How to Forgive Even When You Can't Forget (3 page)

There can be no falsity, no
deceit. If you are going to forgive yourself, you’ve got to go all
the way. Let the mistakes of your past stay in the past. Push them
away as if they never happened. When you can honestly do that, only
then can you earnestly forgive others, only then can you begin to
move away from bitterness and toward your true goal:
happiness.

Chapter 4:

Does Forgiveness Guarantee
Reconciliation?

“
When I was a
kid I used to pray every night for a new bicycle. Then I realized
that the Lord doesn't work that way so I stole one and asked Him to
forgive me.”

-
Emo
Philips

You’ve done everything that you’re
supposed to do. Even though you were in the right, you took the
initiative to purge the anger from your heart and earnestly forgive
the person who wronged you. That should automatically reconcile you
with the other party, right?

Not so. Forgiveness is only one
part of reconciliation. Just as it took two people to disagree, it
takes two to repair the damage. No matter how genuine your
forgiveness, no matter how sincere your desire to restore the
damaged relationship, you cannot do it alone.

When Forgiveness Can Bring
Reconciliation

Reconciliation depends in large
part on timing. We all mature and develop in our own time. You may
be ready to forgive before the other person is ready to be
forgiven, or to forgive themselves. The time for you to forgive is
now and the other person will accept it when he is
ready.

In the majority of cases,
forgiveness does lead to reconciliation. As we saw in previous
chapters, the offender will frequently be contrite. In those
instances, he will recognize his need to be forgiven and embrace
your offer of forgiveness. If you sincerely forgive and he
genuinely accept that act, reconciliation will begin immediately.
As with bones, relationships that are broken and then restored are
generally stronger than those that have never been
broken.

When Forgiveness Cannot Bring
Reconciliation

Unfortunately, it isn’t always the
case that we find the other person ready to receive our
forgiveness. Sometimes you will have to deal with an unrepentant or
unavailable offender. In the former case, he may be unwilling to
reconcile your relationship. In the latter case, he is unable
to.

When the person is unrepentant, he
is not yet ready to restore the relationship. He may need more time
to accept the blame and therefore the consequences of his actions.
When you forgive this type of person, you are beginning a process
of reconciliation.

There is no guarantee that the
process will ever come to fruition, but you are doing all you can
to foster an environment that will allow the relationship to heal.
What is guaranteed is that you stand a better chance of
reconciliation if you do forgive than if you don’t.

If the person is unavailable, for
whatever reason, the relationship simply cannot be restored in the
traditional sense. You can, however, cleanse yourself of the
bitterness that the severed relationship caused. While the actual
relationship will never be restored, the memory can be untarnished;
restoring in retrospect the merits of your past relationship and
the joy that it brought you.

Chapter 5:

Why Do We Hold Grudges?

“
To carry a
grudge is like being stung to death by one bee.”

• William H. Walton
  

When we get hurt, our natural
reaction is to either flee the situation or fight back and try to
hurt the person who hurt us. Fight or Flight. When the pain is
emotional, our fight or flight response turns from the literal to a
more figurative reaction.

Whether we choose to fight or
flight in the heat of the moment, the prolonged continuation of the
response becomes a grudge against the source of the attack. Holding
a grudge leads to increasing resentment and, ultimately, an
unforgiving attitude.

When we become unforgiving as a
trait, the cycle begins anew with the next offense, and the next,
and the next. Increasingly minor offenses trigger our natural fight
or flight response and grudges come more easily, last longer, and
are harder to release.

If the end result of holding a
grudge is so unappealing, why do we do it?

Everyone wants to be right. We all
enjoy the feeling of righteousness that comes with the assurance
that our cause is just. When we indulge our own grudges, we create
an atmosphere in which our own standing is beyond reproach. Our
“enemy” is so thoroughly wrong that we can only be
right.

When we hold a grudge, in reality,
we are demonizing the offender. The worse we can make her out to
be, the better we can position ourselves as the hero. But once
again, the high you get from putting someone else down lasts only a
short time, followed by a crash that spirals ever deeper into
resentment and anger.

The bottom line is that we hold
grudges as a means of protecting ourselves, but the actual result
is exactly the opposite. We trick ourselves into believing that
holding this grudge is righteous retribution for a harm done to us
and that we are defending ourselves from pain. But instead we are
indulging the pain, letting it take control of our attitudes and
actions. Holding a grudge deepens the divide between ourselves and
our offenders at precisely the time when we should be moving closer
to reconciliation through forgiveness.

[I recommend Chapter 5 be deleted.
- TT]

Chapter 6:

How Do We Know It’s Time to
Embrace Forgiveness?

“
The day the
child realizes that all adults are imperfect, he becomes an
adolescent; the day he forgives them, he becomes an adult; the day
he forgives himself, he becomes wise.”

- Alden Nowlan

If you are asking yourself whether
or not it is time to forgive someone, then the answer is
undoubtedly yes. When your emotions have quelled enough for you to
think clearly and question the need to forgive, then the time has
come to move forward.

That does not mean that you should
necessarily wait until you feel like forgiving someone. That could
take a long, long time. You may never feel like forgiving the
person who hurt you, but that is not a license to hold a grudge
forever.

Your feelings are not to be
trusted as the determinant of when to forgive. If anything, your
feelings are an obstacle to true forgiveness. It was your feelings
that got hurt, your feelings that told you to retreat from that
person, and your feelings that are basking in the joys of playing
the victim.

