When I was younger and exploring the questions I had about forgiveness, such as:
How, exactly, do you ‘do’ forgiveness?
What does forgiveness really look like? and,
Once I’ve actually done ‘it’, how will I know? I mean, what is forgiveness supposed to feel like?,
I found the answers I was often given, especially by the older folks around me, religious and academic folks alike, people you would assume could tell you a thing or two about forgiveness, both too simple and too abstract to serve my practical needs. I wasn’t looking for feel-good platitudes about taking the high road; how forgiveness is about you and not the other; and how it’s just the right thing to do. All of those things may well be true, but they didn’t tell me exactly how this forgiveness thing is done. I already knew I needed to ‘let some things go’ through a forgiveness process so that I could move on in my life emotionally and spiritually, but what I needed was practical steps to help me get there. Everyone I asked seemed to offer standard, ready-made, pat, feel-good answers to my questions about forgiveness; but no one could offer a process, a how-to-guide if you will, to help me actually get there; to help me get to the feel good stuff! Clearly there was something missing in our understanding of practical forgiveness and I quickly came to realize that I wasn’t alone in not knowing the answers to the questions I had.
Forgiveness only began to make real sense to me, and a practical process of how to forgive only began to unfold for me, when I understood the important roles
acceptance,
understanding,
letting go,
healing, and
learning/growing from
all play in a complete forgiveness process; what each means for me in my own efforts to forgive an injury; and how they are all critical for achieving forgiveness itself. Indeed, acceptance, understanding, and letting go all precede being ready/able to forgive at all. You simply cannot forgive that which you haven’t yet accepted, understood or are not ready to let go. Healing and learning/growing from a forgiveness experience takes time depending on the depth, impact and meaning of the injury for you. For certain experiences, while you can achieve forgiveness, the healing and learning process can extend for some time after the fact; for a lifetime depending on the injury.
When I started focusing my mental and emotional energies away from the self-inflicted torture of re-living the injury over and over again, and away from thoughts of the injurer and how angry/hurt/pained I was by ‘what they did to me,’ I was able to turn my attentions inward, toward myself and my heart, and focus on questions like:
What is it that I need to accept about this experience?;
What are the lessons in this experience for me and how can I grow from them?;
What happened in this experience that I can be truly grateful for?;
What does my heart need for healing from this experience?; and, finally,
What is it that I need to let go about all of this so that I can free myself to move on with and in my own life?
As a result, both the relevance of the injury itself, as well as the idea of forgiveness, became clearer for me and began to take on whole new meanings and offered new possibilities for my path forward.
I began to understand how forgiveness (and the process involved) really is for and about me:
my freedom;
my learning;
my growth;
my healing;
my life moving forward;
and that it is not about the injurer at all or about giving them a ‘pass’ (after all, we’re talking about ‘forgiveness’ not ‘forgetfulness’). And it is certainly not about scoring ‘good girl’ points with those who feel it’s their job to keep score of what they think your forgiveness needs are. Understanding all of this finally allowed forgiveness to make sense to me, and my own process for forgiveness began to take shape, in ways that served me and my needs for letting go and moving on in my life while feeling safe, whole, complete, and free.
For me, these were the missing pieces to a more complete understanding of forgiveness and how it could work in my own life. As a result, I began to develop a process for forgiveness that didn’t involve holding on to the injury or require anything on behalf of the injurer … who may never acknowledge the injury, their role in it or make any attempt at atonement. This was very important for me because:
I needed a forgiveness that was free of both the injury and the injurer, so that it could help me become free of them too.
I needed a forgiveness that I could truly feel; one that didn’t require approval or validation from anyone other than myself (for something no one other than myself had been through) and one that didn’t require anything from the injurer in order to complete. I needed a forgiveness that was free, truly mine, and that I could own; one that freed me from the pain of the injury allowing me to make sense of it all in and for my own life going forward. I had begun to develop a liberating forgiveness that was beyond the injurer and the injury, and that could take me back to that place where I could feel my own personal freedom again. I had finally found a forgiveness that met my needs and worked for me; and I will continue to explore and grow from my own understanding and process of forgiveness as I move forward throughout my life experiences.
I believe finding our own way to forgiveness is something each of us must do for ourselves.
Forgiveness is just not something someone else can tell you how to do … nor should it be.
One person’s definition, understanding and working of forgiveness in their own life may not be what serves another and, thus, how forgiveness looks in your life may not be what it looks like in another’s — and neither would be wrong. The key for all of us is to find our own way in developing an understanding of the ‘hows’ and ‘whys’ of forgiveness that make sense for us in our own lives and for our own life experiences; and, always, in all things, allow ourselves the healing, wisdom, growth, and personal power of the liberating gift of forgiveness.
Be free.
Be healed.
Be wise.
Be whole.
Be your own forgiveness.
BE…ILLUMINED!
What is missing that can help you better understand forgiveness?
What do you need that will allow you to find your way to a forgiveness that works for you?