Short spoken piece by Connor Beaton outlining a four-step process for self-forgiveness: (1) complete confession to another person, (2) honoring and naming emotions, (3) understanding the narrative that led to the behavior, and (4) taking relentless action to counter that narrative. The guidance applies broadly (relationships, work, self-habits) and emphasizes owning facts and following up with action.
The first step of therapy is confession.
And I would encourage you, all of you, whatever you are looking for forgiveness in. In your life right now, whether it's at work, whether it's with the self, you know, whether it's something that happened in the relationship, it doesn't need to be something, you know, like an affair. It can be something simple like you haven't been going to the gym and you're shitting on yourself for it. The first step is, like, complete confession, right? So whatever happened, I would find someone that you can release those things to talk about all of it, right? Like, talk about every single action that took place so that you have someone else that knows exactly what transpired. Because without that, you're carrying around all of this shit that no one knows about, right, that you're trying to process by yourself and has no vehicle, no sort of, like, mirror to be heard. So confession, letting all that shit out of the bag, is really like part one of finding forgiveness. Because if we can't own what's happened, the rest of the steps are impossible, right? Like, truly. And, like, I don't want to make it sound so absolutist, but it really is true. So that's step one. The next step is honoring the emotions that come up, right? So whether it's sadness or grief or guilt or anger or resentment or hatred, honoring those emotions as they come up, right? And giving them a place and a space. And that might mean that you, like, literally schedule time. I'm going to sit down, I'm going to write. Like, here's what I've been feeling lately about everything that's taken place. I've been fucking pissed off about X, Y and Z. Honoring those emotions. Step three is understanding the story that got you there. What was the narrative? What was the story or the set of beliefs that got you to the infidelity or to the putting on £50 or to the losing your job or to the moving back to porn. What was the story that got you there? And the final step, step four is taking relentless action to counter that narrative. Taking relentless action to counter that narrative. All right, we need. All of this needs to be followed up with action to move us in a different direction.
How to Raise Strong, Unshakable Boys in Today's Culture, with Dr. Shefali Tsabary
