WORK IN PROGRESS
THE Personal Effectiveness E-zine
July/August 2007 ><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>>><<>><
Something old and yet new!
As many of my readers may have noticed, in recent months I have not been writing Work in Progress regularly. This is partly due to my work on a book - about which more information will be share in the not too distant future. It is partly because I spent some rather hectic time in the UK this summer. However, it is also, I suspect, partly due to approaching burn-out on my part. Do you realize that I have been writing Work in Progress for ten years? ! Yes, the first issue came out in September 1997. At first I enthusiastically wrote two issues per month. Later I switched to once a month, and more recently you have been receiving issues when and as I wrote them. This is not for lack of intention on my part. However, it frequently seems that there are few topics of importance that I have not already covered.
At the same time I have been receiving feedback from people who let me know that my Top Ten lists continue to be of great use to them. As background, I originally wrote most of the Top Ten lists for Coach U - the coach training organization through which I trained as a coach. Later the lists were sold to CoachVille, another coaching organization also founded by Thomas Leonard, who had originally founded Coach U. The Top Ten lists used to be circulated to many thousands of people every week day. However, since Thomas' death this has not happened, and the lists are now available only through the web. Although I have links to all of my lists at the Top Ten pages of my website (http://choicecoach.com/4Writer/TopTens.htm), I realize that it is often easier to receive material by email. My own coach told me today that she sometimes realizes that she needs reminders of topics such as are covered in the Top Tens, even though she has read them at some time in the past.
Therefore, since I retain the copyright of the Top Ten lists that I wrote, I plan to use them in Work in Progress for the next few months. I first started writing them in 1997, around the same time that I began Work in Progress. Sometimes when I re-read them I have new thoughts about what I wrote, and when this happens I will include these thoughts together with the original version. I hope that you will find them useful, helpful, and/or inspirational, depending on their topic.
In the meantime, I will be relieved of the pressure of feeling that I "should" be writing a new issue, and will, I hope, feel free to focus more strongly on my book, as well as on the new group of college students who will be beginning my addiction counseling classes next week.
If you are feeling overwhelmed, what will you do to reduce the pressure?
I sometimes get requests for permission to re-use my Top Ten lists. I normally give this permission with the proviso that attribution to me as author be given, together with a link to my website. If you see something that might be helpful to someone you know, please feel free to forward this, with the same provisos.
This month, the most often requested list of all...
The Top Ten Steps to Forgiveness
For many people forgiveness is one of the hardest steps of all in our progress toward freedom of spirit. Yet it is essential. For as long as we are unable to forgive, we keep ourselves chained to the un-forgiven. We give them rent-free space in our minds, emotional shackles on our hearts, and the right to torment us in the small hours of the night. When it is time to move on, but still too hard, try some or all of these steps. (Note that these steps are appropriate for events resulting from an ongoing adult relationship with anyone. They may not all be appropriate for the random act of violence from a stranger, nor for someone who was abused as a child or while in some other position of true helplessness.)
1. Understand that forgiving does not mean giving permission for the behavior to be repeated. It does not mean saying that what was done was acceptable. Forgiveness is needed for behaviors that were not acceptable and that you should probably not allow to be repeated.
2. Recognize who is being hurt by your non-forgiveness. Does the other person burn with your anger, feel the knot in your stomach, experience the cycling and recycling of your thoughts as you re-experience the events in your mind? Do they stay awake as you rehearse in your mind what you would like to say or do to 'punish' them? No, the pain is all yours.
3. Do not require to know 'why' as a prerequisite to forgiveness. Knowing why the behavior happened is unlikely to lessen the pain, because the pain came at a time when you did not know why. Occasionally there are times when knowing why makes forgiveness unnecessary, but they are rare. Don't count on it and don't count on even the perpetrator knowing why.
{This one is really, really important! The question "why," when it relates to something outside of ourselves, is one of the greatest blocks to personal growth that I know. Relevant to personal growth it is usually only helpful when the answer lies within and sheds honest light on our own motivations and intentions.}
4. Make a list of what you need to forgive. What was actually done that caused your pain? Not what you felt, what was done. {What were the actions and the results?}
5. Acknowledge your part. Were you honest about your hurt or did you hide the fact that the behavior hurt you? Did you seek peace by reassuring the perpetrator that it was all right? Did you stay when you could or should have left? If so, then you, too, have some responsibility. (Here you start to move away from being a victim.)
6. Make a list of what you gained from the relationship, whatever form of relationship it was. Looking back you may be focusing on the negatives, the hurts. Yet if they were repeated, you must have stayed to allow the repetition. You did not remove yourself. Why? There were probably some positives if you chose to stay around. What were they?
7. Write a letter to the person (no need to mail it). Acknowledge what you gained from the relationship, and express forgiveness for the hurts. Allow yourself to express all your feelings fully. Do not focus only on the hurts. {If you can see no positives, seek carefully to know why you remained in the situation. As positive may be something as low-positive as that all of the alternatives were even worse.}
8. Create a ceremony in which you get rid of your lists and the letter, so symbolizing the ending of the link between you. You may choose to visualize placing them on a raft and watching it drift gently away down a river. You may prefer to burn them and scatter the ashes. I remember someone once flushing hers down the toilet, which she thought to be the most appropriate place. You may invent some other form of ritualized separation.
9. Visualize the person you are forgiving being blessed by your forgiveness and, as a result, being freed from continuing the behavior that hurt you. {Here perhaps you are saving others from experiencing the pain that you experienced.}
10. Now that you have freed yourself from the hurtful links and released the pain, feel yourself growing lighter and more joyous. Now you are free to move on with your life without that burden of bitterness, without being shackled to the individual you have now forgiven. {Let that person go in peace, as you yourself can now go in peace.}
Do not look back in anger.
><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>>><<>><
Remember that an archive on old Work in Progress issues going back to 1997 can be found at
http://lists.webvalence.com/sites/WorkInProgress/
If you or your friends would like a free half-hour sample coaching call, please contact me by email or via my web site at http://ChoiceCoach.com. I may not answer instantly as there will be some times this summer when I cannot access the internet, but you may be sure that I will respond as soon as I am able.
><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>>><<>><
Disclaimer -The contents herein are solely the opinions of Work in Progress owner, and should not be considered as a form of therapy nor advice. There is no guarantee of validity or accuracy. If expert assistance or counseling is needed, services of a competent professional should be sought.
><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>>><<>><
PLEASE! Any re-use of this material should include the words "Copyright Diana Robinson 2007. For more information visit Diana's web site http://ChoiceCoach.com or contact her at Diana@ChoiceCoach.com."
TO SUBSCRIBE to Work in Progress send a blank e-mail to workinprogress-On@lists.webvalence.com.
TO UNSUBSCRIBE, send a blank e-mail to
workinprogress-Off@lists.webvalence.com
To offer feedback e-mail Diana at Diana@ChoiceCoach.com or visit her
web site at http://ChoiceCoach.com