you can provide the apology without forgiveness, you're clearing the space out of your heart. A part of this is the process of self-forgiveness, which I’ll dive into shortly.
There's also a lot of great research and insight that Tyler and other researchers have discovered about apologies.
Here's what works:
People want to see actual remorse
They want to know you have some understanding or insight about what happened
You don't want to apologize too soon. Get to the place where you truly feel sorry, and understand it before trying to make amends
You also don't want to wait too long.
So, how do we find this insight and remorse? One way of thinking about remorse is to check in with yourself and see if it’s out of alignment with the person you want to be. Are you being the best version of yourself? If you're not, you can say, “That isn't actually how I want to behave; that’s not what I want to be doing.” It's a great way to get in touch with remorse. Another way to think about this: perhaps you were trying to do good, and you weren't trying to hurt anyone. Most of us aren't trying to hurt others, by the way!
The next piece is the importance of letting go of your ego or needing your intention to be understood. Part of that is because if people think that you're being defensive and trying to protect yourself, they will distrust you, which will make the apology harder. It can even make things worse.
If you allow yourself to be vulnerable and exposed, things might work better and improve the relationship, even though you took a riskier move.
I find the dance between intention and impact really interesting. In my conflict transformation work, this question of intention and impact comes up all the time. Very often, the intention is real, the impact is real, but they're totally different. If you find yourself in a position where someone wants you to understand the impact of your actions, a clever way to think about this is, "Okay. I didn't intend for that to happen, but that was the impact. Well, shoot, I better learn about the impact so that I can make sure I get the right result next time." It's a great learning opportunity. If letting go of your ego is too scary, maybe just try to understand what went wrong when your good intentions created harm.
The parallels between forgiveness and accountability
There are fascinating parallels between the process of forgiveness and accountability. They remove the obstacles to being in better relationship and connection with another. It's worth recognizing that we're looking at and apologizing for an action that got in the way and caused harm. We’re trying to remove the obstacle rather than condemning the whole person.
The other piece of wisdom worth remembering is the “Goldilocks” effect. If you say sorry right away, it's not going to work. You need to get to the place where you understand it first. As I said earlier, if you try to forgive someone too soon, it can be traumatizing. You also don't want to take too long because the longer you take, the harder it will be to do it, whether it's forgiveness or an apology.
It’s worth recognizing that forgiveness and an apology are personal decisions. You're doing it from yourself; it's your feeling. You don't even need to communicate it to the other person in a certain way.
This also means we can't coerce other people into forgiving someone or apologizing. That's something that they can do on their terms. Because it's a personal decision, there's deep empowerment. Of course, there's vulnerability, but there's something powerful in being able to say, “I choose to apologize. I choose to forgive.” Remember, neither the apology nor the forgiveness diminishes the impact of the harm: that’s still real.
Not apologizing or forgiving undermines the entire healing process. Apologies and forgiveness unlock the freedom to change, grow, step into our best selves, get back into alignment and integrity with the people we want to be and see others be.
Why do we care?
But why do we care so intensely about how others act? Why do you care so much about the things that get you riled up? I like to say that conflict is an opportunity because it always gives us a direct line straight into someone's heart. If someone cares about something and it feels threatened, they're going to get riled up.
This is a very personal experience, but it has profound political and cultural applications. We're stuck in a good guys/bad guys situation right now, and we need to realize that we're all complicated humans. We all have different perspectives, and somehow we’ll have to figure out how to deal with many serious issues. So, we have to break the cycle of division. There are many ways to do that, but one of them is figuring out what's going on inside our own hearts.
The iceberg of conflict
I like to say that “the first rule of conflict is it is not about what it's about.” Usually, there's something deeper under the surface, and that's deep in someone's heart. A lot of what I usually point out with the first rule is something called the “iceberg of conflict.”
What's above the surface is what we think we're talking about, but there's a whole bunch of stuff below the surface. Typically, conflict touches upon underlying needs, feelings, and values. One of my teachers and colleagues, Barbara Lipson, pointed out that if you really dig down to what's below the iceberg, we're going to find shame and fear. That's the stuff that gets people riled up and defensive.
(Barbara is the trainer at SEEDS Community Resolution Center in Berkeley, and they have great training courses, which you can look at here.)
So, in a vulnerable situation where things we care about are being threatened, how do we get even more vulnerable and talk about shame and fear? Perhaps we need to think about forgiving ourselves for past actions.
Self-forgiveness
I think self-forgiveness is the solution to everything. While that might be an exaggeration, I've thought about it a lot, and it keeps on holding up.
If we can't forgive ourselves, we’ll be resistant to change. If we can't forgive others, we don't believe they can change, so we're stuck. Making it impossible to change or forgive is a non-option because there's nowhere to go from there.
Self-forgiveness is crucial because people will not trust you if you're trying not to deal with your stuff. But, if we can forgive ourselves for whatever harm we've done or whatever capacity for harm we have, we can change around that.
You have to find forgiveness for where you are before you can step into the next world. If I'm able to forgive myself for my role in racism, US global domination, and all sorts of people whose hearts I've hurt in life, I can figure out how to change and get to a place of healing. It allows me to be a model for other people struggling with that, and it lets me be in relationships with others who have their challenges. Self-forgiveness gives me the capacity to forgive other people.
Self-forgiveness is key. But why is this noteworthy for the world? If you want things to change in this world, you probably want to be part of the solution.
Are you part of the problem or the solution?
That brings me to one of my favorite quotes from Adam Kahane, who got it from another teacher of his: "You can't be part of the solution if you're not part of the problem, or if you're not part of the problem, you can't be part of the solution.”
First of all, it’s none of your business if it's not your problem, but being able to recognize your role in whatever it is that's bothering you is a great way to access your ability to start making the change.
That's hard, right? But we're trying to break this cycle. Alixa Garcia, who was on my podcast, says, "hurt people, hurt people." We've heard that before, but we also need to know that healed people heal people. If we can find our own path of healing, that allows us to be a source of healing for other people. If we want to positively impact this world, others, and be part of the solution, we need to act in the right way.
To act positively for the world, we have to be able to change through self-forgiveness. The cycle of healing allows us to create a better, constructive world instead of the process of retribution, exile, and canceling. Pushing people out is not sustainable, and if we start exiling people, we have to look at ourselves too. Are we beyond reproach for our bad deeds? No. So forgiveness and self-forgiveness are the way forward.
All of this is about trying to be in better relationship. We need to work together to deal with the tough things in this world. This brings me to my second rule of conflict: Everyone who's involved in the problem has to be involved in the solution. For the third rule, you can check out my three rules of conflict post here.
Partly what I want to do with the Omni-Win Project is help us create the politics, democracy, country, and culture that works for everyone. This evolution will ensure we hear all voices so everyone can win, but that will require work on ourselves and our relationships.
We're going to have to do some pretty serious systemic change and rethink our culture, but let's just work on ourselves for now. As Elizabeth Bruenig says, we can't wait for others to change. So ask yourself, what can you do to move towards forgiveness for yourself or others? What can you do to invite the change we all want?
You can check out my YouTube videos that inspired this essay below:
You can find more information about the work I do in conflict transformation on my website: http://www.omni-win.com
You can schedule a call with me here: https://calendly.com/duncanautrey
Don’t forget to check out the rest of my posts as I discuss how we can work together to ensure we all win.
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