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.