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DO NOT CLAIM IT AND GET STUCK WITH IT  Mere cat among meerkats meme. The domestic cat is in the forefront on the right, assuming the same standing pose that all the meerkats grouped here naturally hold. Have you ever noticed that when you label something you notice in yourself, while it can be helpful and perhaps validating, you can also give it more power? This is a THING and this name PROVES THAT IT’S A THING. Worse, you may now feel sort of helpless or at the mercy of this big bugaboo with this serious name. FRAUD SYNDROME (also called impostor syndrome) is a great example of this. Once you declare you have fraud syndrome (and keep talking about it and explaining it to people and to yourself), you stake down this sense of not being enough, not really fitting in here, not being valid in the role you’re playing or the task you’re fulfilling. What’s crazy (I mean, besides the fact that it’s simply not true) is that it’s likely you chose this playing field yourself! In other words, you want to be in it and you care about learning more here, perhaps even developing some level of mastery. What if you simply noticed thoughts moving through that you might put in the FRAUD SYNDROME bin? What if you wrote them down or said them aloud and looked at what you’re actually saying? You can actually dismantle wrong thinking instead of reinforcing it by announcing to the next person that you have this cursed fraud syndrome thing. What is it you’re saying?
That last statement is probably the only one that’s actually true. And it’s also not a problem and good to know. What if you noticed and let it be okay that these thoughts are in the mix? You don’t have to believe them, though. You might make little of them. You can in fact work gently to move along your ideas of fraudulence instead of making identity out of them. Fraud syndrome is so normal—which is why it’s been named and we’ve all heard of it. Everybody has it in some way or has felt it in some context. That doesn’t make it a useful or accurate or necessary label. It’s certainly not the best description of who you are and what you’re up to.  Photo of person in quasi-professional garb from Alla Kemelmakher on Unsplash. What follows from saying, in essence, I AM THAT? Only disempowered ways of being: you’ll tiptoe around hiding something, or puff up to compensate for something, or buck up to prove something. As a (not really but self-declared) fraud you’ll do SOMETHING wacky that serves no one, least of all you. Like any- and everything else you might feel about yourself (e.g., confident, self-conscious, powerful, wobbly, happy, sad), the sense of being a fraud comes & goes. It has different levels of potency at different times. It’s not a solid thing you're stuck with; it’s not even objectively measurable. In other words, it’s really, truly not worth the price of the label. Why would you set yourself up to live into or fight against such a thing? You can ease and SOOTHE and counter and CLEAR OUT the sense of being a fraud. You can notice you're in that mentality and pivot quickly! Here are three seriously simple things you can do toward that end. Thing 1. Ask yourself some judicious questions to get real with yourself:
Actual answering these questions will have more power than walking around arguing for limitations by giving them the bogus title of FRAUD SYNDROME. Thing 2. Be clear what it means to be a fraud and actually take in that you are not that! Tell yourself that nope, in fact you are not an impostor in any way, shape, or form. Yes to the questions in the above bullet points would be cause for considering yourself a fraud (um, and then you could correct that, not worry about it). Or check out and take in this definition of impostor from Merriam-Webster: “One that assumes false identity or title for the purpose of deception.” Not what you’re up to? Then you’re not a fraud. (If that is what you’re up to, either carry on or clean it up but there’s no label needed either way.)  Photo of person dressed as an elf from Fellipe Ditadi on Unsplash. Thing 3. Soften it. What’s truer than “I have fraud syndrome” or the thought underlying that, “I’m a fraud”? Restate it to yourself in softer, more accurate, more manageable terms:
Does it feel better to think in these terms? Are you in fact being more real with yourself (and therefore with others) when you look again, beyond the label of fraud syndrome and a blind acceptance (and regurgitation) of that label? You’re not a fraud. You’re on a valid journey of becoming. It's really about building muscles, gaining confidence over time as you try new things and move toward mastery all over again. I invite you to be willing to be in a growth process, to run experiments, and to play with trial-and-error knowing there will most certainly be errors along the way. Keep going if and because you love what you're up to! And gauge the improvement and evolution as you go, instead of constantly noticing what you haven’t yet attained. Finally, feel like a badass more often. YOU ARE BADASS. If you think not—well, you get to be if you decide that and live into it. Love & blessings, Jaya For those who love or want to try Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT, or tapping), here's a session I did on Fraud Syndrome (13:46). And here's another tapping session on Fraud Syndrome (15:09). Other typical power zappers (besides walking around thinking, speaking, and acting like you're a fraud) can be found here.
