Real Forgiveness

“If we could read the secret history of those we would like to punish, we would find in each life enough grief and suffering to make us stop wishing anything more on them.”
            –Source Unknown   

I, like most people in our culture, grew up being told that forgiveness was very important; and yet, somehow nobody wanted to do it.  I don't recall anyone ever speaking of forgiveness willingly.  I was always told forgiveness was the right thing to do and yet it mostly occurred as an obligation or a chore.

Here's how forgiveness showed up for me, and let's see if it fits what you were taught.  It goes a little something like this:  Somebody does something mean, unloving, hurtful, or unkind, and then they were supposed to say sorry. When/if that ever happened, I then had to bestow upon them the magical gift of forgiveness, which really just meant that I still didn't like what they did, but I would let it go for the time being and make it okay so that they didn't have to feel quite so guilty about it.

Does that sound at all familiar?  Do you still cringe at the notion of 'having' to forgive somebody because your parents told you to?  Or do you tend to never really forgive people because what they did to you was inexcusable and therefore doesn't deserve forgiveness?  Wherever you currently are with your relationship to the process of forgiveness, I'd like to offer up a fresh perspective that might just allow you to finally make peace with the 'wrong doings' of the past.  It might just free up a whole lot of energy that you can redirect toward creating a life that would make you go 'Wow!'

The following ideas about forgiveness are largely adaptations from the book A Course In Miracles (ACIM for short), which is one of my greatest sources of inspiration.

Lets start by taking a look at what real forgiveness actually is. To forgive someone isn't to make a wrong into a right, or make something okay which you don't really believe was okay.  Real forgiveness is actually acknowledging that there was never any wrong doing in the first place.  Real forgiveness is seeing your brothers and sisters for who they really are; divine, spiritual, and valuable beings.  Real forgiveness is looking upon a situation and seeing the truth; and the truth is that no matter how seemingly violent or hurtful the act may have appeared, it had nothing to do with you and everything to do with fear in the other person's heart and mind.  Real forgiveness is the ability to separate human beings, from their behaviors, because believe it or not, we aren't what we do.

We all have an innate value as humans that can't be taken away.  It's part of the design.  Just by being alive, we have that fundamental and essential value and the sooner you are able to see it in both your fellow humans and yourself, the sooner you will experience more love and peace in your experience of the world.

To illustrate this, imagine that we're taking a field trip into the maternity ward of a hospital.  We are going to visit the big room where they keep all of the babies.  As we stand outside the room looking through the big glass window, I'll ask you to choose which one of those babies is worth the most, and which ones are worth the least?  If you're like most people, you won't be able to sensibly answer that question.  Those babies have value simply by existing and guess what, so do you and so do the people who you think have wronged you throughout the years.

Let me make a quick distinction before moving on.  It is important to note that if you are in a potentially physically dangerous or abusive situation, forgiveness doesn't mean stay in that circumstance and take it because the other person doesn't really mean it.  Real forgiveness would say, you can love them from a distance.  Acknowledging that someone elses behavior has nothing to do with you and is everything to do with their own inner pain, doesn't mean you have to continue to be their punching bag, literally or metaphorically.

Okay, now that that is cleared up, I'm going to make a case for real forgiveness.  Forgiving and releasing the past is an incredibly useful and practical thing to do.  Contrary to popular belief, forgiveness is more an act of self-care than it is letting somebody off the hook.  So go back to the last time you were really resentful toward someone, and now I want you to remember what it felt like in your body.  It's really uncomfortable isn't it?  Even painful at times.  Now, think about what you feeling really bad in your own mind and body is doing to the other person?  Nothing!  It's doing absolutely nothing... unless they decide to feel bad because you are upset.  But guess what, that is completely up to them.  In other words, you get to definitely feel bad in an attempt to make them feel bad, which may or may not work.  Never mind the fallacy that influencing others to feel guilty is serving you in some way.  Forgiveness is then and incredible act of self-care.

Let's take a look at this whole idea of using our own hurt and resentment as a weapon against others.  My first question is, do you want to suffer? Take a second to be really honest with yourself.  My next question is do you really want anyone else to suffer?  I mean honestly, for what purpose?  Punishment?  Revenge?  Satisfaction?  Learning a lesson? To change a habit?  These are some common answers to that question, and yet, have you ever stopped to think about if it actually works?  My experience is that it doesn't work to get us what we want.  And this is only relevant if you answered yes to my first question. People only are willing to suffer if they think it will get them what they want. If you just keep asking yourself what you really want, eventually you'll come to some version of peace and love and connection, both with others and inside yourself.  When you get to that place, you'll realize that using your own pain and suffering as a weapon won't get you what you really want, ever.  All you have to do is give yourself permission to let it all go, and with that permission, forgiveness comes swiftly.

By the way, all of these reasons for forgiving others, are equally if not more important when it comes to forgiving yourself.  So if you are bullying yourself with guilt, you needn't do that either.

When you take the time to forgive yourself and others and see the truth of who you and they are, you get to experience incredible freedom and peace.  All of that energy that was tied up in the past, can now be put toward your creativity, communications, and passions.

If you are up for practicing forgiveness, the question becomes how do I do it?  Well forgiveness is pretty simple because it has everything to do with how we are choosing to see the world and nothing to do with our actions.  Here's a simple process that will have you on your way to leading a life of forgiveness and ultimately joy.

Forgiveness Process:

1. Make sure you have your own permission to forgive yourself or another. Without permission you won't be able to reach a state of forgiveness
2. Look for the truth in the actions or words spoken by the other person.  If it was unkind or unloving, recognize that it had nothing to do with you, and everything to do with their own fearful and insecure thinking.  Does it make sense to kick somebody who is afraid?  When you can see their fear, that allows you to see more clearly their essence which is the next step.
3. Next make a choice to see them for who they really are instead of who they think they are.  This can take some practice, so make a practice of seeing people as their spiritual essence, and not their actions which can sometimes be fear and ego based.  Imagine everyone is doing the best they know how to move away from pain and toward love; it's just that what some people have learned as strategies are pretty screwy 
4. Finally make a declaration that you forgive them because you want to experience peace and deep down, you want them to experience peace.  

I'll end this article with an account of love and forgiveness in the most extreme of circumstances:

 "In Warsaw, in 1939, a man watched as the Nazis machine-gunned hundreds of jews, including his wife, two daughters, and three sons.  “'I had to decide right then whether to let myself hate the soldiers who had done this. It was an easy decision, really. I was a lawyer. In my practice I had seen too often what hate could do to people's minds and bodies. Hate had just killed the six people who mattered most to me in the world. I decided then that I would spend the rest of my life–whether it was a few days or many years–loving every person I came in contact with.'” –George G. Ritchie, Return from Tomorrow, pp. 115-116

Love and Light,
Tyler