DAN Pena, an American millionaire businessman and owner of Guthrie Castle in Angus, seems like a nice guy. His castle is (or, at least, was) a popular venue for upmarket weddings, offering the kind of solidly elegant and romantic backdrop to make even the most aspirational nuptial dreams come true.
But in April this year, his events manager, Craig Williamson, did a disappearing act, along with £130,000 of deposits paid by unsuspecting couples for their big day. Last week, Williamson was jailed for 30 months, having been convicted of fraud. He used much of the money to fund his gambling addiction and when it all became too much of a mess and he could no longer rob Peter to pay Paul, he ran off to Ibiza for a few weeks, before returning to Scotland to hand himself in.
His employer, Dan Pena, did the right thing and refunded the stolen deposits from his own pocket. A sort of almost-happy ending for the fraud victims. On camera, Pena is avuncular, sartorially elegant and resonates a benign kind of presence (he also looks a bit like the actor, Anthony Hopkins). When asked about the betrayal by his former employee, Pena said he forgave him, wanted to move on and would continue to have faith in people. There wasn’t an iota of bitterness or cynicism. He made forgiveness look almost enjoyable.
For most of us, though, forgiving others is the tallest of orders and one that seriously stretches us. More often, we shrink into a state of bitter stasis, nurse our grudges and remain tight-lipped, creating the ideal conditions for festering resentment. There’s a basic, natural law when it comes to forgiveness: if you’re unable to forgive yourself, you’ll be in no position to extend genuine forgiveness to others.
A lack of self-compassion means we can’t feel real compassion for others because we don’t understand what it demands of us. Experientially, it is a soul-searchingly difficult test of our mental and emotional mettle.
The primary stumbling block is that in order to forgive ourselves, we need first to acknowledge that being human is an essentially flawed condition and we therefore make mistakes. For some, the momentous scale of their mistakes and misjudgements can be life-altering for themselves and the victims of their actions. For most of us, our flaws are mundane and pervasive but still have a cumulative, negative affect on people around us, making them feel unloved, devalued, humiliated and betrayed.
If we were able to stand back and see how our petty misdemeanours impact negatively on others – a mean look, the withholding of a reassuring smile or letting a door slam in someone’s face – most of us would probably feel ashamed and diminished by our wrong thinking and bad feeling. Paradoxically, when we behave like this towards others, it is highly likely that we treat ourselves in a similarly harsh and cruel manner. The default loop inside our head will be self-critical and lacking in empathy for our daily struggle and personal limitations. We tell ourselves that we are lazy, not good enough, unlovable, stupid. Our motivation to survive and thrive is driven not by an inner friend, but internal foe. Essentially, we are at war with ourselves and the biggest gun of all in this arsenal of flagellation is our lack of self-compassion.
Stopping the war means relating to our inner self with kindness and care. It’s the simple sort of kindness that you would show to a small child who has fallen and scraped her knees or the wee boy who feels rejected because he has nobody to play with at school. It’s straightforward and unconditional. This is not the same as self-pity, which is based in narcissism and leads us into an emotional cul-de-sac where we can do nothing except bang our heads off a brick wall.
Treating ourselves with mercy (but not indulgently) isn’t easy. It can feel strange and undeserved at first, as if, somehow, we are letting ourselves off the hook. Cultivating self-compassion requires a heightened degree of mindfulness and commitment because changing our relationship with self is one of the hardest endeavours we can square up to. The real gain is the growth of empathy for the fumbling-around-in-the-dark nature of our existence. Without this empathy, it’s impossible to deliver real forgiveness to those who have hurt us.
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