If you are still alive and capable
of free thought, if your injury was not uniquely heinous in its
depth and breadth among all humankind, if you have ever done a
wrong to someone else in your life — it is time for you to stop
indulging your anger and bitterness. It is time for you to
forgive.

What If You're Not
Ready?

There are those who will tell you
that you need to “cool off” and let your anger run its course. But
do you want to let your anger run you, or do you want to run your
anger off? A waiting period before you begin the process of
forgiving is tantamount to intentionally putting off the right
choice so you can wallow in being the victim for just a little
while longer.

It is true that you must be
emotionally ready before you can forgive, but do not put the
emphasis in the wrong place. Do not wait until the anger has left
you before you forgive. Each of us wards off anger by initiating
the process of forgiveness in a very personal way and on our own
terms. But the process must be begun, the sooner the better. Anger,
enticing as it may seem, is not your friend; it is not good for
your emotional or physical health in the long run.

This does not mean walking up to
the person you are arguing with and apropos yelling out, “I forgive
you!” Forgiveness requires a calm demeanor and solid conviction. It
also does not happen in an instant. You need to extract yourself
from the situation before you can move past it. Pulling yourself
away from an altercation may be the first step in your path to
forgiveness. As you will see in the following chapters, forgiveness
is a process, not a single act.

Time to Forgive

Long ago it was said, “Eat, drink,
and be merry, for tomorrow we die.” Another old saying tells us
that “There is no time like the present.” Both are appropriate in a
discussion of when to let go of resentment and embrace forgiveness.
None of us know what the future holds. We cannot know what we may
lose by holding onto bitterness for one more day. Tomorrow may be
too late. One more day may rob us of the opportunity for
reconciliation.

Don’t take the chance. Now is the
time to embrace forgiveness. The only question is: how?

Chapter 7:

How Do We Reach a State of
Forgiveness?

“
You will know
that forgiveness has begun when you recall those who
hurt you and feel the power to wish them well.”

- Lewis B. Smedes

Forgiveness is not something that
can be achieved by simply wishing it. Merely saying that you
forgive someone is far from actually doing it. Forgiveness is an
art, a discipline, and an attitude.

Since you are reading this book,
you are obviously on the right path — you want to forgive. By
embracing the precepts taught herein, you will learn the art and
achieve the discipline necessary to foster the proper attitude.
With time and repetition, you can make forgiveness an innate part
of your psychic makeup.

The 5 Steps to
Forgiveness

#1 – Acknowledge the
Offense

The first step in the process of
forgiveness is recognizing that there is an offense that needs to
be forgiven. As we will see in a later chapter, ignoring the
problem will not make it go away. Resentment will linger if you
pretend that the problem does not exist.

#2 – Recognize that You Need to
Forgive

It is tempting to focus on the
other person’s need to be forgiven. In truth, you need to forgive
as much, if not more, than the other person needs your forgiveness.
The anger that you are holding is hurting you more than it hurts
anyone else.

#3 – Release the
Negative

When we refuse to forgive, we
invite negative emotions into our lives. When you begin the
cleansing process of forgiveness, you must release the negativity —
the anger, the hurt, the resentment — that has attached itself to
you. Letting go of the hurt and the emotions that go with it is a
key element in moving toward happiness through
forgiveness.

#4 – Stop the Blame
Game

Forgiveness must be without blame.
You cannot reserve the right to blame the other person and still
genuinely forgive. That sort of false forgiveness is an open door
to lingering resentment. A forgiving heart keeps no record of
wrongs committed against it.

#5 – Be Sincere

Don’t try to force forgiveness by
going through the right motions and saying the right words. Simply
repeating words of forgiveness without meaning doesn't make you
forgive someone any more than playing Annie Oakley on stage makes
you a sharpshooter. True forgiveness is genuine, sincere, and
selfless.

#6 - Move On

Once you have forgiven, don't look
back. Do not linger on the hurt, do not relive the offense, and do
not reconsider the blame. Let it go. That is when you have truly
reached a state of forgiveness and opened the door to
happiness.

Chapter 8:

What Happens If You Can’t Forgive
Someone?

“
Dwelling on the
negative simply contributes to its power.”

- Shirley MacLaine

There will be times when you find
it extremely difficult to forgive someone. This happens most
commonly when the person who offended you is unrepentant, but it
can happen any time that the hurt is still deep and new. When you
think you can’t forgive someone, you need to pull back and
understand why.

Going deep into your own psyche
can be frightening. Understanding our own hidden feelings is a
scary prospect. But unless you look under the surface, you will not
know the real reasons behind your inability to forgive. Without
that understanding, your path to happiness is obstructed by a
roadblock of bitterness.

Reasons You Don’t
Forgive

You may be unable to forgive
because you just don’t know how. If that’s the case, rejoice! By
the end of this book, you will know the ins and outs of forgiveness
and should be able to forgive those who have caused you
pain.

Even those who have studied
forgiveness and recognize it as the path to happiness struggle at
times. If the person who hurt you is remorseless, or even continues
in his or her pattern of behavior toward you, you may very well
find it far more difficult to forgive even the minutest offense
that is piled on top of the growing mound of hurt.

In such a case, you need to remove
yourself from the situation. You cannot always reach harmony with
someone who is unwilling to accept it. This does not absolve you or
your responsibility to try, but it does mean that you may have to
withdraw from the person and forgive them in your heart without
continuing your association with her.