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Top Ten Steps to Obtaining Forgiveness

By Diana Gardner Robinson Leave a Comment

Because forgiveness is generally regarded as beneficial for both parties, there is often an implication that a perpetrator *should* be forgiven, that anyone who is an okay person should offer forgiveness if it is sought. Certainly, to be able to forgive is beneficial to the forgiver. However, within most religions there is a clear requirement for repentance on the part of the perpetrator as a precursor to forgiveness. Repentance does NOT just mean saying you are sorry. (And, unfortunately the *sorry* is often more about being caught than about regretting the original act.) Repentance also means communicating sincere regret and taking steps to be sure that you never repeat the action. If you feel you need forgiveness from another person, consider the following steps:

1. Take responsibility for the choices that led you to cause the pain (or harm).
Accept that, regardless of your reasons for doing whatever you did, it was your actions or words that caused pain for someone else. No excuses.

2. Search your heart to be sure that it is the pain or harm caused to the other person that you regret, not just your experience of your own consequences for causing it.

3. Understand that, however much you want to explain, and however much the other person wants to know why, once they know, the hurt will not change.
Their feelings towards you may change, but don’t count on it. The hurt will still be the hurt. *Why* is very rarely a useful question, and explanations often sound painfully like self-serving rationalizations.

4. Decide what you need to do, how you need to change, to ensure that you do not ever again make that kind of choice, and so cause others more pain.
Make those changes in yourself. Until you have learned the lesson and sincerely attempted to make the changes it is unreasonable to expect that the human heart will truly be able to forgive you, and it is questionable as to whether it should.

5. Plan how you will communicate with the person(s) you have hurt.
Do you need to prepare them with a letter or a third-party communication? You need to let them know that they need no longer fear hurt from you. You also need to be absolutely sure that this is true. Do not just turn up on someone’s doorstep or confront them unexpectedly.

6. Be clear in your mind that, IF an apology is best for the person, you will make it without excuses and rationalizations.

7. Decide what could or should be done to make amends to the person(s) that you hurt.
This will be in addition to the apology, if one should be made.

8. Examine carefully whether making amends will indeed be helpful to the other person.
We are not considering your comfort here. To make amends might make you feel better but at the same time may re-open yet again the other person’s old wounds. You would do well to consult with another person, someone of wisdom, on this.

9. Make the apology, offer the amends, with no strings attached.
Forgiving you is NOT the same thing as returning to old situations and/or making it possible for you to repeat the behavior. Do not count on a return to a previous relationship as a part of the forgiveness.

10. If the individual wants no part of your apology or your making of amends, be prepared to accept this too.
If that hurts, do not turn the pain into anger against them. They may need more time to heal. Know then that you have done the best you can do, and plan on how you can use the process you have gone through for your own growth and the lessening of pain among other people.

Pigeon Holes & Stereotypes: They Hurt… Everyone!

By Diana Gardner Robinson Leave a Comment

Have you ever felt yourself pigeon-holed by someone else?

“Oh, you’re an introvert, you wouldn’t like that.” Or “That’s not the kind of thing you’d want to do.”

Have you ever worked really, really hard to change an aspect of yourself, and then found yourself at a family reunion, or a meeting with someone who has known you from way back when, where their memory of you as you used to be is so strong that it overwhelms any awareness of what you have worked long and hard to become?

“You forget that I remember the real you.”

“You’ve always been that way, might as well accept it.”

Years of self-discipline and determination to change are ignored because of a memory from years ago.

Have you found yourself pigeon-holing others, just because? Pigeon-holing, by the way, is often, though not always, a more politically correct work-around-term to avoid admitting that what is really happening is stereotyping. As a person from England living in the US I find that folks often pigeon-hole (or stereotype) me according to what their perception of an English woman might be, even though I’ve lived in the US for more than half my life.

I know many people who feel that being pigeon-holed by others keeps them stuck, even though they have worked hard, often for years, to change whatever might have led to that perception. Others of course cannot change, nor would they want to, the basis for their being pigeon-holed. We cannot change our race, our age, our height, yet all can lead to pigeon-holing.

“He is tall, so he must have been on the basketball team in high school, must be a good athlete.”

“She is young, so she must not know much.”

“She is old, so she must not know much.”

And so on. When we pigeon-hole people we put them, in our thinking, into a box. Think of the derivation of the word. A pigeon-hole was once a small recess in which pigeons might nest. But then (and this is where our current meaning comes from), it came to mean one of those small slots in a desk into which people sorted paper or envelopes. This paper belongs here, that one there, and so on. Each piece of paper belongs in one specific slot and nowhere else. No matter that one paper might have references to the topic of half a dozen different slots – it belongs in one place only.

