Are We Supposed to Forgive and What Even IS Forgiveness? Some Thoughts As We Head Into the Holiday Season

A few years ago, when I was not yet, but almost divorced, I went to coffee with a minister friend and asked him about forgiveness.  I wanted to know if some things are unforgivable and what does Christianity say about forgiveness that I might not know.  I knew I was far from forgiveness and I wanted to know what his thoughts were about how I might get there or if I even should strive for that.  I said, "I think God is big enough to forgive, but I don't think I am.  I will leave it to God."

I think he had higher hopes for me than that.  My minister friend confirmed one part of the Christian perspective I knew already, but he also helped me with a nuance I hadn't put together.   The thing that I knew was that it would be, from his Christian theology, part of my spiritual work to try to forgive.  But here's the part I hadn't considered exactly -  he assured me that there was a huge difference between forgiveness and reconciliation and that God did not ask for me to make a reconciliation of any kind, including friendship.  That distinction between reconciliation and forgiveness was significant to me.

As we all have begun the holiday season and will be spending time with family, and as I work with clients at this time of year, I realize forgiveness may not be the first word that we think of, but it might be tapping at us from the corners of our minds and hearts more than usual.  The holidays bring us to our younger selves, old patterns, in the middle of long-term family dynamics, grief, and changes from the past year or many years before.  They can bring us face to face with our unfinished business and unresolved anger and hurts revisit us.

So...forgiveness.

I've read books about forgiveness, I've looked up articles about forgiveness in individual lives, community lives, and even in the history of nations.  I read about people who have endured much - Nelson Mandela, Elie Wiesel, Malala.

A lot of people I know are working on forgiveness in one form or another.  I've heard the saying, and I'm sure you have too (I think this is attributed to the Dalai Llama) - that to hold anger and to NOT forgive is like drinking poison and hoping the other guy will die.  At some level we know that when we hold our grudges, our bitterness, our deep hurts, we are not only living in the past, but we punish ourselves from fully enjoying our present.

But I also suspect that our words for what we are trying to do are inadequate - I believe there are different sorts of transgressions and different sorts of forgiveness.  A friend who doesn't invite you to a holiday party would require a much different sort of action to forgive than the forgiveness that someone might work toward if they'd been sexually abused by their uncle.  I worked with a woman who'd been robbed at gunpoint and beaten - she found that she was able to forgive in her own way.  She said the biggest thing she learned as she worked on the trauma of that assault was that it wasn't personal.

This is an important and confusing point, but here's an illustration:

One morning in college I was out 'speed walking' the Loop around campus.  It was just before a big football game and our opposing team was waking up to tailgate.  I was zooming around, probably sporting a sorority t-shirt with my walkman on, when a car brandishing the flag from the opposing team drove by and some male voices screamed at me, "You walk like you're retarded!"  I remember this was stinging and embarrasing.  But those guys did not personally dislike me.  It wasn't personal.  I was around and got in the way of their shit.  Whatever their shit was - gender, alcohol, competition.  Who knows.  It's a paradox - it happened to me, but it wasn't about me.

This is the way that many of our experiences are that might call us to forgive.  We are the recipient of mistreatment, but it isn't because we deserve it or asked for it.  We are not personally responsible for it, even though many of us somehow want to think we are.

If you are considering where forgiveness fits in your life, here are some things I've found are important to think about:

1.  What sort of wrong was done?
2.  Is it part of a pattern?
3.  Do you believe the person you might want to forgive has your best interest at heart?
4.  Do you believe the person you might want to forgive is trustworthy - which is to say, do their words and actions match AND do they demonstrate that integrity in a consistent way over a period of time?
5.  Do you feel stuck in anger, resentment, or in the past in general?
6.  What would it mean to forgive that person, but not have a relationship with them going forward?

Forgiveness is a tough mother - I see it as an action and not a stagnant state that we reach and stay there.  I am pretty sure we have to work for it, rather than wake up one day, Buddha-like, in a peaceful and forgiving state.  I understand a lot of the human experience and human nature, but I understand anger much more than I understand forgiveness.

And, you might be surprised to know that I don't think forgiveness is always the right thing to do right now (and I hope my minister friend will bear with me while I talk this through).  There is a gem near the end of the book Codependent No More by Melodie Beattie and she does a beautiful job of reflecting the trouble with forgiveness for some people,

"Compulsive disorders such as alcoholism twist and distort many good things, including the great principle of forgiveness.  We repeatedly forgive the same people.  We hear promises, we believe lies, and we try to forgive some more...Then we feel guilty because someone asks, 'Why can't you just forgive and forget?' ...For many of us, the problem is not forgetting.  Forgiving and forgetting feed our denial system.  We need to think about, remember, understand, and make good decisions about what we are forgiving, what can be forgotten, and what is still a problem....I believe we need to be gentle, loving, and forgiving with ourselves before we can expect to forgive others."

