Forgiveness is such an eggy subject, one that I’ve chewed on a lot over the years. How do you forgive yourself? How do you forgive others? How do you forgive the unforgivable?
The thing about forgiveness that always stuck in my throat was that it seemed like saying that what happened was ok. And sometimes things really aren’t, no matter how you slice it.
It also seemed like forgiveness was something I was expected to do for the other person’s benefit. So… youdid me wrong, and yet on top of dealing with that it’s also somehow now my responsibility to make you feel ok about it?
Over many years of study and therapy, I’ve encountered different ideas about forgiveness – I think of them as different lenses through which to view it. I’m not saying any of these are necessarily correct, or applicable to all situations; I’m sharing them simply as ideas which you might find useful to chew on, as I did, to come to my own sense of what it means to forgive, whether myself or another; whether a minor mishap or a devastating crime. I hope you’ll find some thought-provoking explorations here.
– Forgiveness is not one-size-fits-all. Forgiving harm caused in genuine error, when ownership has been taken, amends and heartfelt apologies made, is very different from forgiving abhorrent and deliberate crimes where no remorse is shown.
– Empathy is a powerful tool. Nobody does anything unless it’s meeting a need, however nefarious, in some way. Needs are about feelings, which obviously we all have. If you’ve done wrong in the past and are struggling to forgive yourself, consider what need were you trying to get met by what you did. What was the feeling behind that? Does anything soften in you when you connect with that?
– When I asked the wisest person I know how one could forgive the unforgivable, he didn’t tell me an answer but asked me this question: has forgiveness been asked for?
– What if forgiveness is about giving the burden you have been carrying back to its rightful owner?
– What if forgiveness is about exploring what harm has been done, then healing what can be healed, learning what can be learned – perhaps with professional help, if the harm was grave – and moving ahead with your life? Not with the event buried in some dark mental recess where it will most certainly come to bite you on the arse at some point, but through tender care, time, and boundaries? Deep historic woundings may indeed have become a part of your psychological make-up, but having the courage to explore them, to bring light to the shadows and re-integrate exiled parts of your inner self is an immense key to empowered wholeness.
– What if forgiveness is about first holding the wrong-doer accountable for their actions in a calm and measured way, while deeply acknowledging that you may not get the result you want? What if accountability itself is the point?
– What if forgiveness is something you do for your own emotional freedom, not the wrong-doer’s comfort?
– What if forgiveness is about accepting that you’ve come to the end of a road with someone? Sometimes it’s about re-integration and reconciliation, and sometimes it’s about saying ‘for myself, I have to ensure this can’t happen again. Fare well – I still wish you to eat, but not at my table’.
– If you can’t ‘let it go’ – how does ‘let it be’ feel, instead? We know we can’t change the past, so ‘letting it be’ can feel like a sane and rational tool for leaving something where it belongs and allowing yourself to move on.
– Consider these quotes: ‘Nobody who has ever tried to make me feel small has possessed a heart or a life I admire’. ‘Wow. Imagine being the kind of person who thinks that’s ok.’ ‘When people behave badly it’s almost always because they’re afraid of something.’ That fear may be nefarious indeed – a rampant ego’s fear of losing power, the punishment of a terrifying shadow (in the sense of Jungian psychology) – but it’s still fear.
– What need do you think a wrong-doer was trying to get met?
– What sort of heart and life do you wish to develop for yourself? How does forgiveness fit with that?
– What is not forgiving doing for you? Does it serve you in some way? Is there a deliciousness in your righteous indignation, an identity in your suffering? (It’s ok, we all do it!) Does it serve you, or hold you back?
– What does forgiving mean to you?
– How do you know when you’ve forgiven?
– What if you forgave yourself for not knowing what you didn’t know before you learned it?
– What if forgiveness starts with yourself?