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A Foolproof Way to Freedom  Image of a distressed person holding their head as someone walking behind waves a hand as if seeking to reason with them. From Getty Images on Unsplash. Dear Modern Reader, I recognize this bit of writing is not brief. It is important, though. If you're drawn to check it out, you might use the headings and bold print to support skimming and dropping in where you like. Or, um, you could just read it. I keep noticing in conversations with clients how much suffering we human beings generate by wanting something from someone who isn’t producing it. Who may not have access to that wanted thing—at least not now. Not given whatever they’re believing & focused on now; not given whatever they have & haven’t faced or healed; not given any number of other factors! Self-Generated Suffering You (and only you) Can Undo Can you see how you create this unnecessary suffering for yourself and put it on them? What if you flipped the switch: instead of declaring what someone should do, what you want or need them to provide or offer, or how they don’t show up for you in the way you want them to, acknowledge instead that this is simply something you want and you currently want it from them. None of that makes it something they must or should do; it’s not something anyone owes you. They get to feel in and decide what they’re up for & willing to do—not you. They even get to be oblivious of this thing entirely as they focus elsewhere, and it’s not yours to manage their enlightenment or order their priorities. What’s most misplaced here is your idea of what causes your suffering. In short, not what someone else is or isn’t doing! Your suffering comes from your focus & insistence on getting what isn’t forthcoming, and especially on getting it in some particular way from some particular source. (A client tells me they say it this way in the 12-step world: Stop trying to get milk from the Hardware store.) Taking Total Responsibility It’s pretty radical to believe that anything you want is your responsibility, and yours only. When you place that responsibility on others, you will almost certainly, at some point & to some degree, feel helpless, frustrated, angry, or victimized—or all of that and then some. You will be at the mercy of whether they ever get it or not, and they may not! You’re preventing yourself (as opposed to, they’re preventing you) from getting what you really want because you’re the one waiting for someone you can’t control to come to and provide this thing. Speaking of control, have you noticed how controlling you can get as you insist & insist, justify & explain, have the temper tantrums or crying jags? Do you notice the sense of scarcity you’re in? This idea that you should get something from someone not providing it can only feel like a gaping hole in your existence, and perhaps in your heart. The Scarcity Is an Illusion This vast Universe is not, in fact, a place of scarcity (unless you focus on lack & fill your field of vision with that). ANYTHING you want can come to you through any number of different channels. There are so many available forms for all you wish for, want to get to, aspire to create. Plenty of these are well within reach, and others not that far away as you open your mind, eyes, and heart and … head that way. But in This Case They ARE the Only One to Provide It Here’s where someone may argue something like: But we’re in a monogamous relationship and they don’t ever want to have sex. Um, then maybe you need to change the agreements or redefine the relationship—not bully the other to do what you want & insist they owe you that. What you want is valid, and whatever they’ve got going is valid too. If you make peace with what is—the current state of affairs is as it is--then you can consider, Now what? Where might I or we go from here? (See button below for more on acceptance as the best foundation for change if it calls to you.)  Image of cat & dog nose-to-nose with seemingly different agendas, from jack1007 on Unsplash.
