Forgiveness
What is Forgiveness?
Adapted, with permission, from Dr. Fred Luskin's Book: Forgive for Good
Forgiveness brings you peace. It allows you to heal and and engenders lowered stress levels and improved physical health.
What forgiveness is :
- Forgiveness is for you and not the offender.
- Forgiveness is taking back your power.
- Forgiveness is taking responsibility for how you feel.
- Forgiveness allows you to heal from your hurt - it has nothing to do with the person who hurt you.
- Forgiveness is a learnable skill - like throwing a baseball.
What forgiveness is not:
- Forgiveness is not condoning unkindness.
- Forgiveness does not necessarily mean reconciling with the offender.
- Forgiveness doesn't mean minimizing your hurt and does not have to be a religious experience (or done for religious reasons).
It turns out forgiving is good for both your physical and emotional health.
A grievance occurs when something happens we don't want to have happen. Then we dwell on the event until it overshadows other aspects of our life.
When someone does something to hurt us (or neglects to do something we think they should have done) we naturally experience feel pain for some time. The problem becomes when we are focused on that pain for a long period of time. Part of forgiveness does not include getting the other person to see what they did was wrong or to apologize for it. If that were the case, most of us would carry our hurts to the grave. The guy who bangs my car door in the parking lot isn't ever coming back to turn himself in and express his sorrow over his misdeed. If my mother hasn't loved me in 45 years, it's unlikely she's going to wake up tomorrow and realize how wrong she's been. So, it's up to me to deal with the emotional pain that comes from these events or I will hurt forever. And the sad fact is that neither the guy in the parking lot, nor my mother - if she hasn't loved me for 45 years - is going to care if I hurt.
I can't stress enough that forgiving does not mean saying that what the other person did was "all right".
Another aspect of a grievance is that we take it too personally. In fact, most offenses are not committed with the intention of hurting us. It may have been a child who banged my door and his/her parent didn't realize it had happened. It's likely, if my mother couldn't love me, that she was never loved herself - and therefore does not know how to give love. How can I take that personally? Much of our hurt comes from not understanding the motivation, or background, of the offender. It still does not make their action right, but it's helpful to see that their action was not necessarily taken specifically to hurt us.
Forgiveness begins when we are able to acknowledge that we were hurt and identify the specific hurt. It continues when we can see an opportunity for a new story of forgiveness and healing (your healing) - instead of the story of how we were wronged.
Sometimes we use the pain we feel as the reason our life is not "turning out" the way we want. I might say that the result of having an unloving mother is that I am now an unloving mother myself. I might think it has ruined the possibility of ever having a happy relationship with a spouse or significant other. Having an unloving mother may indeed have influenced my behavior towards others, but the problem with laying all the blame on my mother is that I then have no power to make my life any better than it is. So an important part of forgiveness is taking back our power to create the good and happy life that is rightfully ours.
It is important to understand our hurt happened some time ago - often many months or years ago. And it most certainly was painful at the time it occurred. But is it still necessary to suffer now for something that happened in the distant past? This, of course, is not the case for something that happened yesterday, or even last week. We need some time to grieve and recover from a deep hurt. But hurting in the present for something that happened long ago is not necessary, and we can do something about how we feel now. It's worth repeating that we don't need the other person to do or give us something to help us to feel better - it is something we can do for ourselves.
Our natural reaction to pain is to flee or fight back. This is commonly referred to as the "fight or flight" response. This response is controlled by the sympathetic nervous system which is a branch of the autonomic nervous system. The autonomic nervous system controls our inner organs such as the heart and lungs. When our body feels enough stress to make us want to fight back or run from a situation, a "stress hormone", such as cortisol, is released into our system. Suffice it to say that too much cortisol is not a good thing. Cortisol is really only useful if we are in present danger - like we're about to be hit by a car. When cortisol is repeatedly released into our system because of events that have happened in the past, our inner organs suffer. Additionally, "stress hormones" alter our ability to think. Blood is diverted from the thinking part of the brain to the primitive part of the brain whose job it is to protect us. So learning how to forgive is actually as useful a tool as learning how to exercise in terms of its potential impact on our physical health.
It is possible to hold others accountable for their actions while not "blaming" them. Giving others responsibility for how we feel, or how our life is "turning out", is blame. Accountability is ensuring the person who hurt us fulfills his/her obligations toward us. For example, an unfaithful ex-wife or husband must still pay child support - that is accountability.
It is worth mentioning that the fewer "unenforceable rules" we create the less likely we are to be intentionally, or unintentionally, hurt. For example, I may create a rule that people shouldn't damage my car and then drive off. But how can I stop someone from doing that? It's worthwhile examining some of our "rules" which end up just creating pain for ourselves. I might change my rule about damage to my car and make the new rule that I will put aside $200 to have all of my "dings" fixed once a year. Then, each time I get a new ding, I don't have to be upset - I can just remember that I will have it fixed in a few months time. These are strategies that we need to learn and practice ; they will not just happen any more than building muscles just happens .
There are several "preconditions" for practicing forgiveness. The first is to be able to clearly describe how you feel. In addition, it is important to know exactly what was done that was unacceptable - in detail. The last precondition is to tell a handful of trusted people what happened. This can be one to five people - not fifteen to twenty.
Forgiveness is the feeling of peace that emerges as you take your hurt less personally, take responsibility for how you feel, and become a hero instead of a victim in the story you tell; the hero who took the high road, was able to forgive, and was able to experience peacefulness in the present. Forgiveness means you become part of the solution, understand that hurt is a normal part of life, and is for you and no one else. You can forgive and rejoin a relationship, or you can forgive and never speak to the person again. Forgiveness provides the key to acknowledge the past and move on. Finally, forgiveness is an act that shows strength and can be an inspiration to others who are also hurting.
We are more ready to forgive than we may think - we just lack the tools. We may imagine that an offense if "unforgivable", but if we look around we will find people who've forgiven the very same offense. Forgiveness is a matter of motivation - and who wants to continue suffering when they've already been the recipient of an injustice? It's like choosing to have neck pain long after the car accident is over.
The goal is to feel peaceful. Forgiveness is a trainable skill and the benefits are many. Dr. Luskin offers practical techniques for engendering forgiveness and creating more happiness and lowered stress levels in our lives.