By Ken Weatherbee, Candeo Student
The people closest to us are often the ones that hurt us the most, yet because of our affinity toward them we forgive. They didn’t necessarily mean to hurt us, nonetheless, we were hurt. It makes sense—if we didn’t have a fondness for them we wouldn’t care as much. The hurt is proportionally related to the depth of our relationship. The deeper our feelings for the person, the more experiences we have shared, the more intimate the relationship, the deeper the pain incurred from the offense. Still, we often forgive them. The closest relationship I have is with my wife of 18 years. We have shared the most intimate of times emotionally, spiritually and physically as we have strived toward complete oneness. However, I never hurt more than when my wife offends me. I take it more personally since, according to my inner reasoning, she should have known better. Usually, my hurt is dealt with as we discuss the offense and my possible misinterpretations, and forgiveness is granted.
There are many examples of offense and forgiveness with siblings, parents, close friendships, etc. Yet, there is still one relationship that runs deeper than any of the aforementioned—the relationship you have with yourself. No one knows you more truly than yourself. The most intimate details of your life, including your thoughts, motives, and emotions are constantly being communicated to your inner life. Personally, no one knows every detail of your life, except you. Internally, we have a created desire toward self-preservation, an innate desire to not only survive, but to enhance our lives. Individually we strive toward taking care of ourselves and invest a lifetime of energy and resources into improving our lives. We invest time into personal hygiene and nourish ourselves. In many areas of our lives, we make positive efforts toward taking care of ourselves.
Therefore, it stands to reason with such an intimate relationship with ourselves, when disappointment arrives we feel the pain deeply, more deeply than with any other relationship. Personally, no one has ever come close to causing me the depth of pain that I have caused myself. I often reason within myself and wonder, “I know myself better than anyone else so why would I disappoint myself, especially to the degree of causing deep wounds? Further, I know my dreams and desires so shouldn’t my actions align themselves to fulfill my inner longings?” Yet, for various reasons, I disappoint myself and engage in actions that are not only detrimental to my plans, but may even prevent my dreams from coming to pass.
Still, like my closest relationships, with such an investment of intimacy into me, and a love for me, it would reason that I would forgive my transgressions and move on. Yet, many times I have mentally tortured and brutalized my inner-self due to a transgression. Plus, these are not perceived transgressions as in the times I am offended by my spouse; rather, they are real and deeply wound my soul. Forgiving self can be one of the hardest in all the relationship circles we encounter. Meanwhile, others that we may have hurt have forgiven us, but we often continue holding a grudge and maintaining a safe distance from the transgressor—ourselves!
Although we are theoretically forced to be in a relationship with ourselves, the practice of non-forgiveness causes us to separate our visible-self from our inner-self. When we deny ourselves the much needed forgiveness, there is this “external man” that begins to disconnect from our internal, emotional man. Our reasoning, however subconscious, tells us that this inner man, the emotional man, has once again thwarted our plans, destroyed our dreams, and thus cannot be trusted. The longer and more frequently we engage in the practice of not forgiving ourselves, the deeper the chasm grows between our outer man and our inner man.
Yes, we are one and the same, but we lose an awareness of our feelings and emotional ties to our actions—we become numb and hardened against ourselves. Part of the addict’s recovery requires a growth of self-awareness. I believe in order to achieve a fuller awareness of self one must begin to grant forgiveness. Forgiveness of self is essential to remaining fully aware of your emotional status and actually being able to trust your feelings again—to trust yourself again. The brain is a powerful machine, yet it can often be deceived to such an extreme that it leads us astray. As we separate ourselves into two entities—the outward and inward man—we are enabling the brain to function as if we are two people. The better we become at forgiving ourselves and allowing our brain to know we are a team working together, the greater awareness we will gain in our journey to freedom. And as we show ourselves kindness, compassion, patience and forgiveness, we find that our recovery progress is greatly accelerated. Being unified and at harmony within ourselves unleashes great power!
—————–
Candeo is Devoted to Helping Pornography Addicts Start Down the Path of Healing
Candeo is an online organization whose mission is to educate and train individuals about the realistic, scientifically proven nature of Pornography Addiction.
It is estimated that in the U.S. alone, there are more than 60 million individuals, including men, women and children, caught up in Internet Pornography Addiction at some level. Pornography use is having a dramatic impact on their individual lives, families and society as a whole.
Candeo’s groundbreaking training system is an online Pornography Addiction Psycho-Education & Training System. This website contains many resources to help you learn more about this exciting new approach to helping those who are Addicted to Pornography.
To learn more and sign up for a FREE sample mini-course click HERE.
Romeo
September 3, 2009 • 5:12 am
3 words u r genius I love this site it left nothing
GOD BLESS YOU ALL
from Egypt
Rick Forcum
September 3, 2009 • 6:43 am
Rick…I have subscribed to a service that sends out periodic little letters and blurbs regarding healing from the addicton..one of the many that we share…they are selling a “recovery program” which I have not purchased. In any case, they put out this little article on self forgiveness and I immediately thought of you. I was a little tentative about forwarding this email to you, lest you start getting promotional literature from them, but I thought it might beneficial to get on their mailing list….let me know what you think…Regards, Scott
jfriley
September 3, 2009 • 9:13 am
Yeah, but what in the world does self-forgiveness look like? I’m at a complete loss to understand how to even start doing this. I hate myself on every level but desperately want to change this.