A Waste of Your Life Force Next, I invite you to consider how easy it is to use up a whole lot of time & energy justifying & arguing for why you should get some specific thing from some specific person. (Sooooo easy. People do it all the time, and sometimes keep doing it year after year as they get increasingly bitter and feel increasingly defeated & unmet by life. And as their well-meaning loved ones join them to reinforce that they have every right to …) Here are some general (and pretty universal) examples of how you might construct it. Please fully take in that these are provided NOT for you to judge yourself by, but for you to gain clarity that opens you to what else is possible—what would feel better. You may argue any of the following:
How That Focus on What’s Missing Dissolves the Valuing of What’s Here The last one I wrote highlights how much FOCUS you can give to what you’re not getting from someone--at the expense of noticing all that you do get. For the record—and if you drop in, you may feel in your very body how much this makes sense--it gets a lot easier to focus on what you get from someone when you don’t EXPECT to get anything from them—never mind the particular things that are decidedly NOT forthcoming. It really helps for you not be mad, sad, annoyed, resentful, outraged, or […] about what they’re not providing. (And you feel how you feel, so that in itself isn’t the problem. It’s a question of noticing & checking out the thinking behind the feelings that keeps you holding on to those feelings—which could be transmuted with a bit of clarity.) Consider where this person produces & provides so many things that benefit you, that feel good to you, that you savor, that mean something lovely to you (adoration, respect, fascination, fun, connection, stimulation, kindness, caring). It may also be worth noting that they offer such things sometimes without even trying, and sometimes through conscious choice because they’re paying attention and do sometimes choose into what you’ve told them about yourself. An example of the not-even-trying bit: they just happen to be someone who’s funny and whose sense of humor meshes well with yours. They make you laugh a lot, just by perceiving things and speaking about them as they do. No effort is required—it just happens because they are who they are and you like who they are! An example of the conscious-choice bit: They’ve come to understand how much acts of service, for you, mean love. Even though it’s not their primary or most comfortable love language, they look for things they might do that they know you like or that you’ve mentioned make you feel looked after, provided for, supported, comfortable, good about your environment [whatever it may be]. Examples in the professional realm: Let’s be real—we expect a lot from our supervisors, employees, co-workers, team members, HR workers (etc, etc). Someone might naturally be orderly & prompt & prepared, and you love that—it contributes to your thriving at work. Or someone might consciously learn to review those documents more carefully before turning them over to you because they’ve taken in how much you prefer that, and the harmony between you & in the work flow is better maintained when they do that. And When They Don’t Accommodate Your Wanting & Preferences? What if they don’t have or learn the traits you want in those you love, live with, and work with? What if they’re not fulfilling their job descriptions or the terms of the relationship as you understand them? That will always be part of the story. Can you accept that? No one in any realm of life will ever manage to provide every single thing you want. (If they do, RUN THE OTHER WAY. They aren’t living their own life, or they’re codependent AF, or they’re too self-contorting & too open to manipulation to participate as a full co-creator in genuine relationship.) Whatever anyone’s role or job description, however well or thoroughly they do or don’t do what you think they should--it’s not their job and not humanly possible for them to be all you want them to be and provide all you want from them (however sensible your desire). They will do things you don’t prefer. Things that make you uncomfortable. Things you’ve told them (or asked them politely) to do differently. Things that you claim drive you insane. Your Sanity Is Fully Yours to Manage & Maintain Um, your sanity or lack thereof is up to you. Entirely. Yours to notice and yours to manage and, ideally, yours to make some very empowered choices around. Rewire it so that nothing drives you crazy. Then, when you feel or hear yourself think or say that something or someone is driving you nuts or bananas or off the deep end, you can simply treat it as an invitation to look again, to clear it up between you & you--instead of continuing to believe they need to change for your comfort & sanity. I used to do a holiday program called If they drive you crazy, take the wheel. In other words, don’t put it on them that you have stuff, that you have preferences, that you like the way you’re wired better, that you value your ethics more than theirs. Don’t even put it on them that you’re right, that things would function better if only they (and maybe everyone on the planet) would … (Give yourself this: You could be right. And that doesn’t change anything I’ve written here.) Innocuous Example of How We Do This (all the time & think nothing of it—we just think we’re right) I recently laughed at myself because I caught myself not in road rage but in road condescension! I heard myself say aloud to someone, in a calm, even (I’m so sensible, you’re such a jerk) kind of voice: “Honey, you just pulled in front of me going more slowly than I’m going and that doesn’t work.” I wasn’t screaming or pounding the steering wheels or whipping out a gun. I was still being superior and annoyed and annoyingly patronizing. No one owes you making all the same driving choices that you make. Fill in anything in that sentence where I have driving choices, and it’s still true—even if you think it’s for their own good & well-being or the good of all concerned; even if you fear their choices will hasten their death and you really really want them to live; even if you think you can’t keep living or working with them if they keep up what you don’t like or keep not doing what you do like. Don’t Want Anything from Anyone Just want what you want. You get to. You don’t need justification to want anything you want. You can even enjoy your wanting and how it move you along your beautiful, fascinating, evolving path. Want what you want and find where it is. Open up & let it come to you in a million different ways & forms, from obvious or unexpected sources. As Abraham-Hicks loves to say, Look for it where it is, not where it isn’t. Then you can let every character in your life off the hook and stop organizing your communications around getting them to do what you want them to do. It’s certainly fine to ask for what you want (do!). Let others know your preferences. And then, release them to be themselves, to have their tendencies & preferences, to look through their chosen & unconscious lenses, to be on their journey as it is & as it unfolds (however much it intersects with yours), and so on. Take responsibility for your own happiness, your well-being, your sanity. Take responsibility for getting all fo your needs met & wants fulfilled. Then you’re free to want nothing from anyone. Then you’re free to ask for & get what you want in a million ways. Then you’re free. Love & blessings, Jaya 3 related posts: 1. Story in which I asked myself, What if I wanted nothing from them? 2. How fully accepting where you are now best supports you to change it 3. Easy Existing Matches is the best tool from Abraham-Hicks for focusing consciously on what you do like about someone, what you do get from them MY JOURNEY AND WHAT I OFFER OTHERS FROM THERE  Image of peacock with tail feathers fully fanned from Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash. I don’t even know what first got me thinking about issues of personal power. I’m pretty sure it was after I started developing some. It would have been too painful to look at the topic head-on when I had so very little power to stand in. In my first early-adult efforts to establish anything remotely resembling power, I puffed myself up, attacked others I feared were bigger than me, or withdrew from humanity bolstered by disdain for others. Counterfeit power, to be sure. I certainly wasn’t taught that it was okay to actually have or want power. Were you? No one ever laid out for me the possibility of feeling big and strong and capable without dominating or plowing over or disregarding other human beings. No one modeled or discussed cultivating an actual inner sense of well-being and strength and outer behaviors to bolster that and express it outward. Because my mother modeled self-diminishment, I became interested in supreme self-honoring. She tiptoed and dodged around with a wobbly voice and crooked stance, apologizing constantly and for everything. (She literally once apologized to me after I dropped a fork—unrelated to anything she’d done.) Then she got big to express rage at her powerlessness, only to shrink again in remorse. Argh. As a child and teen, I did not have awareness of or compassion for her suffering in all of this. At some point, perhaps gradually, I started experimenting with carrying myself with dignity, living in integrity, behaving as if my presence and thoughts and contribution mattered. Plenty of fake-it-till-you-make-it in there, but I learned quickly that posturing never worked—that stumbling and righting myself without melting in shame was infinitely better than pretending I never stumbled. Like everything else in my life, the personal power project grew at warp speed and took on a new level of substance after I discovered The Work of Byron Katie in 2005. That’s why my book, Scooch!: Edging into a Friendly Universe, contains an entire section on scooching into your personal power—the good kind—born of my observations of self and others and my painful process of developing what was weak or sorely lacking. It covers topics such as these:
