In reading some off-blog comments, you reminded me of one central truth: forgiveness is an emotional topic most of the time. How, why and when we forgive is so variable – an almost mysterious process. I may have seemed too focused on a programmed approach. It is a suggestion, rather than something I am preaching as in, “This is the best way to go about forgiving. It’s working for me and it will work for you!” I recognize that forgiveness is good whenever and however it can be generated.
One thing you might consider – who benefits most from the process of forgiveness?
We tend to think of forgiveness as a gift for someone else (when not speaking of self-forgiveness) in granting it personally. In this spirit, it’s as if we consider whether we can afford it, whether we can get something by doing it, more than believing in its intrinsic value. Maybe a “Thank you” is deserved in response to “I forgive you,” but often the other person doesn’t feel they need forgiving, and missing the “Thank you,” we feel gypped. Even forgiving a person who is on their deathbed, we are a bit inclined to think this should get us credits in our faith or that he or she is fortunate to be released from our justified judgment, in word if not always in thought.
Some relationships, active or not, feature two-way non-forgiveness, with each person feeling wronged. If you extend forgiveness in such a situation, you might keep light your hope that this will produce the same from the other person. It happens like that more frequently on sitcoms than in real life.
Along those lines, aren’t we more likely to forgive someone if their life isn’t looking so good (compared with ours or compared to how theirs used to be)? I think it takes more strength to do this while their lives appear fine. Instead, consciously or not, we wait for them to suffer and then begin to ponder whether their karma has played out enough.
If you desire to forgive another directly but they are unavailable due to death or other circumstances, I like the idea of writing a letter. You can save the letter or perhaps let it go by fire or water in some ritual. Just write it in a genuine spirit as if the other person would hear these words. You are likely to experience a surprising peace from this.
There are times when you are ready to move toward forgiving someone, and yet know this will be difficult. I recommend a meditative approach. I find that closing my eyes while I do this clears more space in my mind and heart for the work. Take as much time as you need, while keeping a commitment to your goal. Sometimes just 5-10 minutes each day is enough attention. There are days you sense progress and other days where your resistance to forgiving feels overwhelming. That’s normal. When you feel the pain, the discomfort…see if you can witness those feelings rather than drowning in them. Sit with those feelings as long as you can, without “feeding” them. The next time this occurs, see if you can sit with them a little longer.
A parting thought, inspired by a segment on “The Today Show” this morning…there can be shades of gray in forgiveness. Sometimes, innocent third parties can benefit by at least your granting a “stay” of judgment or execution of someone by thought. Hopefully, you will allow plenty of time for your gesture to bear fruit. Even in challenging circumstances, you may ultimately find this compromise for the good of another assists you toward really letting go one day.
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Forgiveness is somewhat mysterious in the sense that the person who attempts to forgive others is limited in his or her ability to do so, by the degree of self condemnation present in their own consciousness. Do we attain self forgiveness by loving and forgiving others first? Or must we forgive ourselves before we are capable of such a noble act? It would seem to me that the answer to this question is woven into the fabric of the universal connection between all of us, and when forgiveness has truly entered a conscious connection between two or more, the boundaries between self and others are blurred enough to make the distinction --not all that important!
ReplyDeleteInteresting philosophical observations and questions.
ReplyDeleteI remain confident that self-forgiveness is more likely to lead toward opening our capacity to forgive others, than a forgiveness path which moves in the other direction.
Wil Given your work in this area of forgiveness I respect your opinion, but I think I would lean in the other direction regarding the forgiveness path. Forgiving Others first--- leads us back to self as we are constantly getting a reflection of self in how we perceive and ultimately treat others.
ReplyDeleteI feel as if many guys don't like to admit something like this - I've had big problems with my mom for years. Fortunately, we don't see each other too often, and maybe speak on the phone twice a month. Still, strong emotions are never far away for me when she comes to mind. Resentment, guilt, anger, you name it. I read what you said about this stuff becoming part of our identity. It occurred to me that maybe this had happened. I can see where it affects some of my moods and parts of my relationships. Suddenly, it seems time to change that if I can.
ReplyDeleteI'll keep this short. I tried your suggestion about imagining my mom as a little girl. It wasn't too difficult, because I found a photo of her from when she was about seven. I imagined being with that version of her. God, so different! I can reach her there in a way I don't remember ever connecting with her. She is understandable, softer. She is easier for me to love. I know I still have to deal with the adult, harder woman in my life, but I'm working on keeping in mind that girl deep inside her. It's a challenge, but I think I'm beginning to forgive her. Thank you for your help.
