Forgiveness

What makes humans great is the ability to make up for mistakes and change for the most part. If the other person is willing to forgive you, you can talk about how you plan to do things differently so the same mistake doesn’t happen again. Then do it. Don’t just let it end at promises. Write down the things you are going to do differently if it helps you to remember them and stick to them. Hang it up where you will see it. If you don’t follow through, others may be less willing to forgive in the future – especially if it’s the same situation. 

Forgiveness may take time. The other person may want to forgive you, but there may be their own hurt and fear getting in the way. This might happen if they feel like you didn’t protect them or stick up for them or if you cheated on them. There is fear that the situation will be repeated – even if your behavior isn’t indicating that at the moment. This is because they were hurt and nothing can take that away right then. Being patient may be hard to do but that in addition to validating and supporting their feelings – and making your changes – will help to ease their pain and learn to trust again (more in next post).

Another part of forgiveness is forgiving yourself. Often, we feel that embarrassment and shame and when we know someone else is hurt because of our actions, it brings that shame back time and time again. However, nothing can take away the mistake and erase it. Accepting that you made the mistake, admitting to it, and making changes are the only way to improve. But forgiving yourself is also important. Otherwise, you’ll punish yourself time and again.

Admitting Mistakes

Nobody likes to admit that they are wrong. It’s much easier and feels much nicer to be right. But when it comes down to it, nobody is perfect. But even when we tell ourselves that rationally, everybody makes mistakes; it doesn’t take away the embarrassment of making that mistake. 

The fear that stops most people is that they may not be sure that someone else will forgive them. And because it takes a lot of guts and courage to admit to those mistakes, it’s an uncertainty that we often can’t predict the outcome. However, most people have found in the long run that others respect them more for admitting to their mistakes and they also respect themselves more. 

The number one thing to remember when admitting your mistakes is to acknowledge the effect on others. People rarely forgive or understand mistakes that others make if they are rationalizing their actions or making it about themselves. Examples might include, ‘I know this impacted you because it makes others view you/our relationship differently’ or ‘I can understand if you are upset but I’m hoping we can work through this’ or ‘I know how much these things meant to you and I hate that you must be hurting and I caused that hurt.’

One of the things about mistakes is the shame we feel inside. Everyone always has choices on how they handle this shame. You can choose to ignore the mistake and not own up to it. This puts you at a greater risk of repeating the mistake. Or you can own up to it and clear your conscience. Admitting the mistake is the first step at looking at what lead to the mistake and making changes for that mistake to never happen again.

Changing Expectations

After you have all of your information or even if you don’t have a lot, changing your expectations is the next step. You can do this in your head or you can write it out if you tend to be more visual. We already talked about recognizing what the expectations is. If the expectation was that they ‘should’ hold you when you are upset, say to yourself, ‘It would be nice if they would hold me, but I can get similar comfort by coming home and laying in bed by myself for 5-10 minutes. Then I can go and talk to him/her.’ Again, write it down if you need to. 

Reframing the expectation includes words such as ‘It would be nice if (this happened)...’ or ‘I wish they would (do this) but…’ The first part is taking the ‘should/should not’ out of the expectation/demand. The second part is phrasing how you are going to handle it by yourself. This is almost like the solution part of an ‘I’ statement but only in regards to yourself – not anyone else.

Just because you reframe your thought doesn’t mean that it just disappears though it does help to relax the expectation. It takes saying the new through over and over to yourself at times that the expectation comes up – and especially if you start feeling a reaction to your expectation. You may need to share with your partner how your progress is going. This way if you do get upset, they know you are working on it and might be able to provide you support and decrease their reaction to your feelings. Nobody is perfect and hopefully your partner doesn't just expect you to drop your thoughts, feelings, expectations, and reactions immediately. It's a process that takes time - just like their changes will take time as well.

Conflict Resolution

A lot of people get nervous with how to word their concerns. It’s important to word things in a way that respects the other person’s feelings and point of view. Why? Well, with what we know about communication, we know that the other person probably didn’t hear or see the situation the same way that we did. They have a different perspective that impacted them in some way. But you can start by sharing your feelings/concern and then reaching for theirs.

To do this, it’s best to start with ‘I’ statements. ‘I’ statements have a distinct form to them with elements included that are meant to decrease blame and judgment on another person and hence decrease the chances of them feeling defensive. 

An ‘I’ statement looks something like this:

I feel __________ when ____________ (happens) because _________________. I would appreciate if ______________ can happen next time. What do you think?

• I feel___________: In the first space is your emotion. Remember to make sure that it’s an emotion and not a thought
• when ___________: State the concern specifically without using the word ‘you’ as much as possible
• because ____________________: Explain your opinion or add additional information here in order for you to share all the information. Don’t assume the other person is going to know this explanation
• I would appreciate if _______________ can happen next time: Offer a solution! This may not be the solution that you go with but it shows that you aren’t just going to bring up the problem and complain. You want to fix it!
• What do you think? This is probably the most important part. Asking for someone else’s feedback shows that interest – shows that person that you care about their opinion and want it!

Examples:

I feel frustrated when I come home and am expected to make dinner because I can’t do everything. I would appreciate if you could make dinner 2 nights during the week. What do you think?

I feel annoyed when I open the basement door and there are dirty clothes because I think someone might trip. I would appreciate if you would walk your clothes downstairs. Do you think you can do that or do you have a different idea?

I get mad when I’m asked to turn off my TV show because that’s the only time I get to relax. I would appreciate if we can carve out that time in the schedule to be just for me. Is that something you can agree to?

Using ‘I’ Statements takes practice. Create some yourself and write them down before saying them to someone else.

Emotions

Before getting into our next post on conflict resolution, we need to travel back to Mind or emotions for a little bit.

It’s important to know the difference between thoughts and feelings as they are sometimes confused. For example, below are some sentences that we say that are not true emotions:

I feel that you are wrong.

I feel that this is not a good way to do that.

I feel like things aren't going well.

Those are thoughts and are usually indicated by the addition of the word ‘that’ or 'like.' Often, ‘I feel that…’ is just a replacement for ‘I think...’ Another ‘I feel’ sentence that is not an emotion is when one states that they feel cold or hot when describing temperature. Emotions have a wide range as shown in the picture/wheel below. Feel free to post additional emotions: