self-forgiveness

a reflection on learning to release the burdens of past failures, guilt, and regret

Recently, my writing has focused on the current thoughts, ideas, and dilemmas floating around in this strange head of mine. I’ve used this blog and this platform mostly as a sounding board to get out of my own head a little bit; to give some of the items taking up mental real estate a little bit more space to breathe and marinate. I’ve really enjoyed this; it’s been refreshing.

One thing I haven’t done, though, is reflect on my own journey of getting to this point and truly open up about some of the experiences that have led me to where I’m at right now. I don’t think my journey is special or that it merits recognition in any way, but I do think that, absent a connection to my experiences, the words that I write will always feel academic and empty. It’s a lot easier to spitball my thoughts than it is to open my heart, but I think that’s where I’ll find a lot more meaning and growth. So that’s what I’m going to try to do here.

I've heard from a few different places that growth, insight, and wisdom don't occur linearly; they come in waves. We typically experience long plateaus (or regressions) punctuated by periods of rapid development usually marked by the internalization of some piece of insight. Usually this happens in tandem with events that either evoke tremendous pain (i.e. tragic losses), or events that evoke moments of wonder and transcendence. Both have the effect of momentarily separating you from the monotony of day to day existence and the identity that we cling to. The space that emerges typically causes you to re-evaluate everything and ponder the most fundamental questions of life, questions we usually spend most of our time attempting to evade or silence.

In my case, it definitely the former, although there wasn't a single, piercing loss that caused me to start waking up; it was more so death by a thousand cuts. Once I finally opened myself to the pain I was experiencing, I was able to more clearly see the impact and the weight of the past failures, guilts, and regrets that I let define me for much of my life. This is the story of how I started to move forward from them.

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It’s hard to remember what feelings I was actually experiencing at the start of my junior year of college back in September 2019.

Perhaps a little excitement for another year of college with a little better sense of what it was all about? Definitely a fair amount of pressure to actually start pulling my life together.

What I most remember is I was constantly alternating between feeling nothing and feeling extremely strong feelings that I didn’t know how to handle. There was nothing in between.

My default mode was inaction. Play FIFA, scroll through my phone, sleep, whatever. Anything to keep my mind occupied until something demanded me to react. And there were plenty of things keeping me reacting; between trying to complete 2 bachelors degrees at once, captaining a dance team, and being involved in a few different extracurricular organizations, there was always something demanding my attention. Outside of the adrenaline burst that came from nearing a missed deadline, there was little else motivating me to act.

I also found myself reacting extremely emotionally to everything that was happening around me. It was hard for me to keep issues in perspective; everything felt like it was excruciatingly important and demanded a visceral reaction. I didn’t know why this was happening. Maybe I thought that feeling rage and anger and righteousness would make me feel bigger, but I just felt exhausted from constantly fighting all the battles that I thought I had to fight.

There was one night I was monitoring the results of a vote for lead auditions for my dance team. I really wanted to be lead; I was captain for two years and had worked tirelessly to build my dance team, and I was desperate for some glory and recognition. I craved the spotlight; I thought it was owed to me. When it became clear that I wasn’t going to be selected, I couldn’t comprehend it. I couldn’t understand why I wasn’t enough or why I wasn’t wanted.

I had a much more severe emotional reaction to this than I expected. For a few minutes, my hands started shaking and I couldn’t really breathe properly. Tears were rolling down my eyes and I was just sitting there frozen, unable to move, more shocked at my own reaction than I was at the voting results. I didn’t know what was happening.

I would’ve been able to move past the incident if it was isolated, except it happened 2 more times over the next week at completely innocuous times without any trigger. I was finally able to accept that I was dealing with recurrent panic attacks. My first reaction wasn’t one of sadness, shock, or fear; it was one of relief. I finally had something I could point at to explain why I wasn’t living the life that I wanted to live or achieving what I dreamt of achieving. I was ready to tap into my own inadequacy to surmount this; to tell the world that the problem doesn’t lie with me, but with an unfair hand that’s been dealt to me; to tell the world to reduce its expectations of me because something inside me is broken.

