The Art of Forgiveness
Dr. Judith Rich wrote the article The Power of Conscious Forgetting for the Huffington Post which details the power in being able to forget certain trials or hard knocks on purpose.
She talks about the long term effects of reliving painful parts of our lives or, rather, our emotional response to certain events in our lives. She shares examples of how letting go of that emotional response can help you turn the corner in the path toward achieving your goals.
I think her intent is spot on.
When we have an emotional response to an event or series of events in our lives we begin an agreement (I call it an internal contract) with ourselves to identify with that emotion. When we replay that emotional response over and over again we actually begin to change our belief system about certain kinds of events as well as life in general. That belief creates a very real response in the physical world that can forever alter what kinds of successes or failures we bring to ourselves.
Dr. Rich gives a few examples of everyday life; I think it is important to recognize how it might relate to trading.
Byron is a typical trader. Byron can know, logically, that trading takes a disciplined, methodical approach. Yet he has a small string of wins that makes it feel easy. Logically, he knows that it is not easy and that he should still follow his rules. His emotion, however, begins to identify with trading being easy. He replays the joy of those wins over and over, but if he doesn’t include the joy of the planning and discipline he begins to change his belief system to one that identifies with simplicity. He slowly begins to drop the habits that brought him success in the first place until he has a string of losses. If he’s lucky, he’ll recognize that this is not the market’s fault. It is his…for being undisciplined.
Now he has a string of losses. Logically, he may know that all he needs to do is reinstitute his good trading habits. Emotionally he begins to attach to the frustration that goes with one loss after another. Plus now he has the visceral response to his own behavior as well. He replays the utter frustration of losing, and by extension being a loser, and his belief system gloms onto to two separate beliefs: a) trading is too hard, b) Byron is an undisciplined oaf who needs to suck it up and get back to his real job…which he hates…and he never saw himself in such a losery-loser-crappy-losery place in his entire life…and boy didn’t he ever let himself and everyone he loves down and everything just sucks.
Byron isn’t only exuding a lot of negative emotion. That kind of mental tongue-lashing takes a lot of energy. How can he just forget what has happened if he wants to learn from it? And how can he learn from it while is energy is spent beating himself up over it. He can’t, until he learns how to take that energy back.
I was asked once, in an interview on TraderRadio, what I thought, in one word, the best piece of advice for a new trader was. I said, “Forgiveness.” I could’ve talked about that for another show in its entirety. Dr. Rich is talking about forgetting the material that brings up the emotion and that is wonderful. I’m actually talking about doing something much more profound, because choosing what pieces of our history pop into our brain is much too difficult.
I propose that we Fore-Give the energy we’re attaching to those events. If we get on a string of wins and we can see it leading to over confidence, (or a string of losses leading to fear) we can purposefully go inside our own minds/souls and imagine ourselves taking that energy back into ourselves and using it for the parts of our trading that don’t come easy, but that make our trading better.
The Art of Fore-Giving isn’t easy. It takes a lot of practice and there are times even I forget to use it. But it is powerful. When we’re in our power, with the conscious placement of our thoughts and energy we can create much better circumstances in our lives (and our trading) than if they’re all scattered around fretting about events that cannot be undone.
What about you? Do you see a place for forgetting/forgiving on purpose? Do you have a trick that you use? (I imagine my emotions as a ribbon from me to that person/event/trade and I cut it and reel it back into myself.)
Triffany Hammond helps traders of all levels, gain the tools, resources and guidance necessary to build on their strengths and work around their weaknesses so that they can make the best possible decisions for themselves in the Forex Market. Triffany is a regular speaker and contributor at 
Allowing time to pass and not to react in haste. That over used phrase about time healing is so true. It blurs the sharpness of the hurt or the pain of the loss. The same with trading. Just leave it for a while and come back refreshed.
Forgiveness can be so hard, be it one’s self or someone else but how uplifting when it is achieved.
I have a very hard time staying disciplined. I can feel it when I get zoned in, and I can feel the “not” With many different demands on my time, I get impatient. Impatience is a trait that I can trace back to age about 5. I fight it constantly – with only limited success. Still, I keep trying.
Excellent comments, both of you!
There is a lot that can be healed with time, alone. I think you’re right in that, Mary. The one thing that I caution people is to not let time simply bury the problem. Sometimes by allowing ourselves to simply forget we are allowing ourselves to make the same mistake by sort of saying “Its okay” tha we did that (or “It’s okay that person said something in anger”). If can first take back the energy we’re investing in that hurt and then allow time for healing (rather than simple forgetting) I think that packs a powerful punch! Thank you, Mary…you’re so right.
Jerry, discipline is one of those tricky personal elements that can often be something we really struggle with, as you’ve mentioned, simply a bad habit or …and this is a big ‘or’ something that is really indicitave of other problems. I know that I struggle with my discipline when I’m feeling burnt out…if you find that’s the case then it is a good idea to refill yourself in some way that is meaningful to you and the discipline may just magically return. Something to think about! Thanks, Jerry…that was great of you to admit. I KNOW you’re not the only one!!