Diana is a coach so she belongs in the coach slot. Or she taught addiction counseling so she works with addiction. No matter that I am also a college instructor, a Toastmaster, a writer, a mother, an “off the boat” immigrant, or that I volunteer in support groups for the formerly incarcerated…. you get the drift.

We are all multi-dimensional, and pigeon-holing denies us that, just as it denies us the right to grow and change.

We are Hard-Wired

It is true that we are hard-wired to use information that we have learned in the past, and that hard-wiring does encourage stereotyping. Sadly, though, some stereotypes are not only based on what we have learned, either from parents, from personal experience, or from societal attitudes. They are also based on generalizations. Suzy was once bitten by a dog. Instead of fearing that dog, or perhaps dogs that look like the one that bit her, she is terrified of all dogs. She has generalized from one dog to all dogs. We may do the same in regard to people.

That may be based on personal experience, but other forms of generalization have no basis other than a general ambience in the society in which we grew up. Sexism, racism, age-ism (don’t get me started on any of those three), ability-ism are huge, and extremely harmful generalizations. Not only do they hurt those on the receiving end, but the person making generalizations may be harmed as well. The best candidate for the position that you urgently need to fill may be… fill in with any generalization as to what pigeon-hole does NOT fit your picture of the perfect candidate.

Setting the Right Tone

On that note, one of the most impressive television commercials I have seen in years involved a young African-American woman candidate for a job. She has just been interviewed by a white businessman in a most conservative business background. As I remember it, this is approximately how it ends…

“Well,” he says, “you are not what I have been looking for.” Long pause and her face falls, “But,” he adds with a smile, “you are exactly what we need.”

In acknowledging the stereotype (“not what I have been looking for”) he also tosses it aside, apparently seeing qualities in her that over-ride the superficial “job description” requirements and, instead fit the real needs of his organization.

If only there were more employers like that.

An “un-stereotyping” suggestion

Sometime back a log-time correspondent, Cathy, made a suggestion about un-pigeon-holing. She was referring to an incident where one of her friends (A), in distress over a current situation, had tried to talk with friend B, but had heard back only the feedback about what friend B had pigeon-holed her as having been early on in their twenty-year friendship. Having turned to a friend for support, as we are all told to do in times of stress, she felt totally unheard. Instead of being comforted, she felt worse than before. Fortunately, she turned to Cathy.

Cathy, thoughtful as ever, made a suggestion that I thought should be shared far beyond the confines of that email list, and with her permission I share it with you. She wrote:

“They have known each other for 20 years. That seems like such a long time to be kept in the pigeon hole of someone else’s memory. So, wanting to comfort my friend, I said,

”Well, I decree that tomorrow is ‘Pigeon to butterfly’ day. I decree that every third 18th of the month is Pigeon to Butterfly day. It is the day given us to let go all the ‘definitions’ we have built of people in our lives. We have kept them for so long that we have forgotten the whys and remember only the hole we keep another human being in, in our own minds.”

‘So, if my math is correct, that means that four times a year, if we think of it, we can revise our list of names of people in our mental pigeon hole gallery, and set them free of our preconceptions.

‘So, I guess my goal is to empty my gallery.’

“The butterfly has long been a symbol of transformation. Just as the caterpillar goes through a metamorphosis and eventually emerges from its chrysalis, so we often change our selves and become something very different from what or who we were “back in the day.” We know who we have become, and want to be seen as that. We would not dream of categorizing a butterfly, light and beautiful, as a caterpillar just because that is what it used to be. Why, then, do we turn a blind eye to the progress that the people around us make as they struggle to change and grow?”

Cathy designated the 18th of every third month as Pigeon to Butterfly day – a day when we can resolutely discard the remnants of the pigeon-holes into which we used to try to squeeze those around us. On that day we and they can take on – and henceforth be seen as owning – the attributes of the brilliant and beautiful butterfly.

My only suggestion is that, although we might focus on it on those special “Pigeon to Butterfly days,” we might even endeavor to avoid pigeon-holing our friends and colleagues more frequently than just four time a year. Each of them has butterfly potential. Let us focus on that, and on the progress that they and we are making toward it. Let us do that each and every day!

Be well, be happy, look ahead but never forget to find joy in today,

DianaR

PLEASE! Any re-use of this material should include the words

“Copyright Diana Robinson 2018.”

Reduce Drug Overdose Deaths with this Conversation

By Diana Gardner Robinson 1 Comment

Not long ago a friend lost a family member to a drug overdose. The tragedy, which happens way too often these days, reminded me of something that I wrote a while back. I decided to create it at the length called for on the Op-Ed section of my local newspaper, and to submit it. My title was “A conversation that could reduce the number of opioid overdose deaths…” which of course was far too long. They shortened it to “Opioid conversation can prevent deaths.”

