We all have people we need to forgive. All of us have at least one person who we feel has done us real wrong. It may be a parent, sibling, lover or friend. They may be long dead or very much alive.
Until we learn to forgive them, we carry the pain that person has caused us around in our heart. And the more wrong they did us, the more pain we carry.
Forgiveness has been a hard lesson in my own life. It took me decades to realize what a corrosive effect withholding forgiveness had had on me. When I did, I had no choice but to start, however reluctantly, on the path of forgiveness. That first step – choosing forgiveness – is a big one, so let's look at what it might mean.
Close your eyes. Just imagine for a moment what it would be like to forgive. Just for once put all the good reasons for not forgiving to one side; however wrong it felt, however much pain it caused, however thoughtless the act, let these reasons drop away from you. Imagine a box as big as you like – put them all in there, don't leave a single reason behind. Now feel, really feel what it is like to have the weight of those reasons for not forgiving hanging round your neck, weighing you down. The Forgiveness Formula will help you to fill the box and let it go. But the choice is yours at every stage of the journey.
It's not an easy journey and there is no rush. Forgiveness is a process and you will discover step by step:
- You cannot forgive until you are ready.
- You cannot forgive until you are willing.
- Your forgiveness journey is yours alone – it takes the time it takes.
What would it take to begin the journey?
When we withhold forgiveness, we are often trying to make things the same as they were before we were really badly hurt. Forgiveness is then not an option as it would seem to deny the injustice of what has been done to us. Ask yourself these questions:
- If you could make people really understand how much you have been hurt, could you imagine letting go?
- If you could punish the person who hurt you, could you let go?
- Was everything fine ‘before'?
For those of us who have been deeply hurt there is often a ‘before’ and ‘after’. We remember the before as a time without problems. If only we could go back there. Withholding forgiveness is then our way of retaining some power in the situation. It is our way of trying to change the narrative to go back to how things used to be.
To begin the journey of forgiveness we need to give up the hope of things being as they were ‘before’. Things are different. You are different.
Accepting that what happened to you really did happen is the first step. But it is the hardest step of all.
Sometimes we hold on so hard to the hatred, to the unwillingness to let go and forgive that we become one with the withholding – it becomes who we are.
How could it be different?
- How quickly do you tell ‘your story' when you meet someone new?
- How often do you think about the person who has done you most wrong? All the time, once a week, once a year?
- How has withholding forgiveness affected other relationships in your life?
Withholding forgiveness certainly fills you with the energy of anger and injustice. In my own case, I buried the memory of being abducted as a child for many years. It was so deeply buried that when I eventually told someone in my early twenties, I was astonished at the depth of anger that I still felt about it. If I could have killed that man I would have done it, happily, without a backward thought. This shocked me, too. But I simply couldn't let go of the feeling of passionate anger.
Telling someone and being believed and supported helped a lot, but it was not till another fifteen years had passed and the memories returned as flashbacks that I realized I was still furious and ready to kill him. In the meantime that anger had been put to good use: I had often been involved in defending the underdog and been active in social change. I couldn't bear any form of injustice. It was only much later that I realized that championing the cause of the underdog was my way of trying to make my own voice heard. That I wished that someone had been ready to champion me when I needed it.
From victim to victor
Sometimes it feels impossible to find a way back to forgiveness. It is as though you are in a maze and have lost the thread of the way out. Taking the first steps on the forgiveness journey can seem impossible. But would you want to go to your grave, holding firm to a resentment of which you couldn't even remember the origins?
Withholding forgiveness can be about transferred pain – the need to find someone to blame. This is particularly true when something terrible has happened. So should we ever stand firm and not forgive? Is it ever a valid choice?
‘Forgiveness is costly, it is painful, it's difficult and it is a choice. Why is it sometimes people cannot forgive? One of the reasons, sometimes, is because nobody has acknowledged, reverenced, recognized the story of what has happened, sufficiently deeply.’
