Wellness Wednesdays - Forgiveness

Welcome to Wednesday’s Wellness Clinic. I can promise you I am not a doctor, a psychotherapist or a preacher, just someone with a lot going on inside her head looking for a way to calm the storm and impart that wisdom to you.

My first wellness tip isn’t being pulled from the pages of my trusty book exactly, although it is certainly influenced by the book’s Mindfulness Tip #6: Go easy on and be kind to yourself, even when you blow it. When something goes wrong, many people blame themselves for having not known better/tried harder, and it sets them up for failure when faced with the same task again because they believe they can’t do it. What you need to do is to forgive yourself for the past mistake, say ‘it’s ok’ that you failed last time, and it’s even ok to fail this time, should that happen, because eventually you will get it right. And if not, then perhaps it’s just time to let it go. What you can’t do is let a failure govern your thinking as it will mean you are stuck in the past, constantly going over it in your head – how you could’ve done better, what people will think of you, what effect this will have on your job/relationships etc.

For example, classic scenario, your friend is having a party and they want you to come. You’ve known about it for weeks, but when the time comes, you feel you’d rather stay in and watch a movie by yourself. You call your friend and tell them you can’t go but you make up a reason rather than just admitting you didn’t feel like going. What you are left with is the worry that your friend now hates you or that you would’ve had a better time at the party than in your pyjamas. Instead, what you should be thinking is that, unless your friend got angry at you for cancelling (and if they did, they had better have good reason), they most likely do not hate you – and you probably needed some me-time anyway!

Of course, it is just as important to exercise forgiveness on other people too. If someone messes up, it’s not always their fault: they might be thinking about something else entirely, they don’t fully understand what they’re doing, or they’re just having a bad day (we all get them). Big or small, you should consider why the error might have occurred and respond as kindly as you can. As I am a stickler for good grammar, I will often get irritated by minor mispronunciations, spelling or punctuation errors, often forgetting that the person I am blaming may not know they’re wrong. By checking myself before I say anything, even correcting them more gently, or mentally forgiving their faux pas, I avoid a situation where the person’s feelings might be hurt and I am left wishing I had held my tongue for days to come. This simple effort will have helped to keep my head in the present that little bit more often because I now have less to regret.

I practised this recently when my usual morning schedule was altered by the introduction of some short exercises which meant I left my room late. My dad, accustomed to me being up promptly, thought I hadn’t heard my alarm and knocked on my door. I told him, rather sharply, that I was up. This happened the next day too and the one after, so I decided to clarify why I was late, apologise to him for snapping, and left feeling good about myself. Because, by being good to others, especially when it seems so easy to be harsh, you are doing good to yourself too.