Roy
September 3, 2009 • 9:52 am
Don’t give up man!
I am just 3 months, nearly clean, and stil i cannot spend a month without those stupid porn.
I know in what kind of state you are, those stupid emotions, bad experiances etc.
Go out side, keep your self actief with work, sports ore other right activities, Don’t get suprise because the results might be less, depending on your personality.
Try to realize what al the goods you can do 2 your closest loving persons ore 2 your enviremont.
Greetings,
Roy,
Netherlands
(sometimes we have 2 suffer in our lives)
Mark Kastleman
September 3, 2009 • 10:34 am
jfriley:
I know what it’s like to “hate yourself on every level”! When you’re caught up in addiction and you keep telling yourself “this is the last time I will every do this stuff” and then you just keep going back to it again and again—this completely trashes your self-esteem and sense of worth. The key is to realize that YOU are NOT your addiction. You are an incredibly valuable human being of immense worth that has nothing to do with your addiction or any other behaviors. Does this mean you shouldn’t seek to change? Of course not. BUT, you should not base your inner worth on whether or not you change–they are separate issues.
So, how do you go through the process of “self-forgiveness?” First, you separate your worth from your addiction as I have mentioned. Second, you must realize that there is a scientific explanation for your addiction–a logical “brain science.” You are NOT a freak, loser or lost cause. You have simply built an addiction with repetition over time. You can use a very similar process over time to break free. Third, commit to yourself that you are going to become YOUR OWN BEST FRIEND–you are going to be completely loyal to yourself and love yourself unconditionally—and you are going to start down the path of recovery and patiently stay with it for as long as it takes.
You can do it. You just need to believe in yourself, and then start doing the simple, practical daily activities and practices that will change your addict brain and begin building the new healthy circuitry and habits you need to succeed. This is what the Candeo program is all about–the “daily doing” required to break free.
Neal
September 3, 2009 • 12:17 pm
I think there’s another issue that goes along with the idea of self-forgiveness and that’s giving yourself permission to NOT be perfect. Having spoken to a lot of porn addicts and read a lot of materials on the subject, I think there are a lot of us who have a deeply embedded need to be perfect – or at least think we are. If we start on a project we often abandon it when we suspect the end result might not be “perfect”.
For me this comes out of childhood pressure to always be perfect – or appear perfect – and the impression that everything I did was a competition. My parents still act that way.
I wonder if this could be a topic for a future podcast or article on Candeo. I’d really love to hear what others say on the subject and to have to suggestion about how to deal with this pressure.
Peace.
Roy
September 3, 2009 • 12:35 pm
WOW Thank for the explenations, its better than mine,
even if we did the stupid things, we can get a lot of knowledge about ourselves.
Be a light 2 your selve man.
peace
Zohaib
September 3, 2009 • 1:57 pm
Neal I am having this same issue which you are dealing with, the idea of bieng perfect or act as a perfect person.
I usually strive to look unique and unconventional, think alot to say something astonishing in every little talk etc, but sometimes doing so make me a socially awkward and sensitive person who gets offended by every little thing. I know its my character fault, and when I think of my failures I simply rationlise it with the stress and ultimately swich to porn, to please my self with short term addicitve stress relieving technique and guess what, when I am all empty , the guilt kills me.
I tried to read quran daily , prayed 3 of five times prayer, did some research on self improvement for few months, and honestly it worked but times later, I turned to porn again.
Yes there are ups downs in life and success is on the far side of failure,
that is how i am rationalising my self, its a saying, constant dripping of water hollows out a stone, one day i’ll break free, clean and pure
tke cre all
Jeff
September 4, 2009 • 9:21 pm
Articles like this always cause me to tear up. They must be hitting too close to home!
When I read “And as we show ourselves kindness, compassion, patience and forgiveness, we find that our recovery progress is greatly accelerated. Being unified and at harmony within ourselves unleashes great power!
Kindness, compassion, patience, forgiveness, unified and harmony are words that are almost foreign to me. But all these words bring a feeling of peace to me, so they must be real. You mean instead of fighting between my two selfs, I could actually love and be one with myself? I will have to contemplate this. It sounds wonderful.
Chrissy
October 7, 2009 • 6:38 pm
Self forgiveness is definately important to do. This is definately the key to your success.
Also, be sure to forgive others for the wrong they have done. This can weigh heavy on your shoulders. Push off the negative energy and soak in the positive.
I had a lot of anger towards everyone and didn’t understand until I learned to forgive my self.
I read a book caled Replacement Child, by Judy Mandel.The book uncovers the complex relationship between fathers and daughters, and deals a lot in the sense of healing, recovery, and forgiveness.
datei retten
October 17, 2011 • 11:43 pm
I?m not sure where you are getting your info, but great topic. I must spend a while learning much more or understanding more. Thanks for fantastic info I was in search of this information for my mission.