Michhami Dukkadam.
A beautiful phrase. A profound practice.
At its heart is a simple invitation: if I have hurt you, knowingly or unknowingly, through my thoughts, words or actions, I seek your forgiveness.
It is traditionally expressed at a particular time of the year. But perhaps the wisdom behind it deserves to travel much further than the occasion itself.
Because forgiveness is not something we need only on a designated day.
There is something deeply human about acknowledging that we may have caused hurt even when we did not intend to. About putting aside ego long enough to say:
I may have been wrong. I may have hurt you. Please forgive me.
But there is another question hidden inside this beautiful practice.
What if there is one person whose forgiveness you have never thought of seeking?
Someone who may have been carrying your mistakes for years.
Someone who remembers every poor decision, missed opportunity, wrong turn and moment you wish you could undo.
You.
What if you also need your forgiveness?
Think about it.
We seek forgiveness from the people we may have disappointed.
Parents. Partners. Children. Friends. Colleagues. Strangers.
But how often do we seek forgiveness from ourselves?
For the opportunity you didn’t take.
For the relationship you couldn’t save.
For trusting someone you now believe you shouldn’t have trusted.
For not speaking up when you wish you had.
For speaking when you wish you had remained silent.
For the business decision that went wrong.
For the years you think you wasted.
For the promise you made to yourself and didn’t keep.
For not knowing then what seems so obvious now.
Some mistakes end in a moment.
But the punishment can continue for years.
And strangely, the judge, jury and jailer can all be the same person.
You.
The cruelty of hindsight
There is an interesting unfairness in the way we judge our past selves.
We take everything we know today and use it to evaluate a decision made by someone who did not know all of that then.
Today’s wisdom sits in judgement over yesterday’s ignorance.
“I should have known.”
Perhaps.
But did you?
“I should have handled it differently.”
Perhaps.
But were you then the person you are today?
You made that decision with the awareness you had, the emotional resources available to you, the circumstances surrounding you and the version of yourself that existed at that moment.
This reminds me of one of the NLP presuppositions I have returned to many times:
People make the best choices available to them with the resources they have at that moment.
That does not mean every choice is good. It means that our choices emerge from the options, awareness, beliefs and emotional resources available to us then.
And perhaps another familiar NLP idea belongs here too:
There is no failure, only feedback.
Not as a convenient way to dismiss consequences, but as an invitation to ask a different question.
Instead of “How could I have done that?”
Perhaps:
“What did that experience teach me that I could not have learnt in quite the same way otherwise?”
The past cannot always be corrected. But it can be re-coded from a sentence into a lesson.
That doesn’t necessarily make the decision right.
It makes it human.
There is an important difference between taking responsibility for the past and sentencing yourself to live there.
Forgiveness is not absolution
Sometimes we resist forgiving ourselves because it feels like letting ourselves off too easily.
If I forgive myself, am I saying what I did was okay?
No.
Self-forgiveness does not have to mean:
“It doesn’t matter.”
It can mean:
“It mattered. I accept my part in it. I will learn from it. And I will no longer use it as a weapon against myself.”
Responsibility asks:
What can I learn from this?
Guilt often asks:
How long should I continue suffering for this?
Those are very different questions.
One creates wisdom.
The other can create a prison.
The invisible language we use with ourselves
There is another dimension to forgiveness that fascinates me.
Language.
Listen carefully to the sentences people sometimes carry around inside themselves:
“How could I have been so stupid?”
“I always mess things up.”
“I wasted so many years.”
“I should have known better.”
“I can never forgive myself for that.”
Notice what happens.
An event slowly becomes an identity.
I made a poor decision becomes I am stupid.
I failed at something becomes I am a failure.
I hurt someone becomes I am a bad person.
I lost time becomes my life is wasted.
The mind has an extraordinary ability to turn verbs into nouns.
And then live inside them.
Perhaps forgiveness begins when we separate what we did from who we are.
Behaviour can be examined.
Consequences can be acknowledged.
Apologies can be made.
Lessons can be learnt.
Amends can sometimes be made.
And identity can still be allowed to evolve.
You would probably forgive someone else
Here’s an interesting thought experiment.
Imagine someone you deeply care about came to you and described exactly the mistake for which you have been punishing yourself.
They tell you what happened.
They tell you how much they regret it.
They tell you what they have learnt.
They tell you they wish they could go back and change it.
Would you speak to them the way you speak to yourself?
Would you remind them of it every few weeks?
Would you bring it up whenever something else went wrong?
Would you tell them that one chapter defines their entire story?
Probably not.
You might hold them accountable.
You might even tell them some uncomfortable truths.
But eventually, you would probably want them to move forward.
Why should compassion become unavailable simply because the person standing before you is the one in the mirror?
Perhaps there are three conversations
The spirit of Michhami Dukkadam suggests that there may actually be three conversations worth having.
The first is with those we have hurt.
Please forgive me.
The second is with those who have hurt us.
I choose not to carry this forever.
And the third is with ourselves.
I forgive you.
Not because everything you did was right.
Not because consequences disappear.
Not because the past can be rewritten.
But because you are allowed to learn.
You are allowed to change.
You are allowed to become wiser than the person who made that mistake.
And perhaps most importantly,
you are allowed to stop punishing a previous version of yourself for not yet knowing what life had not yet taught you.
A conversation worth having with yourself
Take a quiet moment and complete these four sentences:
Something I still blame myself for is…
What I understand today that I didn’t understand then is…
What that experience has taught me is…
What I am now ready to release is…
Don’t rush through them.
There may be more wisdom hiding inside those answers than inside years of regret.
Because the purpose of a mistake is not necessarily to become a permanent scar.
Sometimes it becomes a teacher.
Sometimes a turning point.
Sometimes the very experience that makes us kinder when someone else makes the same mistake.
Michhami Dukkadam. To yourself too.
Perhaps that is the larger invitation hidden within Michhami Dukkadam.
Not merely to practise forgiveness on a particular day, but to recognise when we are carrying something that no longer needs to be carried.
Look at the person you were five years ago.
Ten years ago.
Perhaps even yesterday.
The person who didn’t know enough.
Who reacted badly.
Who chose poorly.
Who trusted too easily.
Who was afraid.
Who tried and failed.
Who sometimes hurt others.
Who sometimes hurt themselves.
Acknowledge them.
Learn from them.
And then, perhaps, say something you may have waited far too long to hear:
I forgive you.
You do not have to erase your past to stop fighting with it.
You can carry the lesson without carrying the sentence.
And perhaps that is why the spirit of Michhami Dukkadam need not belong to one day on the calendar.
Some apologies cannot wait for an occasion.
Some forgiveness should not either.
Michhami Dukkadam.
To everyone we may have hurt.
To everyone whose hurt we may still be carrying.
And whenever the time is right, to ourselves too.
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