I don’t REALLY know much about forgiveness. I understand how Webster’s dictionary defines it, “to cease to feel resentment against an offender.” For me, practicing forgiveness is something like looking at abstract art. I stare at the painting for hours, contemplate it in my mind, balancing intellectual and emotional, but never truly realize the essence of what it is conveyed.
To live forgiveness, to include it my everyday life is something I’ve reflected upon, understanding why it is important, this idea of letting resentment go, but it is just that, an abstract concept I view as something that is unattainable. My ambivalence toward forgiveness becomes more frustrating when I hear of a mother forgiving her child’s murderer or Nelson Mandela’s ability to forgive his captors after years of imprisonment. To confess, I’ve never experienced the gravity of these kind of wrongs. But I am captivated and astounded as to how people can forgive, even when they are not expected to express a sliver of kindness against the offender. How do they do it? How CAN they do it?
I come to the same conclusion. I really don’t understand forgiveness. In my own life, there are instances, when conflicts left me angry and hurt, but looking for a pathway into forgiveness wasn’t my first or final thought. I buried myself in the exact opposite emotion. The hurt would tumble in my mind, resulting in tears and resentment. Questions of why’s and how’s and all the what if’s abound, but I am unable to look to a solution, I sift through all the components of my hurt.
Ultimately, intellectually I realize this thinking is fruitless. The negative feelings eventually build and although it is a very repeated cliche, forgiveness is the only true way to experience release of hurt. By talking about it in this space, part of me wants to announce my fear, that I don’t want to come to forgiveness when it is too late. It is something I’d like to embrace right now, but again, how to do so challenges me.
I know there is a direct relationship between forgiveness and letting go. Until forgiveness is something that is as vital to me as breathing, I will be unable to let go. And I know to seek a way of peace it is crucial to let go. But it is more complicated than that. I believe you must forgive yourself first, for all of your inconsistencies, mistakes, insecurities, knowing that you are not perfect, and others are just as malleable and human as you.
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Do you practice forgiveness? What is your relationship with forgiveness? Is forgiveness attainable? Why or why not? Are your ideas of forgiveness connected with your faith?
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Welcome! I am a lawyer turned freelance writer, essayist, and editor. On staff at Literary Mama and the co-founder and co-editor of the literary journal, The Sunlight Press, my essays and reported work have appeared in The Washington Post, The Lily, Saveur, Civil Eats, Brain, Child, ESPN and elsewhere. I am currently at work on a memoir on grief and culture and how it provides perspective on life’s ordinary graces. I invite you to appreciate the ordinary with me. I hope my daily practice of seeing the magic in the mundane helps you celebrate and find more of these moments in your life too.
I’ve found some things, especially if the wrong was against me alone, easier to forgive than others. When people I love have been hurt, really hurt, I struggle. And even when I decide to forgive, sometimes it takes time. One time it took almost a year for me to forgive the exceedingly grievous behavior of someone close to me. It wasn’t that I refused to forgive them; in my heart I forgave them immediately. It’s just that I had to work on what that looked like, day after day, until I actually felt peace replace the anger. Sorry – I know this is a tangled ramble. Learning forgiveness is an ongoing thing for me!
I am not sure if there is a complete surrender of the hurt and anger, certainly if never happens that easily, all at once for me. Forgiveness to me is a process. It is rethinking. It is choosing to put the anger down. Even though it may come up again. I choose again. Not for them. For me. My anger hurts me only.
And just because I forgive, doesn’t mean I open myself back up to the same wrong from the same person again. I’m not a forgive and forget person.
Well said! For those looking for more on this issue I highly recommend Leo Tolstoy’s The Kingdom of God is Within You. This book was highly influential on the thinking of Gandhi
Becoming a mother has meant learning a totally new way of forgiveness, something I never did get the hang of. With a young child you have to learn that (most of the time) nothing is personal or meant maliciously, a tantrum is a tantrum and when over and done life for your child is as if it never happened. So you learn to not take it all personally.
But in every other sense and every other connection I have not changed at all. Small slights sure, I let them blow over me. Major things that hurt me I cannot simply forgive and forget.
I had an extremely hard time with forgiveness for most of my life. A lot of it stemmed from being raised in a culture that equated forgiving with condoning. Growing up, if you forgave a person for their behavior, then you were saying the behavior was okay. It was always us versus them.
