Forgiveness

To begin with

Why is it so hard to forgive? Why is it so hard for us to just let go? Why do we allow pasty grievances to torment us for years after something bad happened to us?

We might still nurture these horrible feelings since we might still cling onto the misconception that we are doing someone else a favour by forgiving them. We are living with the misconception that we think that they are in the power seat by us forgiving them. We are feeling that our sense of what is right or just, is being assaulted. We feel we have the right to return the hurt, to hit back – called the lex talonis (law of retaliation). Retaliation and hatred are seen as the way to make the hurt feelings better.

There is also the view to be the lesser and simply to forgive and to let go. By simply forgiving you are making a shift in your rational mind but your feelings that cannot reason, are still hurting and just do not go away. Forgiveness is not just a simple act of putting something behind you, to free the other and to just let it go.

Forgiveness is the most selfish thing you can ever do. These profound words come, as far as I could research, from a cardiologist, Dr. Dean Ornish.

If you can’t forgive, you are the one hurting yourself the most, because you are the only one that is struggling with all the negative thoughts, the pain, anger, bitterness, shame, hurt, guilt, blame, psychological and subsequent medical problems. You are the one who feels like a victim. Hate is actually an act where you are consciously placing someone else in charge of your life, allowing them to impact your feelings negatively. By not being able to let go, you are putting that person in charge of your life, since you are still experiencing feelings of anger.

The irony is that you believe that the person is in charge of your life and feelings. Most of the people you are angry with, do not even know that you are angry with them. They do not even know they’ve hurt you. They did what they thought was good at the time. They have probably responded to their own pain and sense of survival.

Confucius once said: If you devote your life to seeking revenge, first dig two graves.

Forgiveness is a choice. It is not something you can just let go. It’s also not about the fact that the person was worth your forgiveness or not. Forgiveness is primarily about reclaiming control and ultimately setting yourself free.

How we were raised

I grew up in a Christian tradition where we should be the meek, turn the other cheek and forgive. Forgiveness is seen as a single act where you say: I forgive you and everything is over and done with and you should not feel anger anymore. As far as I could determine, most religions share the same values here as the Christian tradition, especially the Jewish and Muslim tradition. 

From a Christian perspective we have learned:

• not to allow an eye for an eye or a tooth for a tooth (Matthew 5:38);
• to live a life of gratitude. Jesus gave his life by dying on the cross for us, unconditionally;
• to turn the other cheek;
• not to be angry and not to take revenge. Vengeance belongs to me; I will repay, says the Lord;
• you have to respond in a loving, respectable and graceful way to any form of abuse, even if it is in contrast with our nature of fight-and-flight;
• God forgives you unconditionally and so you must forgive your fellow man, unconditionally. If you do not forgive unconditionally, God cannot forgive you (Matthew 6: 14-15 and Mark 11: 25-26);
• the Bible is full of stories where forgiveness seemed so simple. Esau forgave Jacob’s betrayal (Gen. 33), Joseph forgave his brothers (Genesis 45 and 50), the prodigal son’s father took him back unconditionally (Luke 15). Paul advises the church of Corinth to forgive (2 Corinthians 2), Hosea repeatedly forgives his wife’s rejection and infidelity, Paul advises to bear others no matter what they do to them and urges them to forgive as God forgives them. The best example is where Jesus accepted his prosecution, assault and victimisation (1 Peter 2). Even on the cross, Jesus forgave his murderers (Luke 23:24);

The message we grew up with, is that if you cannot forgive, you also do not deserve to be forgiven.

The pain of these beliefs

When forgiveness denies you the right to be angry, forcing you to act as if injustice never happened, as if it never hurt, pretending everything is forgotten and okay, don’t trust it. It is not forgiveness. It is a mere fantasy.

Such thinking may cause many consequences on all levels of your life:

• Psychological consequences

You may start to experience bitterness, hate, regret, alcoholism, insomnia, resentment, low self-esteem, helplessness, mistrust and relationship problems amongst others.  You might develop stress as you might fear getting hurt or humiliated again, causing you to even develop anxiety and depression.

• Burnout

Research shows that anger and the associated bitterness, guilt feelings and resentment of anger is the number one cause of burnout.

• Cognitive functioning and memory

Your physical brain functioning may be affected by anger. People with suppressed anger often experience difficulty with concentration and memory. They are holding on to the anger to such an extent, consciously or subconsciously, without realising that it deviates your attention from that anger only on a conscious level.

• Physical diseases

Suppressing your emotions involves suppressing your immune system with the result that you can develop colitis and arthritis. You may develop high blood pressure (what is making your blood boil?), as well as heart disease. Your heart also represents the seat of your emotions and grief and can indeed lead to heart disease, a sore heart and thus a broken heart- literally. Cancer can also be caused by your body’s reduced immunity, self-mutilating habits, your system attacking itself for whatever reasons. Cancer is caused by suppressed feelings – as if cancer is eating away at you.

• Death

Murder can almost be seen as the ultimate failure in forgiving others and suicide is the ultimate failure in forgiving yourself. Read this again.

