Ok, so here we go with the first in a series of indeterminate length called ‘Ask the Coach’ this is where you get to see my thrashing around like a cat being made to take a shower as I attempt to give credence to my title of life coach.

It was a tricky choice of which question to choose made easier by the fact that I only actually got one.

If next week I have to keep it anonymous you’ll have good reason to believe that’s because I had zero questions sent to me and I’m making stuff up. We’ll see.

The question comes from Pam who has the Quarter Life Defining Moments blog and she has kindly agreed to let me use her name and re-print her e-mail to me.

So while I was in LA my friend had me pull Angel Cards. Kind of like Tarot Cards, but the cards given are supposed to be messages from your Angels (check my Blog for more info on whole story). The card that stuck out to me was the Forgiveness card. I put that thought in the back of my mind and went on with my life.

During meditation two days ago, I got a clear message that I really need to work on learning to forgive others and myself. I was told I have to learn how to do this in order to become the person I am meant to become in this lifetime.

I have never noticed that forgiving has been a problem for me. Now that I look back on my life I have noticed that people’s actions do bother me and get the best of me.

For example, as silly as this sounds, I always tell my sister that she is the reason I don’t sing in public. (Side note, when we were younger she was annoyed with me singing around the house and said I have the worst voice ever and I should shut up…from that moment on, I have never sung in front of anyone.)

I look back at my past relationships and I let my ex’s get the best of me. I let their actions and words affect me and get me down. I still dwell on things they have done to me and I have been in a solid relationship for 4 years now. I blame myself for things as well.

I am trying to learn how to forgive people and myself (the more difficult subject)…more or less…move on from a situation.

Any thoughts?

Firstly, there’s an interesting choice of language by saying that you ‘need’ to work on forgiveness. Or what? Will your head fall off and your life collapse into a meaningless sham if you don’t? Of course, I get that you’d like to, but you really don’t need to, you can function with doing so. Check out this post for what I’m getting at here because the language you use is critically important in determining your subjective experience.

Failing to forgive either in the form of holding a grudge or feeling guilty about something seems to be a common issue for a lot of people, so to start with it’s important you don’t think that this is ‘just you’.

It sounds like yours maybe a guilt thing (other than your sister) rather than holding a grudge, so that’s the approach I’m going to take.

If in actual fact you’re spending all your spare time plotting some dastardly revenge and sticking pins into a doll, get back to me and we can slide you in again soon, very soon.

Guilt is such a waste of an emotion I’m not sure where to begin with it. I get a lot of Catholics come to me loaded down with guilt (I can say this because it’s true and also I was married in a Catholic Church as my wife is RC) and a really high reluctance to let it go.

I have no idea whether you had the kind of upbringing in which you were led to believe this was a good thing or not, and I’m not even sure it matters.

Imagine you are in line at the supermarket in the 10 items or less line on a day when you’re in a bit of a hurry. As all right-minded human beings do, you start to count the items in the basket of the guy in front of you.

You’re outraged to notice the bastard has 13 things and by his jaunty attitude he obviously doesn’t care either.

In a fit of rage you attack him with his own cucumber beating him soundly round the head and then inserting it where the sun doesn’t shine when he slumps to the floor in a pool of his own orange juice

Unfortunately, your outburst renders you with a 6-month jail term. “It’s a fair cop, but society is to blame” you mutter as you’re led away to the cells. Six months later you’re set to go. You would have been out after 4 months but an altercation with a mango wiped out your good behavior.

At this stage I feel I ought to apologize for the outrageous and gratuitous use of the picture for this section, but I’m not going to bother because it made me laugh. I can almost see my RSS subscriber count going down as I type.

As you leave the prison a swarm of cop cars descend on you and arrest you. “Bugger’ you think they must know about that sharpened banana in my pocket. Alas no, it is more serious than that; they arrest you for assault with a deadly weapon.

When you get to trial you realize that they are trying you for the original crime again.

You are quite naturally outraged and start to protest, but to no avail. Once more you’re banged up with Butch Belinda and her slippery soap.

Again you serve your time and start to leave and once more cops descend on you like your one of the Hole in the Wall Gang.

This goes on all you life and quite frankly when you get into your 80’s you’re well pissed off.

Of course that is a ridiculous scenario. No modern society would allow people to be treated that way, yet that is exactly what you’re doing to yourself.

Let me say that no human being EVER self sabotages. It may look like they do, but even people that commit suicide are doing it for a higher reason (usually to find peace). If they believed they could get what they wanted any other way, they’d take it.

The key to that is the ‘if’ word. We all do the best we can with the knowledge we have to hand at than moment in time.

If you have made mistakes (like all of us do on a daily basis) then it’s because you didn’t have enough information or you had the wrong information.

You can forgive yourself and you do so on a regular basis. Have you ever taken a wrong turn, tripped up or put the milk in the cupboard instead of the fridge?

Do you still reprimand yourself for any of those? Are you still beating yourself up for falling over so many times when you were trying to walk as a baby?

Of course not, that would be ridiculous and you know all that is part of being human. Just like any other errors you’ve made.

Your sister isn’t to blame for you not singing. I agree, it does sound like she was the trigger event, but if you can apply the above lesson you can understand that she doesn’t deserve blame any more than you do.

Doe she know how you feel now?

My guess would be that she would be appalled if she does. It was a passing comment and one I feel sure she would never have made if she known the long term repercussions and had the maturity to apply them.

She was just short on information. As were you, because you didn’t realize that what she said wasn’t true, it was just her lashing out and wanting some peace and quiet.

The staring point is to accept that you really don’t need to hold onto the past, because guess what? It’s gone. You can learn from it and use it to drive you forward to be the person you want to be, but you can’t influence it.

If you meditate I’d recommend you try out the Metta Bhavana, Loving Kindness meditation. This is doubly useful for giving yourself some deserved love and also the people from your past that you think have wronged you and you may have wronged.

If anybody else here knows a good meditation please feel free to chime in. This is my personal favorite (Amazon click-through alert! I will earn 46 cents if anybody buys this, so beware if you don’t want to be funding my up and coming caffeine binge).

I’d also recommend you write to the people involved and say you forgive them (this includes yourself).

You don’t even need to mail the letters, just write them in a stream of consciousness.

You’re doing this, as much for yourself as for them and if you can follow through you’ll feel better for doing so.

I hope that helps and if any readers have any advice of their own please feel free to share in the comments.