Copyright 2001, Colin C. Tipping

30: RADICAL 
Self-
Forgiveness
W
e have learned in the foregoing chapters,
I hope, that whatever we see 
out there
is
an outpic-turing of what is 
in here,
and that what
we see in other people is simply a reflection of our own
consciousness. If you are one of a crowd of two thousand
people crammed into a room, there is, in reality, only one
person in the room — and it is you. The rest of the people
are reflections of you and your perception of them is sim-
ply a story that you have made up in your mind. We are
always looking in the mirror, and it’s all about us. In the
same way therefore, 
all
forgiveness is self-forgiveness.
228

---

This is what I have been arguing for a long time. Self-
forgiveness happens by default as soon as your realize
that what you see 
out there,
is you. 
(See steps 9 thru 12
on the worksheet).
Once we see the truth in someone,
we automatically claim it for ourselves.
It always seemed to me to be easier to forgive what was
out there,
rather than to try forgiving oneself, because we
are accustomed to operating in the world as either sub-
ject or object, but never both at the same time — which is
how it is with self-forgiveness. To whom are we appealing
when we ask ourselves for forgiveness? Who is forgiving
whom? No wonder self-forgiveness is so difficult — we
are trying to be judge, jury, defendant and witness all in
the same case! Better (perhaps) that we do it by radically
forgiving others and, in so doing, vicariously and auto-
matically forgiving ourselves at the same time.
This is all the more true since much of what we do hate in
ourselves is unconscious, and therefore hidden from us.
How can we forgive in ourselves that about which we know
nothing? Fortunately, as we know, the Law of Attraction
helps us out by bringing someone into our lives who will
resonate those issues for us and mirror them back to us.
Initially, of course, it upsets us greatly but as we do the
worksheet and forgive them 
(see the truth)
, we automati-
cally forgive ourselves. That is why we say that the people
we judge and dislike the most are our greatest teacher
and healers.
Another reason why I resisted doing self-forgiveness work
was that I had noticed that many of those who tended to
want to work on forgiving themselves were often addicted
to self-blame and recrimination. These people would jump
at the chance to use self-forgiveness as yet another way
to beat themselves up. By our insisting that they begin by
first forgiving others, we not only broke their denial about
not having issues with other people 
(which, of course, they
229

---

always did),
but enabled them to find genuine self-forgive-
ness through the normal Radical Forgiveness process.
Having said all that, I recognize that there is still a need to
provide the context and the spaciousness for connecting
with, and extending mercy and forgiveness towards, those