Forgiveness is looking at people with the spiritual knowledge of their innocence rather than the mortal perception of their guilt.
– Marianne Williamson
Commitment to maximizing our personal potential includes coming to terms with the things that hold us back. In keeping with this commitment, forgiving the past sometimes becomes a necessary step on our path to self-actualization.
Introspection may help us to discover that we are expending useful energy holding onto past emotional injuries. This grasping at the past may take the form of ruminating obsessively about events in our personal history, stories of victimization we tell ourselves and others, or limiting behaviors we engage in that spawn from unresolved emotions.
Relinquishing the past is as much about helping ourselves as it is letting someone else off the hook. When we choose to actively hold onto anger and self-righteousness, we are choosing to hold onto our pain. Over time we may begin to see that in not forgiving, the person we hurt the most is ourselves.
Before endeavoring to share some strategies for moving towards forgiveness, let’s first define what it is to forgive. According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary online, to forgive means:
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to give up resentment of or claim to requital
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to grant relief from payment
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to cease to feel resentment against (an offender)
If you can’t feel the pain, you can’t heal the pain…
First and foremost, if we can’t connect with our feelings, it’s difficult to release the emotions that keep us stuck in resentment. If we are committed to freeing ourselves from the past, we must to learn to recognize and eliminate activities that anaesthetize or keep us distracted from our emotions.
Suppression of difficult emotions can take many forms. Some people self-medicate their pain with cigarettes, drugs, pharmaceuticals, or alcohol. Activities that provide a natural rush, such as excessive shopping, working, exercising, gambling, etc…also have the capacity to distract us from our emotional lives. Likewise, perpetual busyness, although more acceptable in our achievement-driven culture, is an equally effective method of avoidance.
The problem with all of these avoidance strategies is that none of them move us towards forgiving. Ignoring pain does not make it go away.
Digging up the bones…
What I know to be true today, is that we all have to do our own emotional work. It isn’t anyone else’s responsibility and until we tend to it, we will be presented with challenges that appear unjust, but are in actuality our path to freedom.
I have found myself time and again in situations that have emotionally mirrored unresolved moments from my past. It took me years to understand that those situations were all opportunities to attend to the old pain I was so busy ignoring.
Wisdom Training is a method I was taught that helped me overcome some significant obstacles. It was introduced to me by a man named Ben Worth, the Director of Pathless Land.
Wisdom Training is founded on the premise that our bodies are a source of innate wisdom. The emotions we leave unacknowledged do not disappear with our denial of their existence. Rather, they take up residence in our bodies until such time as they are allowed their expression.
The goal of Wisdom Training is to quiet the mind, effectively getting out of the story in our head, and into our bodies to attend to and release these blocked emotions.
As we forgive and release old emotions, the present moment situations that may have plagued us begin to find resolution, as they are no longer being fed by old pain.
Where we end and others begin…
Many have the idea that forgiveness equates to forcing ourselves to tolerate what is personally intolerable.
The fact of the matter is, as adults, we have exclusive control over who we allow to participate in our lives. We have a choice to stay or leave situations that don’t serve our well-being.
Although we don’t have the right to control someone else’s behavior, we do have the right to choose whether we want to be subjected to it. Sometimes walking away is the only manner in which we can begin to forgive someone for the harm their behavior generates.
Grace…
Recently, someone brought to my attention that working towards forgiveness ceases to be necessary when we step out of the act of judgment. There is some irony to be found in the recognition that when we move away from judging others, the grace we afford them also transcends the pain that we seek to heal within ourselves.
Those who knowingly or unknowingly bring suffering upon others, also suffer themselves.
When we witness the behavior of others exclusive of our judgment, we can begin to recognize the burden they carry and how it affects their walk through life. We start to see people as more than just their behavior.
We also learn that it is entirely possible to take care of ourselves while building compassion for those whose actions have created suffering.
The comfort in discomfort…
Emotional pain will inevitably be found as we walk our path. If we are to maneuver skillfully along the way, learning to forgive is an essential competency to develop.
Emotions are an expression of the human form. They exist to inform our experience of the world, naturally arising and falling away when we attend to them. Regardless of the temporary discomfort they impose, their role is to serve us as we navigate our way through life.
If we are to commit ourselves to forgiving, then we must be willing to be present with our pain. Whether we choose traditional or non-traditional routes, we all have to walk through the fire of purification if we want to free ourselves of the past.
Just as we have the right to our perceptions, everyone has the right to live their life in the manner they see fit. We are all accountable for our actions and responsible for protecting ourselves from harmful behavior.
When we are able to allow others their transgressions without judgment, we stop defining people by moments in time and begin to recognize the whole person.
As we honor ourselves and respect the differences that exist between us, we begin to understand that we all seek the same thing, to be seen in our wholeness, to be free to define ourselves, and ultimately, to be loved.
Can you share an experience with forgiving? How did letting go of the past change your life?
Please feel free to leave a comment. What you say could be helpful to someone else!