It was this past Wednesday—our last night at a national conference in Ft. Lauderdale.
I had just wrapped up my session on key strategies to build stronger elasticity in high-stakes professions. The kind of talk that doesn’t just fill a room—it lingers. It makes you reflect. It forces you to ask, Where am I flexible? Where am I still frozen? Where have I convinced myself that movement is no longer possible?
We had spent the entire week diving deep into resilience, tactical decision-making, elasticity in leadership, and post-crisis recovery. Complex ideas. Sophisticated frameworks. But something still felt unfinished, like a thread waiting to be pulled.
That evening, my executive team and I found a quiet little place off the main drag—nothing fancy, just solid burgers, tacos, and a basket of chips with some unexpectedly good guac to celebrate our success. It was one of those post-conference nights where the weight lifts just enough for the real conversations to sneak in.
Somewhere mid-bite, somewhere between tacos and the next round of drinks, Jim leaned back in his chair and casually dropped a sentence that would stick with me long after the guac was gone.
“You know… when identity gets rustic—when you feel like you’re all worn down and stuck—sometimes the only way to rust off is to forgive yourself. Especially if you’ve already been forgiven.”
I paused, chip in hand.
“Say that again?”
Jim shrugged like he was just tossing out a thought.
“When your identity gets rustic, the way to rust off is to forgive yourself. You know you’ve made mistakes, disappointed people, paid the price—but deep down, you can’t forgive yourself. And that’s what keeps you stuck.”
It hit me harder than I expected.
All week we’d been talking about elasticity. About bouncing back. About recovery. But this?
This wasn’t about grinding through.
It wasn’t about pushing harder.
It wasn’t about proving anything.
It was about releasing.
“You’re right,” I said. “Most people try to scrape the rust off—prove something, overcompensate, muscle their way out. But maybe the real move is to just… forgive yourself and let it go.”
Jim nodded. “Yeah. Forgive yourself. Learn the hard lessons. Refocus. That’s how you loosen up. That’s how you move again.”
We sat in silence for a while, the weight of his words settling between us like a second basket of chips.
How easily we trap ourselves in old stories, old labels, old failures.
How easily we mistake the rust for who we really are.
How convinced we become that we are permanently tattooed with scars that only we can see.
But rust is just build-up.
It’s not identity.
It can come off.
The Science: Freezing, Unfreezing, Refreezing
As I sat with Jim’s words, I couldn’t help but think about Kurt Lewin’s model of change: unfreeze, change, refreeze.
We often get stuck in the frozen version of ourselves—a hardened identity shaped by mistakes, regrets, and the wear and tear of life.
When that happens, our identity becomes rustic.
Immobile.
Stiff.
Corroded.
We start wearing our rust like it’s part of us, when in reality, it’s just what we’ve accumulated along the way.
Forgiveness is the heat that begins the unfreezing.
It softens the rigidity. It loosens what’s stuck. It allows for a new vision, a new story, a new purpose.
It’s the oil.
It’s the cloth.
It’s the quiet decision to stop carrying what no longer serves you.
Without self-forgiveness, we stay locked in place—frozen in our old narrative.
But forgiveness initiates movement. It’s what shifts the story and clears the corrosion. And only then—only in that softened, unfrozen state—can we refreeze into a new, healthier form.
A form that can bend, move, and grow.
Forgiveness is not weakness.
It is courage in action.
It’s not about forgetting what happened. It’s about releasing its hold on who you can become.
Funny how you can spend a whole week at a national conference—and the thing that sticks with you most comes over burgers, tacos, and guac on the very last night.
The Bear Tied It All Together for Me
Tonight, I sat down to watch Episode 9, Season 4 of The Bear on Hulu.
I knew the season was a roller coaster, but I wasn’t prepared for how deeply this episode would drive home the very conversation I had just experienced.
In the episode, Carmy finally visits his mother, Donna, who has been sober nearly a year. Donna, the gravitational center of so much unresolved pain, finally finds the words she has long withheld:
“I’m sorry.”
Her quiet apology is more than a moment—it’s a door. A release. An invitation to unfreeze.
It’s the very thing Jim had named over burgers: sometimes you’ve already been forgiven—but you still refuse to forgive yourself.
Carmy and Richie’s conversation is the heart of it.
Richie, whose journey from volatile to steady has been one of the most beautiful arcs in the series, challenges Carmy directly.
“You shut us out, Carm. You don’t trust us. You don’t trust yourself.”
Richie isn’t just venting—he’s fighting for Carmy to see what everyone else sees:
You’re allowed to let people in. You’re allowed to put the weight down. You don’t have to carry this alone.
Richie, who once stumbled through his life without direction, has become grounded, confident, essential. His leadership has grown. His self-worth has crystallized. And in this moment, he holds up a mirror to Carmy.
The entire season builds to this emotional pivot.
It’s not about whether the restaurant succeeds.
It’s about whether Carmy can finally forgive himself.
The walk-in freezer—where Carmy gets physically trapped—becomes a perfect metaphor. He’s not just stuck behind a jammed door—he’s trapped in his own perfectionism, self-doubt, and fear of failure.
Sometimes the freezer door is locked from the inside.
What struck me most was that Richie, Sydney, Tina, Marcus—they don’t need Carmy to be perfect.
They need him to be present.
The restaurant’s success doesn’t hinge on Carmy alone.
It hinges on the team—the magic of collective agency.
Not one hero. Not one savior. But the synchronized efforts of flawed, growing people who show up for each other, even when things are messy.
There’s no grand speech. There’s no flawless reconciliation.
There’s just presence. There’s just effort. There’s just quiet forgiveness.
That’s what made it real.
That’s what made it earned.
Conclusion: The Courage to Forgive Yourself
The conversation with Jim over burgers, and the conversation between Carmy and Richie in The Bear, both land in the same place:
You don’t need to grind harder. You need to release.
If you’re feeling stuck—if you’ve been dragging around some old rust—
Start there.
Forgive yourself.
It just might be what gets you moving again.
You’re not frozen forever.
The door can open.
You can move.
You can refreeze into something freer, lighter, more aligned.
Forgiveness isn’t just the cloth that wipes away the rust. It’s the courage to realize the rust was never you in the first place.