Hi there!

Today's principle is the 2nd of the Five BASIC Principles of Forgiveness: Self-Efficacy.

Oh - before I give that information, here is the specific suggestion of forgiveness for today:

1) Forgive a sibling, if none, a cousin or friend that is LIKE a brother or sister to you. Just clear your heart of some old grudge, then call them and either tell them about it or, just tell them you love them.

2) Do all other daily activities of this program

3) check in with your accountability partner - just to see how THEY are doing - not to report on how you are doing.

Now...Self-Efficacy…what is this principle about?

"Self-efficacy is about getting your work done….whatever that work is at a particular time in your life. Taking care of your business is a fundamental principle for living.

As adults we need to take care of our homes, our businesses and our communities. As children we need to learn, grow and have fun. How well we take care of things determines our state of mind.

For some, a lack of productivity is a very painful place to be. Beating up oneself is common practice among those who procrastinate. There’s a feeling of failure that surrounds the inability to accomplish specific tasks.

What does this all lead to? Unfortunately reactions are not compartmentalized. They spill over into the rest of your life. Bad feelings about not getting a specific project completed create more generalized bad feelings about other work that would otherwise be a breeze.
So suddenly what started as just an over-reaction to one task or project not getting accomplished, grows into a type of despondency that literally takes up too much space in your brain and in your life.

The key then of the self-efficacy principle is to get those things you deem important done. Get them done in a timely fashion. Or else, you find yourself using up space in your brain and in your life that could be put to productive use elsewhere.

Now if we simply apply this conversation to the act of forgiveness, we’ll see how self-efficacy is a core principle of forgiving.

Let’s say, forgiving is something you’d like to do, then you don’t do it, for whatever reason. This act of not getting something done creates another layer of negative emotion towards the act itself. Instead of becoming motivated to accomplish this important forgiving action, you actually get de-motivated.

Interrupting this cycle is critical.

You interrupt the negative emotional cycle by getting the thing done!!

This is the best way to re-allocate that space in your life and in your brain. Get the forgiveness out of the way and the negative emotions attached to the lack of forgiving action on your part just melts away.

Also, the space that’s been used for memories of this pain, anger over the insult, outrage over the slight…imagine using this space for creative ideas, project development and for loving others. Your energies will then be diverted towards projects and activities that bring joy and peace to your life.

Now that’s self-efficacy: Making yourself efficacious…making yourself productive.

Forgive a person and get productive.

There’s a causal relationship between forgiving and producing. Whether it’s producing great work or great play, or great love….when you release pain and guilt and bad memories, you create space for other wonderful things to get done.

Now there’s another way to look at self-efficacy as a guiding principle of forgiveness. Not only is it important to understand that it is self-efficacious to forgive in order to create space for work to get done and for life to get lived, it’s also critical that you understand the ‘how-to’ of forgiving.

Self-efficacy demands that you become familiar with the process you are undertaking, much like anything else in life. Study it, learn about what it is you’re about to do and remember, acknowledge what you already know. The more familiar you are with the process, the more you can predict your success.

Do your own poking around. See what you come up with. A side benefit of this type of research before launching into a “project” is that the mystery is revealed. When something is mysterious it often feels so much more impossible. So strip away the mystery by shedding light on the topic.

The darker emotions that are connected to something like pain, guilt and bad memories can be overwhelming, and this is one way of staying in charge of the process, emotions included. Know as much as you can about the process and about the idea or concept. This will go a long way towards building your confidence; and when confidence grows so does your ability to complete a task. In other words, when you build your confidence, your self-efficacy quotient increases as well.

Plants need sunlight and self-efficacy needs confidence." (excerpt from my book Seven Steps to Forgiveness...)

ANOTHER LONG one!!!!!!

A final request for today is this: Find a few minutes to just BE STILL - model the stillness and 'rooted-ness' of a tree.
Nature is marvelous to observe and learn from.

Sit still, no thoughts just sensations and awareness.

Wishing you an abundance of love and light,
Julette
♥♥♥

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