I couldn’t stay in that mental state for long. I couldn’t keep looking at myself as someone who was broken; I was tired of seeing myself like that. In this way, the panic attacks eventually served as a wake up call and shifted my focus from responding to the chaos around me to figuring out what was happening inside of me. I didn’t really know what to do, so I booked an appointment with the university mental health clinic.

I had no idea what to expect. I was really nervous walking into the clinic. It was really tough to walk in. I had a hard time accepting that I had gone from being surrounded by dreamers and high achievers in the past to being surrounded by people who were struggling with themselves. I had an even harder time accepting that I was one of those people.

The appointment was a simple diagnostic. I was seated in a room, and a few minutes later, one of their staff members walked in holding a clipboard, ready to take notes on whatever I had to say. I started getting even more nervous because I had no idea how I was going to respond to anything he was going to ask; I had no clue how to articulate how I was feeling or what thoughts were going through my mind.

I don’t even remember what I was asked. All I remember is that a couple minutes into the conversation, words, memories, and experiences that I hadn’t been consciously aware of just started pouring out of me.

I talked about how much I missed my friend Dhilan who had taken his own life just a few months ago and the guilt I felt for never knowing he was battling something. I suspected foul play for many days before accepting that somehow my constantly-smiling, happy-go-lucky friend did this to himself.

I talked about how much sorrow and guilt I felt for never having built a deeper relationship with my grandfather. I had an opportunity to visit him in India the past winter, but I chose to enjoy winter break and rest at home. A few months later, his health rapidly deteriorated and he passed away.

I talked about how no matter how much I tried to be the best person possible to the people I cared about, I was somehow only succeeding in pushing everyone away. I couldn’t understand what was wrong with me or why I was unable to build any kind of deep, long-term friendship that I so desperately craved.

I talked about how much confusion I felt about not getting the career advancement opportunities or professional recognition that my peers were getting, and how much it bothered me to see others get celebrated.

I talked about how I felt a deep sense of failure and rejection in many parts of my life. Among other things, I still wasn’t over how I was rejected from every single college that I applied to besides one. I had worked so hard my whole life; I wasn’t able to comprehend why no one wanted me.

The staff member was extremely kind and was an amazing listener throughout; his gentleness throughout the experience made it easy to open up. Well, as easy as it could be. I don’t really remember anything he said.

All I remember is that the whole experience felt like an out of body experience. I had always been a strong and assertive speaker, but in the session, my voice was small and shaky. I had always maintained strong body language, but in the session, my shoulders were slumped and my hands were shaking. I had always seen myself as a confident and ambitious individual, but in the session, it became clear that my self-confidence and self-belief was shattered.

I returned to my apartment soon after, and remained in a mental haze for a while. I was feeling so many things at once: confusion at my lack of awareness, anger that it took me so long to see what should have been painfully obvious to observe, and a whole host of other emotions that I can’t remember or articulate.

Eventually, I looked at myself in the mirror and told myself that enough is enough. I told myself that I had to figure out some way to battle through the rest of the semester, and that I’d use winter break to rebuild my confidence. I had no idea how to, but I was resolved to find a way.

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I came into winter break with a vague idea of how I’d start putting myself together.

First, I did a digital detox. I had become increasingly aware about how anxious I was getting every time I touched my phone (and social media especially), so I deleted all my social media apps and basically ghosted everyone. All my interactions with my peers were reinforcing my sense of insecurity and inadequacy, so I just wanted to get away from it all.

Second, I gave myself a reading list of popular self development books. The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck, How to Win Friends and Influence People, and a few more books like those. I thought within them I’d find the tools and wisdom I needed to come back after winter break a new person.

Third, I chose a really popular fantasy series to read. I needed something to do, and I missed the feeling of losing myself in an amazing book. I chose to read The Stormlight Archives by Brandon Sanderson.