There’s more. But perhaps my top favorite is the chapter on Power Zappers, which identifies typical ways we sabotage our own power. I want you to have access to the power zappers because I love them. They’re clear and simple and offer easy forward movement into your power. Whether you’ve grown your power a lot (or naturally always had it!—I hear that’s a thing), or you’ve barely begun the journey of allowing and expanding it, you’ll find something here that applies. The chapter’s laid out so that each power zapper has its own subheading (you can skim and read the ones that call to you), with brief bullet points to illustrate how/why we do this, and an affirmation or new mindset to support building power in that realm. Read the POWER ZAPPERS chapter to gauge where you routinely lose power, right on my website, now or later. Love and blessings, Jaya  Image of a baby asleep on the arm of Santa Claus. Invitation not to let bad sensations accrue, not to allow untended thoughts to take you down the rabbit hole! Prioritize feeling good: this will connect you to your guidance system and let in the inspiration of the moment to keep moving toward love. 1. Take a breath. Take several conscious breaths. Watch the breath go in and out. Get absorbed by the breath. 2. Go outside and breathe there. Look into the sky. Experience what's out there with all the senses you can engage. 3. Exercise. Stretch. Run up & down the stairs. Go around the block. Do anything to move your body and focus your attention off the mind and onto your marvelous capacity to feel, move, inhabit a human body. Find someone on YouTube to guide you through some qigong or yoga or whatever. (Here's my favorite simple qigong sequence with Mimi Kuo-Deemer.) 4. Stay away from work, even mentally. Leave it alone and see what seeds sprout later. You've already given it great attention. Celebrate that. Let it go. 5. Feasting for the holidays? Chew more, taste more, give yourself full permission to eat whatever you choose to eat. Take long breaks between times of food intake—not to be righteous, but to enjoy the contrast and to be hungry again when you eat more. (Hydrate between meals!) 6. Do the unexpected, have an adventure, go somewhere you've never been, do something appealing that scares you or goes against how you see yourself. 7. Meditate, even for 5 minutes. You could even exit (physically or mentally) during a conversation you don't want to take part in and just watch your breath go all the way in, watch it go all the way out. Until you decide you're done, keep coming back to the breath when you stray from that focus. 8. Call someone you almost never talk to, or haven't talked to in a while, or even the one you've believed is too far from the last contact to justify any lasting connection: you connect if you're drawn to. (Follow the inspired impulse, not the thoughts about it.) 9. Feeling challenged? Tell yourself or another or write down all the reasons why this hard thing you're going through is perfect, the best training ground for what you know you need to develop in yourself. This is a moment to keep applying your own belief system and to take further whatever you've been experimenting with to live more consciously and be healthier and truer to yourself. 10. Unplug for a day (or days) from any computer activity, phone apps, social media. Include news in the exclusion. Walk away from political conversations if that feels better. 11. Sleep. Nap (30 minutes or less to stay out of deep sleep, 90 minutes for a whole sleep cycle). For naps and nighttime rest, be sure you go to sleep with a consciousness of RESET, of all things new/all things possible when you wake up. Want a bonus? Mind your feeling states! Bored? Irritated? Stung? Get more interested in how you feel than in the thing that made you feel that way (the apparent cause). Just take care of yourself, and move toward feeling better. Love & blessings, Jaya  Picture shows a human being sitting on floor, folded in on themself with face tucked into arms. "Sorry if …” and Other Sorry Apologies I’m not an advocate of perfection in human relationships, so the purpose of this writing is not to generate more perfect apologies. As a life coach, I often encounter people’s guilt, real or imagined, and I’ve come to have a deeper respect for the importance of forgiving ourselves: we hold ourselves back by holding onto guilt and, thus, holding onto stained, sorry perceptions of ourselves. Forgiveness is ultimately something to work out with ourselves. When we want someone else’s forgiveness, we really ultimately need our own, and must forgive ourselves whether others do or not. They may or may not forgive us; their forgiveness may or may not come quickly. We’re free when we forgive ourselves; we're free when we don't require their forgiveness to access our own. That said, in the name of keeping things clear with other human beings, it's a good thing to ask for their forgiveness on the way to self-forgiveness. It does help to know what constitutes a good apology in order to apply it as needed. Quite simply, a good apology is specific, direct, and brief, followed by a margin (perhaps a generous margin) of silence. This allows the recipient to take it in, release the sting of whatever went down, and grapple with their own inner tugging between forgiveness and unforgiveness. A sampling of unappealing, ineffective apologies