What is the obsession with forgiveness? It only serves oneself to forgive. The dead know nothing. That is scriptural. We are all corrupt and made intrinsically evil ..yes to the marrow of our bones. Our nature is enmity against God's law. How then shall you remain offended by your parents, friends, spouses, associates in such a bloody and murderous world. The more your own nature is revealed to you the less obsession remains with forgiving and is replaced by the necessity and obsession of being forgiven. Psalm 51
ReplyDeleteI certainly honor your faith and the specificity of what that entails for you.
ReplyDeleteFor myself, I do not believe "we are made intrinsically evil." I do feel we are co-creators of our experience and within that, our palette of feelings matter, as well as our choosing to let go of or transmute some which no longer serves us. Forgiving can have a practical motivation, a spiritual one, or both.
I am sure many people deal with considerable guilt and a lifetime sense of requiring much forgiveness from God. I imagine this can feel overwhelming at times. Allow me one observation... We are just one person. Awareness of and belief in the accumulation of others' shortcomings and "evil ways" inclines us to dwell on that, making us self-righteous more than humble.
As much as our beliefs infuse how we perceive ourselves and the world, it is one of my intentions with this blog to take care that there is minimal commentary tied to dogmatic religious rhetoric. Sites featuring the other direction are plentiful.
In my experience, it is much easier to forgive than to be forgiven. Why? Because you have control over how you choose to view your experiences and you can do little more than hope to influence how others view theirs. It is much wiser to concentrate on forgiving, since it will resolve or lessen painful experiences of the past and lead to a more optimistic and contented future. To make being forgiven too important can lead to frustration, disappointment, and general discomfort in relations with the offended party and leave you feeling very unsatisfied with the situation. There is a strong connection between ego and the need to be forgiven. Is that a bad thing? If it stunts your growth in resolving inner-conflict, yes. Perhaps the best course when you would like to be forgiven is to apologize to the offended party and make a commitment to avoid similar behavior in the future, forgive yourself for the behavior, with the knowledge it makes you feel uncomfortable with yourself and that you will make a serious effort not to repeat it, and forgive the offended party if they do not forgive you right away or at all. That is a burden they will have to live with, not something you should share.
ReplyDeleteGood points. I didn't touch much on the flip side of forgiving. How to increase your chances of being forgiven, whether it is worth the effort at times, how to respond to being forgiven depending on whether you felt you did something wrong and other factors...these are good subjects, too.
ReplyDeleteI look upon forgiveness with implications of tolerance closely attached. Perhaps tolerance is a subject for another post. However, coming from an intellectual side, I find it intriguing that most people don't really understand what they may eventually tolerate, and possible forgive, until they are saddled with the event or issue. I think people should try to develop a decent philosophy toward tolerance and forgiveness early in life, but the essence of it all won't be fully understood until the shells start falling; thus a preconceived philosophy on forgiveness is likely doomed to failure, unless there is plenty of practice along the way. Also, I do think that most people's philosophy toward all this changes over time. What one in one's twenties will think and/or do is probably very different from what one in one's fifties or sixties etc. will think or do. I've heard many people expound, "I never thought I'd be dealing with this etc. etc." But they deal with it and most likely not in the way they would have imagined twenty or so years earlier. Life has a way of teaching us lessons we thought we had down pat years ago. The upshot here is that it probably behooves us at any point in time not to be overly rigid and staunch in our positions where human behavior and its frailties are concerned, for in all probability we know not what we ourselves may eventually come to think, tolerate, accept, and maybe even forgive.
ReplyDeleteI’m enjoying the variety of comments beginning to emerge on our blog.
ReplyDeleteWhile I’m looking forward to roaming through a wide range of topics over time, it is not my intention to preach. The subject of tolerance, while a wonderful one, heads toward ethics. If you think forgiveness can be delicate as a topic for some, ethics is much broader and elicits hot-blooded commentary. I’m up for that, mind you. Nonetheless, that might be the focus of a separate blog down the road.
I do agree that forgiveness and tolerance have a clear relationship. Tolerance is much easier philosophically/remotely than in practice, “close to home.” Perhaps an extension of this is the terrible test which appears for someone against capital punishment if faced with the situation of a loved one who has been murdered.