Some people familiar with the issue have suggested that I should publish it as a blog. As I’m not too sure of where the copyright lies, I am instead posting a link to the piece. It concerns a conversation that is very rarely to be heard in addiction treatment facilities (and I explain why). I must add that another reason to the reason mentioned in the piece is that most people assume that knowledge about drug tolerance and its place in the world of overdoses is common sense. The truth is, though, that in the horror of drug craving, common sense rarely gets a chance to speak.

If you know anyone involved in drug use, and most importantly if you know anyone in recovery, please read this article that I wrote for the Rochester Democrat & Chronicle. Just click on the link below.

(Sorry about the ads, I have no control over the newspaper website.)

Opioid conversation can prevent deaths

Coincidence? Or not?

By Diana Gardner Robinson Leave a Comment

How do you feel about coincidences?

Some people ignore them. Some see them as relating to some mysterious or divine force. Others seek a logical explanation. Some seek logical explanations so eagerly that they invent them, sometimes fairly wildly.

One of the satisfying things about many television programs, detective stories, and the like is that by the end of them, all the things that had seemed to be random and unrelated actually come together. They make sense, and we do like things that make sense, don’t we? Randomness is less welcome.It leaves us feeling uncertain of what may come next, or of what we should do. There are no signposts in randomness.

We use the label “coincidence” when something meaningful occurs and yet appears to be random. It has no apparent reason for happening. (Jung labelled meaningful coincidences “synchronicity,” which is defined as “the simultaneous occurrence of events that appear significantly related but have no discernible causal connection.”)

A router with vertical lights & vertical lights on the wall above. Coincidence or not? — Connection or Coincidence?

Coincidence seems to be first cousin to randomness, and so when we encounter it we often try to find ways to explain it. One of the most common explanations is “It’s a small world,” words frequently spoken when, far from home, we encounter someone from our hometown or find that we have something else in common that we would not have expected. Those “small world” coincidences occur so frequently in my life that I even bought the domain name “ItReallyIsASmallWorld.com,” although I’ve not yet done anything with it.

Randomness is sufficiently scary that, when apparent coincidences occur, we tend to look for reasons. We expect there to be a pattern, a cause, and our brains are wired to look for them. Suppose, for example, that you were to do one of those memory word tests. Let us say that many words were presented in apparently random order and reordered and repeated several times. Suppose, too, that they include, for example, the words eggs, bacon, saucer, tree, timer, and lion, plus quite a few others.

Then, after many repetitions, you might be asked how many times you heard “eggs” immediately followed by “bacon,” and then how many times you heard “timer” followed by “lion.” Almost certainly you would have noticed the eggs/bacon combination, because it is familiar and it makes sense. Unless you are a vegetarian/vegan, the word “eggs” is frequently followed by “bacon.” On the other hand, unless you were very alert it is much less likely that you would have noticed the timer/lion combination because they don’t intuitively go together as a familiar pattern.

(Interestingly, if it was “lion” that came first, followed by “timer” you might have noticed it, and wryly wondered if the word “timer” was meant to be “tamer,” because there is logic to “lion tamer.” From then on, you would notice the combination. However, with “timer” coming first, your report of the number of times you heard the timer/lion combinations is likely to be that they did not occur nearly as often as eggs/bacon – even if, in fact, the two pairs appeared together an equal number of times.

Why do I care? Because we waste a lot of time looking for patterns that may or may not exist. Sometimes, however, coincidences just happen. Sometimes they can be amazingly fortuitous, and then the religious among us may throw out a “Thank you,” to whatever deity they follow. Indeed, perhaps there really is a are causation that we cannot see. There is saying, “Coincidence happens when God wants to remain anonymous.” Sometimes,on the other hand, we do need to dig deeply to discover connections that may have been hidden and it may turn out to be fortunate that someone was alert enough to notice a pattern that needs to have attention paid to it. When to search and when accept “not knowing” is one of the enigmas of our lives.

The fact is that at times coincidence really is exactly that. For example, what did you think about the photo above? Did you struggle to figure out how the router is throwing its line of lights up onto the wall? How does that work? Sorry, it is not doing that. There is no causation between the two sets of lights, similar though they appear. It is a straightforward coincidence… of sorts. I have Venetian blinds over the window in my office. To accommodate the string that hold the slats together and controls them, each slat has a hole, and the holes are exactly in line, vertically. The sun’s shadow often throws a vertical line onto the wall, and one day I noticed they were precisely lined up above the router. Naturally, I grabbed my camera. The lights on the router and the pattern on the wall had no causal connection with each other. None at all.

Sometimes, seeking a connection between two apparently separate events makes sense. An earthquake may cause a tsunami many thousands of miles away, and there is a causal connection, although until modern times this may not have been recognized. Sometimes it is fun, and occasionally rewarding, to try to discover why coincidences happen. Often, though, it may be wiser to accept uncertainty than to spend time and energy seeking it for things that do not directly affect us. We have more important work to do…. Don’t we?

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