I have been recording video for my soon-to-be evergreen UPROOT course. It is so beautiful to be reminded of what I have created and the culmination of the work I have done personally, professionally, and spiritually. I am truly a work in progress, and I really do the work for myself.
This past weekend, my husband, Ferd, and I attended a local Hoffman Institute intensive called The Path of Fierce Compassion and Forgiveness. We both completed the full Hoffman Process several years ago, so this weekend was, in many ways, a refresher. Except I was reminded that there really is no such thing as being “done” with this work.
You can go to therapy. Take the course. Read the books. Attend the retreats. Teach the material. You can understand your patterns intellectually and still find yourself right back in one of them when life presses the right button. Or, perhaps more accurately, the wrong button.
And that may be one of the great humbling truths of personal growth: Awareness isn’t something we achieve once. It is something we practice.
This weekend gave me the opportunity to practice again. To look at forgiveness. To look at compassion. To look at my marriage. And, most importantly, to look at myself.
Forgiveness Doesn’t Mean Forgetting
One thing I appreciate about the Hoffman work is its understanding of forgiveness. Forgiveness isn’t pretending something didn’t happen. It isn’t saying harmful behavior was okay. It isn’t abandoning boundaries or letting someone keep hurting us.
The Hoffman Institute describes this work as forgiving and remembering, not forgiving and forgetting. Remembering allows us to retain discernment. To create healthy boundaries. To learn. And still, perhaps, release some of the emotional weight we have been carrying.
That distinction matters to me. Because forgiveness can easily be confused with excusing.
Sometimes what happened wasn’t okay. Sometimes a relationship needs to change. Sometimes the loving answer is no. Forgiveness doesn’t require us to rewrite what happened. It asks us to stop allowing what happened to continue writing us.
Then There Is the Person We Have to Forgive in the Mirror
We spend a lot of time talking about forgiving parents, partners, friends, siblings, coworkers and people who have hurt us. But I wonder if the person many of us have the greatest difficulty forgiving is ourselves.
We all have an inner critic. Parts of ourselves that simply will not let us off the hook. They remember what we should have done. What we should have known. What we should have said. Why we should be further along by now. I certainly know mine.
One of the things I saw more clearly this weekend is that when I am at my most judgmental and critical with other people, chances are pretty good that I have already been brutal with myself. My judgment often starts within.
When I am exhausted, disappointed, afraid, overwhelmed or feeling somehow inadequate, that inner critic gets loud. And if I stay there long enough, that criticism inevitably leaks out. I can become impatient. Judgmental. Controlling. Critical. Including with the person closest to me—my beautiful husband, Ferd.
That’s not necessarily the easiest thing for me to admit. But I think it is important. It is so much easier to see someone else’s behavior than to ask ourselves: What is happening inside of me right now?
What If We Got Curious Instead?
Curiosity is one of the foundational practices in my UPROOT work. Instead of immediately asking: What is wrong with you? Or even: What the hell is wrong with me?
What if we paused? What if we asked: What is hurting right now? What am I afraid of? What am I protecting? What does this part of me need?
That simple shift—from judgment to curiosity—can change everything. It doesn’t remove accountability. It creates enough space to actually take accountability without drowning ourselves in shame.
And this is where Kristin Neff’s work on self-compassion has profoundly influenced both my personal growth and the work I teach through UPROOT. Neff identifies three fundamental elements of self-compassion: mindfulness, self-kindness and common humanity. In other words: Can I recognize that I am struggling without becoming consumed by it? Can I offer myself kindness rather than criticism? And can I remember that difficulty, mistakes and imperfection are part of the shared human experience? Those questions feel particularly important to me right now.
Compassion Can Be Fierce
I also love Neff’s distinction between tender self-compassion and fierce self-compassion. Tender compassion comforts, soothes and validates us when we hurt. But fierce compassion acts. It protects. It provides. It motivates. It sets boundaries. It says no when something isn’t right.
That matters because compassion—particularly for women—can sometimes get distorted into accommodation. Be nice. Don’t upset anyone. Give them another chance. Keep the peace. Take care of everyone.