Many of us more or less innocently head toward adulthood with some combination of Beliefs (religious ones) and beliefs (notions handed down to us, or which we mimic from standards we pick up from society). The wild ride of life tests both types, sometimes to such an extent that we have a compass crisis, suddenly only knowing what we don’t know. What we can or cannot “live with” may fluctuate or simply be turned on its head. Does this make us flaky flip-floppers of values and perspective? As my take on our species is that we are still early in the infancy of our developing consciousness, I believe it just makes us human.
Wow, the topic of forgiveness really grew legs. It seems to me that forgiveness is a gift you give to someone else or your self, but either way it's act of your own will. Before I read the blog, forgiving myself didn't even cross my mind. It is easier for me to forgive others. Awhile ago I confused forgiveness with reconciliation. Forgiveness is a process involving many emotions. Sometimes the pain and the bitterness are so strong, that we choose to hide our feelings and say "actually it doesn't bother me." We do this as a way to avoid coping with the unpleasant emotions. But the resentment and the anger are still there hidden at the unconscious level. Some of us have self-destructive and self sabotaging behavior at different times of our lives. And if we hurt ourselves, who do we forgive? If we examine the deeper the cause of this behavior, we might find that the core of our anger is an expression towards someone else, because of what they did or failed to do for us. A crucial part of our healing is genuine forgiveness. But I do understand that for victims of a crime, childhood abuse, rape, warfare and so on the process of forgiving needs professional psychological help and my heart goes out to them.
ReplyDeleteGood thoughts. I agree with most of what you say or point towards.
ReplyDeleteI’m glad you mentioned how you learned over time how big a difference there can be between forgiveness and reconciliation. The choice to make peace usually has a healthy motive. It can also be motivated by fear or a “bribe” for something we feel we need. It may be supported by a genuine forgiveness, but more often it is born of a calculation on some level, of risk versus reward, without fully processing emotions. The divergence between the social peace made and these sometimes simmering emotions can cause us great stress.
There is one other point I would like to make. As I believe you were saying, once we peel back the layer of self-targeting and forgive ourselves, we are left with the people and circumstances which distressed us, mostly from early in our lives. As we know, children seem to have a strong tendency to blame themselves for divorce. Once they are older they generally need to be healed of that notion before progress can be made forgiving their imperfect parents. Of course, it is not simply "A, then B." In this example we learn to understand our parents through understanding who we are (and are not) first, but naturally some wisdom occurs in the opposite direction.
Down the road of our lives, it is forgiving ourselves for more current behavior - not necessarily linked strongly with childhood - which I feel can bridge us toward forgiving others. Forgiving others first can feel good and be effective in its own way, but until we acknowledge our internal accusations, I think we are likely to find new external targets to replace the old ones.
Thanks much for sharing your personal circumstances and process regarding forgiveness. I take your systematic approach to heart and can make applications in my own life.
ReplyDeleteI have come to believe that forgiving others for wrongs we perceive they have done us as well acknowledging to and making amends to others for the wrongs we have committed against them are integrally linked. We carry the baggage of both the resentments we harbor and the guilt we feel. I read a book on the Sermon on the Mount which prompted this belief. We receive forgiveness conditioned upon our forgiveness of others as said in the Lord's prayer.."forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespassed against us". Viewing it from this perspective it only seems fair that we must be willing to give what we ask for. In the process of such giving and receiving the burdens of both the resentments and guilt are removed.
Allen
I feel obligated to break my virtual vow to avoid wandering into religious territory in this blog. Naturally, I am mindful how significant a role faith can play in guiding what we believe to be right and true, if not always the actual way we go about our lives.
ReplyDeleteCorrect me if I am wrong here in terms of a Biblical view on forgiveness. We can offer forgiveness to others, especially once we remember that we are not fit to judge another’s life. (At this point, I am not sure it is forgiveness, rather than a letting go of judgment. I think this is well beyond semantics.) We certainly are in no position to forgive ourselves, as forgiveness is what sinners are forever seeking from God. Is there any sense in which we can forgive with God’s assistance? Can we go through a process of forgiveness without being self-righteous about it, feeling a new type of arrogance in deeming who and what actions are worthy of our forgiveness?
As in the legal system, I have now opened a “line of questioning,” and hopefully I am ready for what may come of this exchange…