Brené Brown on burying and killing off the things in our lives that need to die so we can live. What do you need to grieve though and out of this Lenten season?
Posted by The Work of the People on Saturday, February 20, 2016
The gist of the message, if I've got it right, is that in order for forgiveness to happen, something has to die and that death has to be mourned before something new can properly grow. To have complete forgiveness, to truly forgive someone, a loss has to be felt and dealt with. Maybe that's why the families of victims of shootings or murders can offer powerful forgiveness to the people who have taken their loved ones away. There's a very concrete loss there to mourn and that grieving process, though different for every individual, is mapped out and encouraged. They've had the hardest part of the work of forgiveness thrust upon them. They've had to grieve and find a new life after that grief.
I want to think about what this idea of death and grief in forgiveness means in the situations where we have to forgive ourselves. It's already earth-shattering to think about it in terms of relationships (the idea that when someone says something hurtful to you, the relationship that you had before that moment has died, that idea messed me up), but what about when you've got to forgive yourself for something you've done or haven't done? What dies there?
I've seen this idea on the internet v. frequently recently, and it might just be a part of our zeitgeist, but the question goes, "What would your eight-year-old self think of you now?" That can be a really gutting question, depending on where you're at in your life. I think my eight-year-old self would blink at me, and then I'd take her to the castle and the library and Arthur's Seat and maybe on a train ride somewhere and then she'd look up at me the way I remember looking up at people and I'd be confirmed in my thought that I think my eight-year-old self would be fine with who I am today and where I'm headed.
But what about the times that I can't be the person my eight-year-old self would want me to be? (I mean, this is also the kid who cut her hair and then hid it under the cat so she wouldn't get in trouble [it was a calico cat and I maintain that the plan would have worked if it had been a few strands of hair instead of the noticeable handfuls that I actually tired to hide and then lie about], so she was sometimes a little shit, but on the whole, I'm not un-proud of her and I don't not value her opinion.) What about the times when I shouldn't have walked away, or I should have stood up, or I should have asked for help, or I should have reached out? How do I forgive myself for the good I could have done without giving myself a free pass?
Because what dies there, in those situations, is the idea that I'm good enough on my own, the idea that I'm just intrinsically a good person who can do no wrong. I don't think I realized how committed to that idea I was until it wasn't true anymore. I used to be the kind of person who would never do [x]. But I'm not that person anymore. I won't ever again be the kind of person who doesn't do [x]. I am a different person now.
I am not the kind of person who doesn't stare.
I'm not the kind of person who doesn't swear.
I'm not the kind of person who can bear all things.
I'm not the kind of person who never falls into despair.
I am not the kind of person who could be held up before God and Man and be said to be completely clean.
And I am not the kind of person who always does the Right Thing.
I have to give up that idea.
Which I think I'm good at, if we're being honest. I do believe that I internally excel at listing the faults I've picked up recently and the faults that I've picked up on recently and understanding that I am not the person my yearbook photos say I was. But there's a second and a third step here. I need to mourn that loss and I never do that. I just throw a "stupid" onto the end of the list of my faults and sit with them, like so many mutilated Barbie dolls playing house. I sit down and enjoy the ruin, as Frankenstein's monster said. But it'd be worth it to have a good cry over the loss as well. There was a perfect version of me at some point and even though it's not at all healthy to try to live up to that standard, I had it and it was mine. I've lost something. I've lost a version of me that I held tightly to. I need to feel that.
And after I've felt that, I need to see that there's something new here, hopefully something with a deeper view of life and a tendency to not be so hard-hearted all the time and to be less hateful towards myself. Someone who still desperately tries to be good and caring but someone who can also stand back up and begin to try again when she's not.
In the library yesterday afternoon, when I was supposed to be studying (I got stuff done, okay? Calm down) the sun came out and went through one of the windows and it was this pretty little moment that I shamelessly took a picture of.
And what I love about that moment is that it didn't last forever and it would have been cheapened if it did. Some spotlight angled just so so that all the time, the wall could dance with the same colors as the window. It would be unremarkable. But the next time I looked up, it was gone. The clouds and probably the rain had come back around, as they do, and this magic stopped.
But that doesn't mean it wasn't there.
What I mean is that the people we are, we're temporary phenomena, from day to day, year to year, decade to decade. And that temporary person you were yesterday, maybe they did something that requires forgiveness. Maybe they had a pattern of behavior that needed correcting. Maybe you still do. But when you get around to correcting and forgiving, acknowledge the existence of that temporary person. They were alive. They existed. And you have lost them, for better or for worse. Live that grief when you need to.
Then let something new be.
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