follows. Sorry. Ay. Really? What for? Do you even know why the other feels so stung if that’s all you’ve got? Do you just want the tension to be over? This level of apology often garners a flimsy or false forgiveness. A good apology states clearly what you’re sorry for. Mea culpa, mea culpa, I’m sorry, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, I'm still sorry. A good apology doesn’t grovel. This means it doesn’t need to keep repeating itself, as if you were more worthy of forgiveness if you’re sorry several times over or for a very long time. It also means you don’t need to call yourself names, overstate or inflate your crime, or make yourself small in any way. A good apology is clean and clear, and then it’s over. (That doesn't mean further listening to someone is out of the question! They may want to tell you more about your impact on them, and letting that in as you keep yourself grounded and stabilized by conscious breath can be a huge gift to another.) Sorry if … Sorry if I hurt your feelings, for example. Did you or didn’t you? Perhaps their feelings were hurt and you don’t feel responsible for that. Fair enough. In that case, express what you're truly sorry for. You might truthfully say something like, I’m sorry your feelings were hurt by what I said. I didn’t mean to say that in a hurtful way. If you find you want to tell more, ask permission: I’d like to clarify what I meant—May I? Sorry but … As soon as but comes in, you’re justifying or defending, and also diluting the force of the apology. Are you sorry? Just be sorry, with that brief, clear statement of what for. If you have more to say about why you did what you did, express that you’d like to explain something. Perhaps something feels fuzzy or unclear or messy or complicated that makes a simple apology feel false to you. It may well be worth a conversation but … the moment of apologizing may not be the time for that. Another thought is that the defending and explaining could happen with someone else—like a friend who won’t treat you like a victim, or a therapist. I’ve certainly helped clients work out their defensiveness so they don’t feel compelled to share it elsewhere, or can distill it down to a clear message to take to the other party involved. I pay close attention to my own defensiveness and seek neutral help if I need it. As soon as I hear a defense mounting in my mind, I'm motivated to clear it out, because I find defensiveness to be painful and demeaning. It’s nothing to judge: we’re all capable of defensiveness. It’s also not a good idea to let it dictate what you need to tell someone. Work it out between you and you and see if there’s anything left to tell. Sorry and … Just because you’re sorry doesn’t mean the other party needs to process with you all this brings up for you about your family of origin and that time you were falsely accused by the fourth-grade teacher who smelled like pepper spray. Gauge how much is said beyond a simple apology by the intention you have for this relationship and its level of intimacy. When you feel the need to apologize to someone not so close, like the customer-service worker you just chewed out because of the maddening robotic loops you got trapped in before she showed up to help, there’s not a lot more needed: she doesn’t need to get you or somehow come to an agreement with you about how understandable the whole episode was. You don’t need to land on the proverbial same page with everyone you apologize to. If the apology is directed to someone you’re close to and intend further closeness with, much more could be appropriate. Again, look for the right timing—this could involve simply asking--so that you don’t dilute your apology with an onslaught of related issues that the other may not be ready for until they’ve assimilated the apology and landed in forgiveness. You may need to get comfortable with your discomfort about how they perceive you, even as time passes while they’ve got gaps in the story of you. I'm sorry for my part. Whether you mean to convey such a thing or not, this reads like shorthand for, Yeah, I had a part, but so did you, and I'm saying sorry for mine, so now you’d better say sorry for yours. (Which I secretly believe to be worse than mine.) When 12-step programs and other excellent sources suggest that you apologize or make amends for your part, this means, step into what's yours and deal with just that. The idea is that you want to take full personal responsibility for what you do that feels off to you or violates your own ethics; and leave others alone to do that for themselves if they will. Apologizing for your part does not mean to do a global reckoning that breaks down all the parts and doles them out on balance scales so that you don’t land alone in the wrong. Apologizing for your part is meant to constitute a whole event, not a part. It’s not the Marco to their Polo. I once sat with a client who was at odds with herself in seeking to understand her part in a family feud. It was like looking through a blurry lens to get clarity. As she elaborated on her preoccupation with her part, it became clear to me that she was unconsciously operating out of some unexamined, almost cliche