Forgiveness

With palms together,
Good Morning All,

A friend asked me about forgiveness. I thought it would be nice to say a few things about it. Yet, this thing we call forgiveness is very tricky as it points to the fact that we, ourselves, are holding on to some pain inflicted on us by another. This causes us to suffer. Sometimes the person we wish to forgive hasn't a clue the he has hurt us in the first place.

So, at first blush, we might think that forgiveness is about absolving someone else and letting them off the hook, in truth it is we who are hooked by our anger and hurt. This is one of those curious little scenarios in life that can actually demonstrate to us just how deeply interconnected (and often clueless) we are.

It is that very interconnectedness that makes forgiveness truly possible. And our cluelessness that makes it possible for us to suffer for so long. When we think of how another person hurt us, then look inside and see how we are being just as hurtful against ourselves, we can see our humanity. Each glimpse into our human condition provides us an opportunity to learn. ..and change, or rather, transform.

The first step in forgiveness, then, is to forgive ourselves for carrying such pain and hurt with us for so long. We may not be ready to do this. The pain of an experience may be very important to us. Sometimes this pain is a marker of our prior state, say our innocence, then we are victimized and our pain recalls not only the victimization, but our state prior to our victimization, as well. We blame the perpetrator for both our victimization and the loss of our identity as an ordinary person. Who really wants to confront change so directly?

So, we desperately hold on to what we thought we were, knowing we are not, and feel great anger toward the person who made all this happen. It is now we who are victimizing ourselves.

When we have had enough of this, we will stop. We stop when we discover that we have worth beyond an experience somewhere in the past. We stop when we realize our present is our choice and our responsibility. We stop when we realize it does no good to continue holding on.

This is a liberating moment.

Be well.

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