Surprisingly enough, while the digital detox and self development books helped, it was the fantasy series that gave me the breakthrough I was looking for.

At its core, The Stormlight Archives is a book series centered around a few characters with tremendously traumatic pasts and their stories in overcoming the horrors they’ve experienced in order to meet the demands of leadership being thrust upon them.

One of the central characters is Dalinar Kholin. He’s given the tall task of uniting several warring factions in society so that they can unite and face a larger, common threat that’s coming their way in the near future. But the biggest challenge that he faces is within himself.

In his past, he was a warlord and a conqueror, and in the process, he committed countless genocides and slaughtered hundreds of thousands of people to fulfill his king’s tactical goals. In the process of one of his most cruel slaughters in which he set fire to an entire city that was helpless against him, he mistakenly killed his loving wife who had snuck into the city to help them evacuate. The trauma from this was so overwhelming that he had to have the memory of his wife erased in order to continue functioning.

Eventually the memory of his wife returns, and Dalinar is filled with guilt and self-loathing, unable to understand how someone that has inflicted so much pain and horror on the world can lead others and bring unity. He’s crippled by his past and his memories.

Alongside his struggles to come to grips with his past, Dalinar was trying to decipher the last words that his brother had written at the time of his murder: “What is the most important step a man can take?”

After deep reflection, Dalinar found that the answer to that question was also the key to his own healing:

The most important words a man can say are, “I will do better.” These are not the most important words any man can say. I am a man, and they are what I needed to say.

The ancient code of the Knights Radiant says “journey before destination.” Some may call it a simple platitude, but it is far more. A journey will have pain and failure. It is not only the steps forward that we must accept. It is the stumbles. The trials. The knowledge that we will fail. That we will hurt those around us.

But if we stop, if we accept the person we are when we fall, the journey ends. That failure becomes our destination. To love the journey is to accept no such end. I have found, through painful experience, that the most important step a person can take is always the next one.

There were a few other incredible quotes from the author that drove this idea deeper and deeper:

Accept the pain, but don't accept that you deserved it.

“I will take responsibility for what I have done,” Dalinar whispered. “If I must fall, I will rise each time a better man.”

“The question,’ she replied, ‘is not whether you will love, hurt, dream, and die. It is what you will love, why you will hurt, when you will dream, and how you will die. This is your choice. You cannot pick the destination, only the path.”

“Ten spears go to battle," he whispered, "and nine shatter. Did the war forge the one that remained? No, Amaram. All the war did was identify the spear that would not break.”

“You tried to help the people of the market. You mostly failed. This is life. The longer you live, the more you fail. Failure is the mark of a life well lived. In turn, the only way to live without failure is to be of no use to anyone. Trust me, I've practiced”

Dalinar chose not to run away from the pain in his past; he chose to accept it and take responsibility. And in this acceptance he found freedom and growth.

I remember crying when I first read this. I don’t really remember when the tears started, only that as each tear fell, more and more things fell into place and I was able to see what was happening with me with deep clarity.

The story recontextualized everything I’d experienced. I had been subconsciously carrying around the weight of pain and failure with me wherever I was going, defining myself by my past and and letting its inertia frame everything that I did. Sometimes, the stress or adrenaline of the moment gave me sufficient energy to act, but most of the time, the weight of my past was crushing and suffocating. Whenever I tried to do something positive, it had to atone for the entirety of my past. Even when I was able to string together 1-2 good days in a row, afterwards, I still felt the numbing pain. With that in mind, every single action I took felt inadequate and I felt powerless to make any changes in my life. On the flip side, any little thing that happened to me reinforced all the feelings of worthlessness that I carried around with my wherever I went. Even when insignificant things happened, I reacted with the weight of the full store of pain that I was carrying. The massively disproportionate responses I undertook only put me in worse and worse situations mentally, physically, and emotionally.

