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Forgiving Myself

Another of my post inspired from an episode of Inside an Actor's Studio featuring an interview with two time Academy Award winning actress Hilary Swank. This is an interview series which gives me a chance to look into an actor's mind and try to understand the philosophy that has brought him or her to this point of realization in their life.

Hilary Swank talks about forgiving herself as an actor when she is not in the moment i.e. is when as an actor she cannot feel the character she is portraying. This feeling of being connected or rather being in in the character is of utmost importance to get the true performance. But sometimes actors concentrate on the "disconnection" too much that the connection just goes whirlwind.

She asks us to be forgiving in those moments. Asking yourself, that now I am not in it so how do I get back into the moment again? The ability to forgive ourselves and focusing on getting back on track again. This is a situation we always face in our lives. Time and time again we have said, "It's not just working!" or "I am just losing it". These are the moments of despair which destroys our moral and emotional construct. They could very easily lead us down to a path of darkness, maybe only for a short period.

But during these times if we could forgive ourselves and retrace the steps that helped move into the light on the first place would benefit us. Forgiving is an act of catharsis that helps us to move from the troubles. But as human beings we are good at forgiving others but not so good at forgiving ourselves. So learning to forgive ourselves should help us to reduce some portion of burden we so laboriously carry in our lives every day.

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