Remember the supervisor who refused to move her performance appraisal score from 3.9 to 4.0 and so cost you a sizable bonus? How about that "boss from hell" who yelled you out in front of the entire department and made you feel smaller than the bug scurrying along the floor? And then there's that underling you supervised who went behind your back directly to your boss's boss to report you. I could go on about the stories I have heard (and experienced) but you can make your own long list of personal infractions that still rankle. Throughout the numerous years, days, minutes of your work life, you have interacted with numerous people who may have done you wrong (or so you continue to believe). The experiences happened years ago, yet they still hurt.
As you look forward to 2016, think about what you want to leave behind in 2015. It's one thing to set goals for yourself, your team and your organization. But what are the things that you must release in order to allow these goals to actualize? The pain of these experiences is basically negative energy that is holding you back from being an even more effective leader. It's difficult to lead if you are seeing others through the filter of your past negative experiences. But how do you release them? No doubt you have tried, and thought you had, yet they keep surfacing. Perhaps it's time to forgive.
I used to think that forgiveness was about letting others off the hook. I thought it meant telling someone that I forgave him or her. I thought it was something I proffered magnanimously to others, ensconced in my rightness. I thought it was something that I doled out to the deserving like tablespoons of water to someone dying of thirst. They would be so grateful for my benevolence, and I would feel so, well, so righteous.
All this exploded when I came across the following quote and realized that forgiveness is all about me, and no one else:
"Forgiveness is a selfish act that frees you from being controlled by the past."
This was a life-changer. Since then, I have dedicated time and effort to forgiveness in copious and unimpeded amounts. Retreats, workshops, books, journaling, coaching, counseling, and therapy, Archbishop Tutu's Forgiveness Challenge -- I have done them and done them again. Some things I have forgiven seventy times seven, as Jesus advised the Apostle Peter who had asked how many times he should forgive. Yet things kept coming up. It seemed like forgiveness was the proverbial onion -- you peel the layers, and peel and peel and peel some more. Yet still there were blockages in my life and lack of forgiveness kept resurfacing. I was peeling onions by the bushel, and it was very uncomfortable.
As I journaled one Saturday morning a few months ago, this thought came to me: "Whenever I have any negative thought, no matter how minute, it means there is something to forgive, something to release." I have numerous negative thoughts each day, so I certainly have many opportunities to forgive. Rather than tackling forgiveness as a massive, one-time event, I decided to add daily forgiveness to my morning gratitude journaling.
Here's what I now do each morning:
- I scribe in my journal: "Right here and right now I forgive."
- And then I sit in silence and observe what comes up. Typically, a name or an experience will surface -- it may be someone close to me, a stranger who barged ahead of me in the subway the day before, a client, or a potential client who turned down my proposal.
- Then I write. I acknowledge the negative thoughts, writing extensively until I can find no more negatives. Once finished, I continue: "I now forgive and release."
- If no one comes up, then I write: "I forgive anyone for whom I hold a negative thought." This is my forgiveness insurance -- just in case there's anything at all that is lurking in my subconscious.
- But there's always another person to be forgiven: myself. Somehow it always comes around to this: "I forgive myself." Yes, the seventy times seven and more applies to me. At the least, I forgive myself for holding the negative thought. Many times there's another bout of venting and release, until I feel empty and clear.
Upon completion I feel light -- I am free from the control of the past -- at least until the next negative thought.
I know I have many more days to get to 490 (remember: seventy times seven). And even when I do, I suspect that I will need to continue. But hopefully, I will be shedding less and less as time passes, until I am fully and completely free from the control of any past moment, experience or person.
Today, start the process of forgiving the people in your work life for whom you hold any negative thought, no matter how minor or irrational that thought may seem. Do this every day until one day you awaken and you get to this point like my friend Maxine shared: "I know that I have forgiven someone when I think about them and I can smile from my heart about them. It truly is a process."
And always remember that the NUMBER ONE person to forgive is yourself -- the times when you were the "boss from hell", when you gave a low performance rating, when you lost your temper and yelled out someone, and so on. Carry those experiences with you no more. Leave them in 2015. Enter 2016 light and free, ready to create relationships with others unfettered by the baggage of your past.