So maybe we need to look at what brings us into balance.  I know people who, on a daily basis, tend to feed the anger in their hearts and tend to have more rigid boundaries - maybe for those people, working steadily on forgiveness and openness helps to bring them into balance.  For others of us who have tended to forgive and forget quickly, we would be more wise to keep Melodie Beattie's advice top of mind and slow down our forgiveness process.

But if we think we need to forgive, if we are stuck in past bitterness or just the past.  If we are closed to people we would like to be open to, then the question changes-  how do I forgive?  What do I do to make that happen, what would that look like and feel like inside me?  How will I know if I've forgiven?

One guy I know whose ex-wife cheated on him years ago says, "I don't forgive her.  But I don't think about her either.  She is not part of my day to day life and thinking.  But I also don't forgive her." He's gone on to remarry and has a very happy life.  I wonder if it's just semantics, then.  If he's moved on and enjoys his life fully and doesn't chew to cud of the past, perhaps this is at least some form of forgiveness even if he doesn't call it that?

Yet, I suspect that many of us have a feeling that forgiveness is a spiritual process and a mysterious one.  If there are different types of forgiveness, that's the one that I'd like to know more about.  I wish I could tell you that I have a formula or that my conversation with my minister friend led to a revelation for me, but I continue to take little bites out of understanding and experiencing forgiveness as my life goes along too.

Here are some more bits I know about this deeper sort of forgiveness:

As time goes on, it's important to honestly check in with yourself.  I believe that anger and bitterness can become a knee jerk reaction.  Maybe somebody brings up your old best friend from college and you automatically think, "that bitch."  Well, that's a habit and maybe you don't even feel that way anymore.  Check in with yourself about how you really feel, NOW.  Not how you felt in 2001.

First, forgive yourself if you need to.  Like Melodie Beattie says, before you can extend a loving heart to someone else, especially someone who causes you pain, extend that to yourself.  There will be time to forgive, whatever that means to you, but be good to yourself.

Know your intention and purposefully choose it.  I know a woman whose child was murdered.  She said that she knew she had to work hard and make choices to not be a bitter, unhappy person for the rest of her life.  I admire her very much, and believe that she is wise.  If we set a goal of not letting bitterness overtake us, we will naturally make choices toward some form of forgiveness, whether that is forgiving ourselves or the universe or, if we choose, the person who hurt us.

Pay attention to how you feel when you think about the person who hurt you - do you feel loose and relaxed or does your heart tighten and stomach clench.  Sometimes forgiveness is the feeling in your body that the person or memory of the person no longer has a hold over you.  If that's the case, let it go.  Maybe say a prayer, if that's your thing, that the person will not go on to hurt others and that you will continue to feel strong and free.

And that's it - that's all I've got for now on forgiveness.  What I know, what I am working on. 

Freedom from Fear: The Myth of Safety and How to Talk with Our Kids about It

We woke up yesterday morning to the news of another mass shooting.  I know many friends and fellow parents who feel at a loss and also outraged as to how to explain this world of violence, hate, and death to their kids (not to mention to understand it themselves).   Anyone who knows me, including my clients, knows that I would never presume to tell you how to respond or feel, but I am going to give you my perspective on how I think we become helpers and not hurters and how we can empower our kids, and hopefully reduce their fears.

I think we need to consider that we are the ones that are mistaken about the world.  What I mean is this - throughout history - every ancient religion, including Judeo-Christianity, explains our human experience through myth.  And every culture has a myth about the entrance of bad stuff into the world.  Whether it's Adam and Eve or Pandora or Australian Aboriginese, the people who came before us were given stories about the plague of death, evil, violence, hate and greed on humanity.  There may be caveats of hope, but mostly the stories affirm that bad things are abundant.  

Yet, we live in a relatively luxurious time now.   Many of us grew up in a place where death and disease seemed far away and murder and violence seemed like someone else's problem.   We have forgotten the stories that informed the many generations of people who came before us.  

Working in hospice I grew to have a different perspective.  I've known many, many people who have died.  When I began writing about my work in hospice, I tried to estimate how many patients I had from January 2004 through May 2010  and I figured it was around 1000.  And of course, like all of us, people I love have also died.  Loss and suffering did not seem far away.  So in terms of both physical and emotional safety, I've probably have to un-myth myself more than many people.  I even have a psychologist friend who says, "I don't even like to think about your job."  

We know loss and all it's causes are frightening for us, but other layers of fear and anxiety are added when we consider (or are forced to) talk with our kids about them.  And there's a lot to talk about:  School shootings and intruder drills and climate change and natural disaster.  Divorce and cancer and addiction.  Bullies and racism and rape. 

We long to protect our children from fear, to create their little world and maintain it for as long as possible - where everything is safe and kind and fair.  So when it comes to talking with our kids about the scary things in life, many times we don't know what to say. 

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When my daughter was three years old, a dear family friend was dying in the hospital after a long illness and I wanted to say goodbye.  I knew that he did not have long and it was important to see him.  My son was at preschool, but I did not have anyone available to take care of her.  I took her to the hospital with me.