But fierce compassion might sound more like:
I understand why you behave this way, and this behavior still isn’t okay for me.
I can see your pain without making it mine.
I can love you and still have a boundary.
And perhaps most importantly:
I can recognize my own behavior honestly without deciding that I am a terrible person.
There is an enormous difference between: I behaved in a way I don’t feel good about. and I am bad.
One creates responsibility and the possibility of change. The other creates shame.
The Brick and the Sponge
As I sat with all of this over the weekend, I kept thinking about another expression of this work that has become incredibly dear to me: The Brick and the Sponge books.
The Brick and the Sponge began as a simple metaphor for two very different ways people move through the world. The Brick protects. It gets strong. Practical. Controlled. It can keep feelings tucked safely inside.
The Sponge absorbs. It feels deeply. It senses the emotional temperature of the room. It takes in the feelings and experiences of other people, sometimes without even realizing it.
Neither one is wrong. In fact, most of us probably carry some Brick and some Sponge within us.
But under stress, our strengths can become patterns. The Brick may become rigid, defensive, controlling or critical. The Sponge may become overwhelmed, self-blaming, overly responsible for everyone else’s feelings or unable to know where someone else ends and they begin.
The answer isn’t to shame either one. That simply creates another pattern.
Instead, compassion allows us to ask the Brick: What are you protecting? And the Sponge: What are you carrying that may not belong to you?
Suddenly the behavior isn’t the enemy. It becomes information.
That is what I hope young readers learn from The Brick and the Sponge. And honestly? It’s what I hope the adults reading alongside them learn too.
Because behind so much of our behavior is a part of us attempting to keep us safe, loved, accepted or in control. Even the inner critic. Maybe especially the inner critic.
We Are Not Our Patterns
This is also at the heart of UPROOT.
I believe: Transformation begins when we can see the system we’re living inside instead of assuming the system is who we are.
We develop patterns inside families. Relationships. Cultures. Organizations. Childhood experiences. Expectations about what it means to be successful, lovable, safe or worthy.
Those patterns may explain how we learned to move through the world. But they don’t have to define who we become.
We can notice them. Get curious about them. Understand how they served us. Have compassion for the person who needed them. And then decide whether they still belong.
That is the work.
Not ripping ourselves apart. Not finding one more thing about ourselves that needs fixing. Not making our parents, spouses or past the villains of our story.
But becoming conscious enough to choose differently.
Maybe We Are All Doing the Best We Can
I came away from this weekend believing something even more deeply: Most of us are doing the best we can.
Not perfectly. Not without hurting each other. Not without responsibility for our choices.
But we are human beings trying to navigate an extraordinarily complicated, fast-moving and often chaotic world.
People are tired. Relationships are strained. Families are complicated. Our nervous systems are overloaded. The world seems to offer us new reasons to be frightened, angry or divided almost every day.
Maybe what we need isn’t less accountability. Maybe we need accountability with compassion.
For others. And for ourselves.
What might change if we began with the assumption that the person in front of us is struggling with something we may not fully understand? What might change if we offered ourselves that same generosity?
My Practice From Here
I am leaving this Hoffman weekend with a renewed practice.
When I notice myself becoming highly critical of Ferd, another person or the world around me, I want to pause. Not because my concerns aren’t legitimate. Not because I shouldn’t have boundaries. Not because I should silence myself.
But because I want to ask myself something first: How am I treating myself right now?
Am I giving myself the compassion I so readily encourage others to practice? Am I listening to the frightened or exhausted part underneath the criticism? Am I responding from my authentic self—or from an old pattern trying desperately to protect me?
Can I soften without becoming passive? Can I be fierce without becoming hard? Can I forgive while still remembering? Can I hold myself accountable without abandoning myself?
That feels like the work in front of me now.
And perhaps that is what forgiveness ultimately offers us.
Freedom.
Not freedom from our history. Freedom from being unconsciously ruled by it.
The freedom to say:
I see the pattern.
I understand why it developed.
I take responsibility for what is mine.
I forgive myself for being human.
And I get to choose again.
That is fierce compassion. That is forgiveness. That is UPROOT. And that is one more beautiful second chance.