Father Michael Lapsley knows what he is talking about. He is an Anglican priest who was involved in the anti-apartheid struggle in South Africa. In 1990 he was sent a letter bomb by the South African authorities. He lost both his hands and an eye in the explosion. Father Lapsley spoke at the Forgiveness conference in Findhorn in 1999 and emphasized the need for making the transition from victim to survivor and eventually to victor. He spoke about the fact that remaining filled with anger and hatred would keep him entrenched in the role of victim.
Moving from victim to victor means:
- Not remaining stuck in the narrative of what was done to you.
- Choosing to tell the story differently.
- Learning that it doesn't have to stop there.
Father Lapsley makes the crucial distinction between healing and forgiving. He now works with ‘Healing the Memories’ workshops throughout South Africa and he believes it vitally important to Heal and Remember, not Bury and Forget. But he is very clear where he personally stands on forgiveness.
‘Often when I have spoken in different places around the world, I have told my story, as I tell it now, and said I am not filled with hatred and bitterness, and I don't want pity or revenge. Then at the end some nice person is asked to stand up and thank me and they say, "It's absolutely wonderful! This person is an icon of forgiveness," and I say, "I beg your pardon, I haven't mentioned the word forgiveness. I haven't said I have forgiven anybody." In a sense forgiveness for me isn't on the table, you see, because no one has said to me, "I did it".'
We can only be silent in the face of such suffering. Father Lapsley challenges us to take forgiveness as seriously as he does and shows that it is a long journey, not an easy path. You can only get there when you are ready, when you feel it is time for restitution and reparation for what has happened. If that is not forthcoming, it makes the journey a much longer one. Forgiveness is not easy and it is not straightforward, and anyone who thinks it is has not understood the darker side of what human beings can do to one another.
Believe no one who uses the words ‘must' or ‘should' when it comes to forgiveness. Father Michael Lapsley is critical of many of the orthodox religions for their attitude to forgiveness, which can heap an additional burden on the victim. If they can't find forgiveness, they are made to feel ashamed for not being spiritual enough.
‘But also what does it mean to forgive? Much of the discourse of the faith communities gives the impression that it's glib, cheap and easy, and many of the preachers who speak about forgiveness I would suggest use it as a weapon against people. They increase their burdens.'
Sometimes we need to withhold forgiveness until we are really ready to let go. And that means letting time heal the wounds or waiting until we come to a fork in the road – one path leading to forgiveness, the other to bitterness.
What do you have to gain from not forgiving?
- What do you get out of withholding forgiveness?
- What do you imagine life would be like if you let go?
- How possible does it seem?
- What is the alternative if you don't forgive – what do you imagine your life will be like in ten years' time?
- If you had children, would you want to pass this feeling on to them?
If we withhold forgiveness, it may hurt us in the long run. But let's be clear: forgiveness isn't the easy path; for many of us it's a path we would not have chosen. But we get there when the alternative becomes unbearable. For me it was walking along a beach on holiday, when the penny finally dropped.
I saw a young girl who was about eleven playing on her own quite happily. I found myself looking round to see where her family were and whether there were any threatening characters lurking. And suddenly I was plunged back into flashbacks of my own abduction. That was when I realized that I didn't want to be like this any more, when the sight of a young girl playing happily on the beach could take me to such a painful place. I had no thought of forgiveness then, it was the last thing on my mind. But I knew that where I was, full of hatred for this man, no longer worked for me. If you had told me then that this first step on the journey would eventually lead me to forgive the man who had abducted me, I wouldn't have believed you.
No one can make that journey for you, no one can take you there, no one can force you to take the first steps on the path. It is such a hard path, that you have to be willing to go there yourself, to take the first steps on your own and trust in the process.
From The Forgiveness Formula copyright 2003 by Kathleen Griffin, published in the UK by Simon & Schuster UK Ltd.
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