I remember taking the elevator to his room.  I held her in my arms and I said, "We are going to see my friend, who is very sick and doesn't have long to live.  He will look strange.  There are special machines helping him breathe and the machines are noisy.  He is very skinny.  He will not be able to talk.  We will have to be very quiet and we won't stay very long, but I want to  say 'goodbye' to him."

Almost 10 years later, my daughter doesn't remember anything of this.  I know many parents may not have made this choice, and I myself felt a bit uncertain.

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Both the desire to live in a world with a freedom from fear and create that space for not only our kids, but future generations is a beautiful and generous human urge, but I suspect we accidentally create more fear when we protect our kids too much or for too long.  Like my daughter going with me to see my dying friend, we seem to cope better, be less afraid, and have a greater sense of our own autonomy, when we have information, or we make sure our myths have a healthy dose of truth.

I included a painting by Norman Rockwell from the 1940s, called Freedom from Fear at the beginning of this post.  He paints an alluring picture of what Freedom from Fear might look like - he was part of creating an American myth.  And as I mentionted earlier, myths are influential and living stories that shape much - from our countries to our families.  Think about the family you came from or the family you have created - there is a story or a myth you've been a part of forming or buying into.  You might have the big, chaotic family where everyone is welcome and it's always a mess.  You might be in the party family.  You might be shy to admit it, but when forced, you have the perfect family where everyone is attractive and high achieving.  You might be from the do-gooder family or the farm family or the camping family.

Myths are an important part of identity, but my first thought about cultivating resilience is to combine myth with a little Midwester Matter of Fact-ness .  It's quite unpoetic, but part of the family myth I perpetuate in my home is "Shit happens."  Really, what I want my kids to know is the Truth as I see it...Things don't always go our way.  Sometimes we have good luck and sometimes we have bad luck.  Sometimes things aren't fair, but we keep trying anyway. 

The problem with certain kinds of myths is that they are very dramatic and they don't allow room for change and variation (which, as the Buddhists will tell us is the one things we can count on in life).  So, the way I tell stories, including discuss the news, in my family is pretty mundane and matter of fact.  The words I use are calm.  Here are some underlying messages in the way I give information to my kids:

While bad things can happen, mostly good things happen.  When bad things happen, you can choose how to respond to that.  You can choose what kind of person you want to be.  Adults have struggles and are imperfect.  We ask for help when problems seem too big.  We help other people when we have extra to give. How things look on the outside is not always how they are on the inside. I have found that God strengthens me in hard times.

I don't rage about Donald Trump, even though I believe the tone and tenor he sets for our country are extremely damaging and perhaps dangerous.  I don't 'go off' about gun control, even though I believe strongly that we need more common sense gun laws.

Please don't get the impression that I am the picture of calm. Weirdly, the little things can throw me in a tizzy.   A kid falling off his bike on the way to school or the dog getting diarrhea can elicit tears from me at times.  And when people in my life die,  I've really cried about that in places where my kids have seen and heard.  As parents, we don't need to show NO emotion, but the story that might empower our kids is to hear us articulate  the difference between anxiety and truth or grief and self-pity.

Part of our job as parents is to keep figuring out who we really are (rather than perpetuate a myth) and reflecting to our kids who they are and who they are growing into. 

As life happens and we respond, our stories and myths about ourselves may grow and change, and if we are open to it, that will strengthen our foundation.

I think about a man I know whose wife cheated on him.  He said, "I always thought I was the kind of person that if my wife cheated on me, that would be IT.  I wouldn't try to reconcile.  But I did try to reconcile until it became clear that the marriage was really over for her."  He went on to say, "I always thought I was the kind of person who would be strong in a very bad situation.  And I was very strong.  I didn't let this throw me into depression or self-doubt.  It's good to know that I am strong in the ways I always thought I was."

For this man, as for so many of us, having awful experiences in life, gives us new insights that strengthen our foundation as a person, because we find out A)  I can endure and thrive after a really hard thing and B) I have evidence of how I respond under duress.   One part of our deep fears is the unconscious thought, "I don't think I could handle x, y, or z."  A silver lining at times, of surviving hard times is an increased confidence, a deep knowing -  "I can handle things." 

In a way, we really don't want NO bad luck or misfortune ever to come into our kids' lives.  Well, in some kind of ideal utopia, then yes, we want no misfortune for our children - but in the real world we live in - the one where Pandora's Box is open, some misfortune can help them test and know WHO THEY ARE.  This sense of inner strength and fortitude will not keep them from fear, but will be a foundation to respond to and thrive after frightening times, because it is based on experience, not myth.

If we are really LIVING our lives, there is no safety.  The reason for this, is that when we really live, we LOVE.  We love people, we love animals, we love this beautiful planet.  When we are open to love and loving, the great danger and truth is that sometimes we will lose.  But we keep loving anyway.   That is not a myth.  Love is the truth that does not erase fear, but is the balm and the strength and the promise to our children.