The simple thought that I didn't have to carry everything with me all the time was enough to ease the pain. I accepted responsibility for everything that happened, but I let go of the pain because I knew that I am not the same person as I was before. The pain belonged to a version of me that lived in the past, and I had to let that version of me go so I could grow. I could learn from the past, but I would no longer define myself by it. The past was not my destination. I was free.

Afterwards, I felt a lightness that I hadn’t felt in ages. The pain no longer felt sharp and visceral. It was muted, and the world seemed like it had gained a sense of vitality and vividness around me.

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I wish I could say that I forever changed from this experience, but as soon as I returned to school from winter break, familiar patterns came rushing back and the clarity that I had slipped away, replaced by familiar feelings that I had fought hard to eradicate.

My home during winter break felt like my own little Eden. I don't remember much of what happened, but I just remember everything feeling idyllic. I remember being in a state of serenity where sense was heightened; when there was a greater sharpness to every experience. I even associate tremendous nostalgia with Fortnite of all things; nothing compared to the pure joy that I felt while playing the game with my brother for hours on end when neither of us worried about any other responsibility on our plate. In those moments, nothing else was real. It was a state of pure presence and bliss.

But I couldn't stay in my Eden forever; I had to take a bite of the forbidden fruit and return to college. It soon became abundantly clear that even though I had gained insight, I hadn't fully internalized it. I hadn't learned how to carry myself with that knowledge being second nature. I had leaned into the pain that I was experiencing and started the process of moving forward, but as soon as I was out of my comfortable setting, I regressed to the person that I was before winter break. I was able to breathe a little lighter, but I hadn't truly changed. But the seeds had been planted for later transformation.

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Sharing this story isn't meant to evoke pity or sympathy; the pain isn't central. I don't even really associate with the pain that I felt back then anymore; I'm a different person now, and that pain feels like a distant memory.

The insight isn't the key takeaway from this story either. I mean I definitely think it's powerful and has been transformational for me, but that's not the main takeaway I hope you take.

The key takeaway is that at a time that I felt a visceral, piercing pain, instead of letting that pain define me and seeking sympathy or comfort from the people around me, I made the choice to lean into that pain and transcend it; I learned to not let that pain define me. I somehow found the courage to resist the allure of turning myself into a victim of my past and my circumstances, to let myself be broken, or to give myself the right to complain and cry at the world for being unfair and unjust. Instead, I told myself that this was not me. And when I made the commitment to transcend the pain I was experiencing, I somehow found support and strength from the universe in abundance. I somehow was given exactly what I needed to start the process of unchaining myself and dismantling the instruments of my suffering.

This won't be what the process or the first step looks like for everyone; everyone's experiences will be different. But I hope my story serves as an example of the rewards that await you if, in the face of tremendous pain, you choose to lean into your inner strength instead of your weakness.

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Only those who have faced loss, who have drunk from the cup of undiluted vulnerability–and who have been rescued by a power infinitely beyond their own at the depths of their greatest need–can offer hope stronger than the idol's word of fear.

- Andy Crouch, Strong and Weak

There is nothing wrong with psychoanalysis or finding out about your past as long as you don’t confuse knowing about yourself with knowing yourself...knowing yourself is being yourself, and being yourself is ceasing to identify with content.

- Ekhart Tolle, A New World

Your entire life journey ultimately consists of the step you are taking at the moment. There is always only this one step, and so you give it your fullest attention. This doesn’t mean you don’t know where you are going; it just means that this step is primary, the destination secondary.

- Ekhart Tolle, A New World

The truth is that you need to say yes to suffering before you can transcend it.

- Ekhart Tolle, A New World

When you no longer defend or attempt to strengthen the form of yourself, you step out of identification with form, with mental self-image. Through becoming less (in the ego’s perception), you in fact undergo an expansion and make room for Being to come forward. True power, who you are beyond form, can then shine through the apparently weakened form.

- Ekhart Tolle, A New World