Forgiveness in reality

Is it sustainable to hold on to the thoughts and beliefs we grew up with? Is it possible to just forgive and move on just like that? Is it possible to just let go of your feelings of retribution? Is it possible to not feeling hurt? Is it wrong to feel angry? Is it okay to suppress your own feelings for the sake of forgiveness?

Getting angry is part of our nature. We all become angry from time to time. Even Jesus got angry when he burst into the temple, throwing around chairs and tables.  When we become angry our body start to produce a surge of adrenaline that enables you to fight or flee.

During prehistoric times, you could beat up someone with a stick or a rock and the danger or the anger would be over, or you could run away until you are out of danger. Today however, this is not possible and you can’t beat up your bank manager or run away from the Receiver with your brand-new running shoes in order to get away from it.  You have to handle it differently. You can run, but you can’t hide, yet adrenaline keeps on boiling inside of you.

Consider the following ideas:

• is forgiveness really as simple as just releasing and letting go as a result of your own concept of the Divine?

• are you allowed, just like Jesus himself to get angry and smash chairs and tables in the temple?

• don’t you allow yourself any feelings of right to self-pride? You just don’t feel that you are uniquely created with even a unique finger print no one on earth shares with you. Most people can do what you do, but no one can do it the way you do things;

• In Matthew 22:37, Jesus said: love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. The second is unto this: love your neighbour as yourself.

We have learned to think that we should love God (whatever your understanding of God) first, then our neighbour and finally ourselves. We have to love ourselves in the last place.  However, we forgot the word as. The word used for as in the original Greek, is the word homoios. This word implies that you must love yourself first before you can love your neighbour and therefore God. It does not imply self-love in an egotistical way, but true self-love as a valuable human being created with all that is needed for your calling on earth.

• Were you not created with everything you need to achieve your purpose here on earth? Sometimes it’s just hidden under the bushel;

• Are you feeling like a victim and not a survivor or a conqueror? The greatest lesson you can ever learn in life is that you are never a victim, but a survivor, since you always have choices. Even when it feels that you have no choices left, believe in yourself enough to create more options to deal with your situation;

• Do you realise how important you really are? The Universal Plan includes you too and this Plan cannot be fulfilled without you;

• Do you really have to turn the other cheek, in light of this context? Mathew 5: 38 says: if someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other cheek, be the lesser, gentle and without pride. I have to thank my reverent father for the following insight: when someone strikes you on the right cheek, that person (if we assume that people are normally right-handed) will slap you with a backhand. Fow a Jew, being slapped with a backhand, was a great humiliation. So, to turn the other cheek and let the person hit you in a proper manner. The Bible doesn’t tell you what you should do to that person in return!

• You might even find examples in the Bible or any other Holy Scriptures where certain characters, even holy characters like Jesus of Gandhi had experienced some of these processes. For Biblical figures, it was not always possible to simply suppress their anger. Jesus smashed the temple; Job cursed his birthday and Moses broke the Ten Commandments into pieces in anger and frustration.

Forgiveness is indeed a process instead of a single act.

The process of forgiveness

We now have an interesting dilemma. You may be angry. You are allowed to be proud. You may feel that you have been harmed. You may even want to retaliate. You are allowed retaliation, because you are allowed to feel pride. You may however, not harm your neighbour. You may want to cause hurt. You may do what you want to do and you may say what you want to say. You may want to get it out of your system, but does the other person really need to hear this, or do you need to hear it for yourself? If the other person hears it, will it necessarily change your feelings, especially if they are able to defend themselves on their own positive intentions?

Forgiveness is a process and not just a moment.

Therefore, the process of forgiveness entails the following:

• Acknowledge your feelings

Give yourself recognition about your feelings. Admit that you have been hurt, that you feel hurt, that your sense of self has been hurt, even that you think less of yourself. Admit to yourself that you have the right to feel the way you feel. Admit to yourself that your sense of humanity and rights were affected. Especially acknowledge to yourself that you are angry and that you have the right to be angry. Even if you feel that you were wronged by the world.

Realise that you are important, that your feelings count and that you have the right to be angry. You are part of a universal plan and just as important as anyone else.  You are part of the fulfilment of this plan.

Be brave and admit to yourself that you are feeling weak. Admit to yourself that you are hurting, that you have needs, that you are vulnerable, that you are feeling dependent and that you are also feeling scared.

• express your feelings clearly

you do not necessarily need the other person to hear how you are feeling, but you need to be able to vent your feelings in order to get them out of your system. You may want to:

–  write this person or persons a letter jotting down all your feelings. You can say whatever you want, even use every swearing word you know. You can just get all these feelings out of your system. Emotions flow as the ink is flowing. You really don’t even have to give the letter to the perpetrator. You can burn it in a bonfire should you wish.  You don’t need their reaction to your letter.  You might most probable not receive any response from them, or they will just defend themselves, or send out more accusations. Even if you do receive an apology, it just won’t make you feel better;

–  you may use your imagination to tell this person whatever you want. Tell this person in your imagination in no uncertain terms what you think and how you feel and keep in mind that swearing is one of the best relievers of stress, according to Mark Twain.