A few years ago I was forced to re-examine what it meant for me – personally – to forgive, what barriers kept me from forgiving, and what effect the refusal to forgive had on my life. The book ‘The Four Agreements’ was crucial to my new understanding of what it means to forgive.
It’s still not easy, but I’ve learned that – for me – once I dissect the anger and disappointment, I can feel and process the hurt. And that allows me to move on stronger and wiser.
For me, my faith is my link to forgiveness. I believe God has forgiven me for everything I’ve ever done wrong and that His son paid the ultimate price for that. It’s not always easy to forgive, but thinking of that concept definitely puts it into perspective. When I think of how Christ sacrificed himself for me to obtain forgiveness, I should be able to do the same for someone who has wronged me in any way.
I eventually decide that something is not worth my time and energy to be angry about anymore and I forget it. Forgive, though? I don’t think I do that. It’s more that I just … come to that mental place where I need and want to release the negative emotions.
If it were something truly terrible, though, I might find a way to live through it, but I would never forgive. And I don’t think I’d want to. Like Kelly said, it would be too much like condoning whatever had happened.
I teeter on the line between forgiveness and not allowing myself to be hurt all over again. I feel I can forgive, quite easily. In fact, I often forget very easily as well. My trouble is with letting myself be vulnerable again – I equate forgiveness with being the doormat that I tend to be.
I suppose I learned forgiveness as a practice through faith, but I practice it through my own core of compassion and spirit. Forgiveness is different for everyone, and it truly involves the deepness of the hurt, level of compassion one has, and sometimes it has everything to do with one’s faith. Whatever the motivation is, forgiveness is healing for all involved. I think that possibly when the offense is extreme, that it might be necessary to forgive to move on and truly live your life rather than just going through the motions…don’t know this first hand; I’m only guessing.
I’m with CK, if it’s just me, it’s easier for me to forgive. I still think it’s hard to truly, truly forgive.
Forgiveness is something that I do for my own happiness. My mother once told me that failing to forgive someone is like taking poison and hoping that the other person dies.
I forgave my ex for attempting infidelity and eventually leaving our marriage because deep inside I realized that it wasn’t about me but was instead about his own suffering. So I felt compassion. I understand what Kelly means about condoning and I certainly don’t think his behavior was ideal. But I also know that be holding onto resentment, I am the one who suffers. Interestingly enough I am much happier since our split and he is not, largely because he hasn’t forgiven himself.
You know, I could forgive someone who hurt me, but if they hurt one of my kids? I don’t think I’m a big enough person.
I honestly don’t recall the last time I’ve had to forgive anyone aside from myself. In order for me to activate my sense of forgiveness, I have to feel slighted, or cheated or disrespected. To feel I’ve been intentionally treated poorly. I haven’t felt that way in a really long time. If anything, I tend to chalk something up to someone’s lack of savvy, rather than a personal attack. It’s possible I’m oblivious to other people’s hurtful intentions, but maybe that’s not a bad thing.
Forgive your enemies but remember their names and addresses. That’s my philosophy. Stewing about stuff is counter productive. While you miserably stew, the perpetrator has usually gone merrily skippity do dah-ing off into the way blue yonder having totally forgotten the wrong that they have done.
I’ve only drawn these conclusions through the passage of time and I think that ties in with your last sentence. For me, age brought self-acceptance (it was long overdue) and yes, that realisation that we all have feet of clay. It’s easier to forgive when you realise that all people are basically flawed and all struggling in various ways to live a happy and peaceful life.
All that being said, if a member of my family was physically attacked, raped or murdered, I fear I’d find it impossible to just move on.
When it comes to forgiveness, the first thing that pops into my mind is my relationship with my father. I want to be able to forgive him so that I could move on but when I look back at our past and all that he has done, I find that forgiving him would conveniently erase all of the hurt and pain he had caused.
Besides, forgiving would also mean accepting him back in my life. I’m just not there yet.
I am capable of forgiveness – I have done it many times – but in this situation, it’s not the capability that hinders me. It’s my desire. For now, I have none.
I’m with you Justine. No desire to forgive certain scenarios.
Well, this is timely – given my post this morning.
I’m with you on much of what you express, Rudri. Though I am at odds with the generalized position much in mode that we must all forgive in order to let go, that we must forgive for our own mental (and physical and spiritual) health, etc. etc.
Frankly, I strongly disagree.
I believe forgiveness is far more complex, with many layers and levels, and it is appropriate and helpful (for all parties involved) depending on circumstances. But blanket forgiveness? Hell, no.
