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A Path to Personal Forgiveness: Defeat the Three Dragons

Originally published on LinkedIn on September 21, 2015

A Path to Personal Forgiveness: Defeat the Three Dragons

by Deepak Chopra, MD

This post is part a series in which Influencers and members discuss how to drive change that matters. Read all the posts here and write your own; include the hashtags #2030NOW and #ForgiveForPeace in the body of your post.

All of us, I feel fairly certain, believe that forgiveness is a positive quality. But the fact that religion has been the traditional basis for finding forgiveness has made it seem quite often that there’s something saintly, or at the very least unusually gentle, compassionate, and selfless in those who can forgive. Since the current project is to create a wave of forgiveness with a global reach, I think forgiveness needs to be brought down to earth.

To begin with, forgiveness comes at the end of a process, not at the beginning. In order to forgive yourself or another person, three obstacles must be overcome. Let’s call them the three dragons of judgment, anger, and blame. Each has had powerful effects in everyone’s life. Millions of people feel justified in clinging to their own dragons, and it takes conviction to realize that nothing about judgment, anger, and blame actually serves anyone’s self-interest.
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Is Failure Necessary for Success?

Originally published by The San Francisco Chronicle on September 21, 2015

By Deepak Chopra, MD

In a society that places a high value on competition and winning, everyone wants to succeed. It becomes difficult to discuss failure, which somehow translates into personal weakness, lack, or vulnerability. I’d like to reframe the whole relationship between success and failure so that both become part of a single process: your personal evolution.

As you evolve and grow, certain conditions appear on the path, and as they do, some people feel a sense of failure while other people don’t. Yet in both cases, the same situation has occurred:

An obstacle or resistance is blocking the way forward.
A fear of inadequacy has undermined one’s confidence.
An outcome expected to be positive turns negative instead.
Support from people you counted on isn’t there anymore.
A manageable task starts to become overwhelming and unmanageable.
The work environment and/or key relationships become hostile.

Evolution never requires failure. Such situations are part of everyone’s life. What actually matters is your interpretation of what’s going on, and then your response based on this interpretation. Any situation, no matter how frustrating or challenging, can be interpreted as evolutionary. I don’t mean that you apply positive thinking to mask your fear and insecurity.

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