–  acknowledge to yourself that you are angry and your sense of what is right for you is affected, in whatever way you are experiencing it. You can tear up that person’s photos or you can assault your pillow while fantasising that it is the other person’s face. Whatever you need to do to get rid of your anger, is perfect since nobody is getting hurt in real life;

• acknowledge to yourself your feelings of weakness and vulnerability

Admit that you are feeling shocked, devastated or even broken. You can still bring that person to justice and challenge them to court to prevent it from happening to others, but that does not necessarily mean that you are feeling better about yourself or that you have forgiven them. Justice or vengeance is not forgiveness.

• realise your own issues

Allow this hurt to help you to become aware of your own issues and the growing opportunities hidden in this. You may ask yourself questions such as:

–  why is it upsetting me so much?

–  am I feeling that I have been wronged?

–  am I feeling like a victim? Do you feel that you were violated?

–  am I even feeling that I am not good enough or that my rights have been suppressed?

–  where is it coming from?

–  may it just be a reflection of my own issues?

–  am I an ingenious survivor who have always released myself from the shackles holding me back?

• Think in a new way

Once you realise that you’re an ingenious survivor, you can now start to change your way of thinking;

–  you might have become aware that you are much stronger than you thought you are, since you always have choices;

–  you can make a distinction between the person and their behaviour. The person’s behaviour at a specific time does not necessarily reflect who they are. There is a reason why that person acted the way they did at that specific moment;

–  more than often, you may notice their reaction is the result of their own issues, and it is not your problem;

–  there is no guarantee that this won’t happen again. You are however, a survivor and you can choose to react differently to feel like a survivor;

–  keep in mind that all behaviour has a positive intention, according to NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming) which you can find on my website. Even if that person’s behaviour is negative, there was still initially a positive intention;

–  keep in the back of your head that they did not experience enough choices at their disposal, due to their own feeling of a lack of choices;

–  they never had an intention of hurting you on purpose. They have their own pain and are just trying to protect themselves. They may not even be aware that they have hurt you, because of their own problems or issues;

–  you can only forgive someone else if you can forgive yourself first. Forgive yourself for feeling guilty and for all your feelings of powerlessness. Just as you have to love yourself before you can love others and God, you have to forgive yourself first before you can forgive others and even God (in whatever way you understand the concept of God);

–  only when you realise that you are created with everything you need to fulfil your unique purpose on earth, when you realise that you are good enough and unique;

–  you can open your ability to love once you realise that you are special and unique. To love is the greatest ability to feel in control of yourself.

The unwillingness to forgive is perhaps the most unforgivable!

The most important realisation, more important than anything else, is when you realise that you’re not a victim. You are now able to forgive your younger, less experienced and uninformed self and that you don’t have to judge your younger self with the superior knowledge and insight that you have today. Because you are older and wiser now, you now know better.  You have really grown as a person from this.

Gandhi once said: forgiveness is the attribute of the strong man. The weak man cannot forgive.

• Letting go

This is the point where you might be able to say: I forgive you. When you can do this, you can free yourself from the shackles you kept yourself chained in. This is the point where you can allow yourself to gain insight and meaning from this learning opportunity.

• Find meaning

Meaning is when you realise that what happened could have been good for you. Have you learned anything from the situation, what it means to you and how it can help you to become a better person.

What has happened is in the past and whatever will be just the way it is supposed to be. You live only in the here and now. The only time that exists is the now. The past is just a memory. The future is just a fantasy and the only time when you are really alive, is now!

When you look beyond your ego and pain, recognising an opportunity for growth, you begin to understand and view every action as a chance to learn even more. You can choose to feel like a victim, or you can choose to see it as an opportunity of growth.

It is all about liberation. That’s when you realise that you always have choices. You are free because of your choices. At this point you do not even have to say: I forgive you. You may find that forgiveness has now happened spontaneously.

• Address it

If you are still in a relationship with the person with whom you are angry with, you can – after you have expressed your feelings and your own issues – after you have developed new thoughts and after letting go and gained meaning from the experience, you can still address and calmly tell the other person:

–  how their actions made you feel;

–  realise that it might be your own issue;

–  that you let it go;

–  what it means to you and what it may mean to your relationship;

–  what growth it could mean for you and your relationship.

To end off with

Forgiveness is indeed the most selfish thing you can ever do. Not only do you save yourself from all kinds of negative emotions, but you can use forgiveness to your advantage to honestly face your own feelings of vulnerability.  This leads to realisation that you are merely human and this humbling fact helps you to start growing into a better person.

Now that you understand yourself better, you can become a better person and you contribute much more effectively towards your important role in the Universal Plan.

This is when you free yourself from emotional issues and physical illnesses. This is when you are free- truly free.

As Dr. Ornish said: just let go of your own suffering.

Realise how important you really are. Acknowledge your weaknesses as well as your strengths. You have a task and a purpose in life and you have received everything needed to make your contribution and to be of significance.

Take good care of yourself. Do the most selfish thing you can ever do and love yourself. Only then can you help other people and your relationships will grow.

You are more than a survivor.

That’s how we forgive.