Forgive anyone who does harm to a child? Never.
Forgive the perpetrators of genocide? Never.
Forgive the people behind corporations that knowingly poison resources and make others ill? Absolutely not.
Bringing things to a more focused (and sadly, commonplace) point – forgive an ex who manipulates a child, who doesn’t pay proper support, who causes havoc for years on those around him?
Again, no.
Those who maliciously and intentionally do harm, with no genuine remorse or attempt to remedy will never have my forgiveness. Period. To me, that is not only nonsensical, but it is to indirectly reward wrong-doing.
Letting go of anger is a different matter. These are separate issues, and our Instant Cure Culture wishes to gloss over the complexities and heap them together. Again, ridiculous.
Letting go of anger has to do with acceptance of what we cannot change, the perspective of additional information, and certainly, time. Some degree of forgiveness may or may not be involved. There is no one to one correspondence, nor is forgiveness a pre-requisite to releasing anger.
I’ll go one step further and say that anger is potent fuel for initiating change. It is not simply “bad” or even unhealthy.
So, in light of my opinions on the matter, I wonder if you would revisit this:
. . . forgiveness is the only true way to experience release of hurt.
Are you sure? Or is it what pop psychology is telling us all is the case?
(Thought-provoking stuff, Rudri. And in a way, related to my post today, the way we “refashion” ourselves in our own mind, to better live with the mistakes of our past.)
Hi Rudri,
I am so glad you came to the WWW Nite and we shared book titles. A book I forgot to mention (suggested by one of the agents) is Shutter Island. I just bought it on Kindle.
Now on to forgiveness…well, an adage says “time heals all wounds,” and I think there is a lot of truth in those simple little words. Sometimes what is monumental in the moment, fades with time as life moves along – so forgiveness has not been a the bane of my existence. The pain of an oversight, comment or thoughtless gesture, usually loses its painful momentum for me as time passes. A second thought is probably related to my religious beliefs, but there is great truth in this perspective as well. I know I have committed thoughtless acts, passed judgments, and made comments I would like to have retracted and I would hope others would forgive me. If I ask others to forgive, it only seems reasonable that I might return the consideration. Thanks for the provocation this evening, dear friend.
See you next week.
Trish
I confess that I’m not very good at it. I have trouble setting aside strong feelings. I can move beyond them on my own, but I don’t think I’m good at forgiving. If that makes any sense. It’s something I would like to work on in myself.
It’s God who helps us forgive. When you have Christ in your heart and knowing what He did to sacrafice makes it easy to forgive and love your enemy. However, forgiveness doesn’t always mean reconciliation. It means you have put the burden on God’s lap and walked away completely. Forgiveness isn’t instantanious. It takes time. It’s a process. Carol Kent wrote a book called, “Between A Rock And A Hard Place.” In it, she describes a woman who forgave her mother’s murderer. The murderer came to know Christ and turned his life around in prison. They have been corresponding ever since.
Anger is a poison. If you are angry at someone else it doesn’t affect your enemy at all. He doesn’t carry the burden of your anger and continues on with his life either aware or unaware of the hurt he caused. The anger you feel CAN affect your health, your life, your choices. It’s a dead end and causes bitterness and distrust. Instead of opening your heart to love others, you cease to open your heart and transfer that anger to people who don’t deserve it. Meanwhile, the man or woman that you are angry at continues to live. Then, you continue to feel angry at the person, wishing bad on him or her, and feeling resentful because good things are happening to that person.
I see it all the time. I’ve felt it. I’ve lived it. Anger has no place in my life. I don’t like who I am when I am angry. I don’t like how I treat others when I am angry (even if they deserve it). I see people who hold onto grudges for years and I see how it changes them into this dark person instead of the nice person they used to be who used to love so openly.
I’ve seen how anger affects their relationship with God, with others, and with their relationship with church. Instead of setting down roots, they run when someone offends them instead of staying and working it out. Instead of seeing how God can work great things by staying. There are times when one must leave, of course, but sometimes a person uses it as an excuse to run because they are afraid to care. The person they care about might hurt them and so they prefer to leave rather than set down roots.
So you see…forgiveness is neccessary, but it’s not quick. I learned by trusting God and by choosing to recall good memories. I choose to pray for them. I choose to rejoice with them when good things happen. At first, you’re gritting your teeth. Then, you are sincere.
There is a chapter on this topic in the book I gave you today! Please let me know what you think….