idea that it takes two to tango, so everyone has a part, and somehow the parts must be inherently equal. This all amounted to her seeking to beat herself into submission to own up to her part—and as long as that part didn’t look as big and ugly as theirs, she must not be done with the reckoning (or the self-flagellation). Sometimes it’s good to notice the model you’re in, notice it’s just a model, and step outside of it to look again from another angle. Instead of ferreting out her part, it turned out to be far more useful for her to determine what she was and wasn't okay with in what had gone down, and whether she wanted to change her boundaries with her family. Whatever she did or failed to do, what was ultimately needed had nothing to do with locating the right measures of blame or even delivering an apology. What if you’re tripped up on their part? Things in life just won’t neatly fall into black-and-white, sometimes, will they? You may on occasion find yourself knowing you need to apologize but feeling stuck with your own sting about what the other did in the same scenario. Perhaps as a non-realized human being, however conscious and well-meaning (I’m sure we’re in good company belonging to this club), you can simply be honest and say that you’re aware of where you need to apologize but can’t get past where you need their apology as badly as (or worse than) you need to give yours. This could mean one of those way-past-bedtime conversations, but sometimes it’s really true that (sing it with Elton) sorry seems to be the hardest word. Better to grope toward what needs to be said, murky as it may be, rather than speak a half-meant sorry while swallowing resentment down the wrong pipe. A slightly different scenario is when it’s hard to apologize to someone because they’ve done this exact thing to you or other not-so-similar things that weigh on you as you helplessly seek to form the apology that won’t take: this is a sure sign that you’re not current. Maybe you’ve been letting things slide that aren’t really okay with you, you’ve been avoiding hard conversations, you’ve been devaluing yourself or holding low expectations of how you get to be treated by others. See if you can locate what allowed this build-up for you and deal with it separately. Could be a long-term project, and well worth your time beyond this moment. Sorry because they made me. Did you have in your childhood the kind of caregivers or teachers who stood over you and demanded in their clueless-giant way, “Say you’re sorry!”? If you were trained to mumble an apology on demand that has nothing to do with your inner reality, it’s high time to retrain yourself into something else. There’s nothing gained from the apology that means nothing. I once heard Byron Katie talk about moving into each new moment with no trace left of what went before. This was during a program on making amends, so she was directly addressing the tendency to get stuck in guilt about past wrongs. What if we really lived that way? What if we gave our apologies appropriately when appropriate, made amends where possible (Katie uses the simple question, How can I make it right?), then truly let go of what we’d done so we could do the next thing, and perhaps do it better? When we’re small and marred by guilt, we really can’t step into our best selves or interface with others from that perspective. Outdated and unnecessary guilt puts a ceiling on how big we get to be. It limits the possibilities we see for ourselves. It causes weight and density in our minds, in random interactions, in entire relationships. It keeps us from realizing our potential or just plain being as light, free, and happy as it's possible to be. So how much do you believe in forgiveness? Do you live in a punitive Universe, or one that’s forgiving? Do you need to keep atoning if you don’t like something you’ve done? For how long? Could you be done with it before they are? Are you done yet? I love the model of moving from one moment into the next without a trace. I invite you to play with it. It could make things feel lighter and more current, which means you get to be present in the moment, showing up as your best self. What’s done is done. Now what’s possible? I want to close with the Forgiveness prayer (which I created based on some ideas from Marianne Williamson, elucidator of A Course in Miracles). The obvious beauty of this prayer is that it doesn't require you to be ready to forgive—only ready to let the Universe bring in its endless supply of forgiveness, freely given to anyone under any circumstances. There's no issue of merit in the Universe's capacity to forgive. You deserve it, as anyone else does, just because you're here. This prayer can help you get to forgiveness when you're not there yet, and helps make it more tangible and complete when you are. (I offer it below toward the self, but you can equally use it for others.) I forgive myself. And where I can’t or don’t know how, Universe, you forgive me for me, and hold that while I catch up to it. I acknowledge that it is done. Somewhere beyond time and space, the forgiveness is complete. Love and blessings, Jaya |
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