The Chapter About Forgiveness

A chapter from my future book.

Forgive (v.) - stop feeling angry or resentful toward (someone) for an offense, flaw, or mistake (Oxford dictionary).

Forgiveness holds a tremendous amount of power. This book will hold various examples from different times in my life but forgiveness will not include a personal example. The reason for that is because in order to tell you the story, it would be necessary to explain the background and what was forgiven. That is not how people in my life should be portrayed. Speaking positively about everyone (past or present) is the soul purpose of my personal journey to forgiveness.

Remember that your journey will be and should be different. My experience with forgiveness is only an example to show you how different a journey may be.

There was a time in my 20's when something happened that caused me deep, severe, soul crushing sadness.. This caused me to be very angry. Not just angry at myself, but angry at the situation, angry at the person, angry at everything that could and could not be done to rectify it. Although the anger was mostly toward the person who committed the act, it was easier to lash out at others near me. Because even when sharing this with others, they just would never understand. How could they? They are not in my shoes.

Anger will come to us at the most unexpected times. That's because it is feeding off of the unknown. Anger feeds off those parts of us that are uncertain, the parts of us that are not in control, the parts of us that we haven't fully healed. Anger looks for those opportunities and those "angry pathways" in our mind and latches on to them. Anger then does everything in its power to come out of us.

You see, the more work we do, the less anger is present. Therefore, when we do feel it, anger wants us to feel as much of it as possible. That's why sometimes it's okay to let some anger out. We don't want to treat anger like a forgotten child. We want to let our anger know that we understand why it's there and it's okay for it to exist among other feelings. Anger deserves to be here just as much as any other feeling. It's when we try to oppress it, hide it, or mask it that causes us problems.

Sometimes it's easier for me to imagine my anger in a cage. The longer is stays in a cage, unvisited, unattended to, the more desperate it gets when it's triggered.

My experience with managing anger comes from years of therapy and identifying what my feelings really are. Anger is never the catalyst, it is always the response.

How does forgiveness impact anger? Forgiveness acts like a dissolvent. It takes everything that triggered anger and dissolves the anger as it's triggered. Not always and not always all the way, but it is a powerful act. The tricky thing about forgiveness is that when we are young, we are taught to apologize when we do something wrong. However, it's not the apology that is important. The lesson is we need to be accountable for when we wrong someone or something.

But as we get older and grow, we learn that no one actually owes us an apology. The apology is up to the person and we do not always receive one. This means that forgiveness is on us. We must be the ones to forgive. We have the power to decide that regardless of what the act was, it was not done with the intent to cause us harm. We get to choose how we see people, how we see their actions.

There is a saying that is not part of my vocabulary. "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me."

That is simply not true.

A fool is a person who acts unwisely or imprudently; a silly person (Oxford Dictionary). If you act with understanding, observance, and capacity, you are not a fool. Knowing that people make mistakes and will likely make the same mistake more than once, is a powerful way to walk through life. This opens you up to that forgiveness and gives you the chance to know others as they are and accept them as they are.

As kids we are taught to forgive as a response, but as adults we learn that forgiveness can come anytime.

We can forgive before someone seeks it.

We can forgive years after the event occurred.

We can forgive before an act happens. We can hold that capacity. In fact, this is the most powerful thing you can learn to do for yourself. Forgive before something happens. Have that strength and power in you to have no response when you are wronged.

Here are common exercises that help me practice forgiveness.

1. Look at the situation as myself but from the side. Comfort the version of me that is in pain and triggered. Tell that hurt version of myself that it's okay and that we already knew that people are human. This is simply a situation reminding us how human we all are. Forgiving and moving on is what we all deserve.

   1. This specific exercise helps me imagine my "wise self" and my "hurt self" as two separate people. It reminds me that it's okay to experience pain but it is the job of the wise me to comfort the hurt me and help me move past this.

2. Accept what was outside of my control. Distinguish what it was that could be controlled such as my response, my words, my actions, and what could not be controlled.

   1. This specific exercise helps me rationalize that there is power and strength in me to hold only myself accountable. It reminds me that my response is critical to my ability to forgive and if my response has compassion and empathy, forgiveness is just around the corner.

3. Look for examples of forgiveness in others. Pay attention to the way others speak of their past experiences that harmed them. Learn from others who have had more time to practice forgiveness, and adopt their patience and gratitude. Let their capacity to forgive remind you that it all takes time.

   1. This specific exercise helps me see the good in others and reminds me how much more there is to learn. The more we surround ourselves with those who can forgive, the further we will be in our journey of forgiving everyone (including ourselves).

We must forgive ourselves. Not only when we wrong someone else but when we wrong ourselves. When we don't show up the way we thought we would. When we break a promise to ourselves. When we fall off the path we worked so hard to build. When we give into anger. When we simply are human. The more we forgive ourselves, the less focused we become on our presumed mistakes. This gives us room for focusing on doing things with love, compassion, and patience. The act of forgiving ourselves will release the pressure we often put on ourselves.

Here's the hard part.

When you are early in this journey, you will come across people who might have had more opportunities to practice this and you might experience being wronged by them. You will watch how easily they can go on and live, and it will trigger your pain because you are not there yet. You are still hurt. When this happens, try your best to instead recognize that moving on is a strength and strive to find your own journey toward forgiveness and moving past something. This applies to all situations. Whether it is with friends, a partner, a family member, or coworker, etc.

Here's another hard part.

What about when someone does something truly terrible. The true acts of violence such as murder, rape, child abuse. What do we do in these cases?

These are very specific and highly sensitive topics that should not be taken lightly. Unfortunately, it is not up to me to provide any guidance or suggestions on this. We all practice forgiveness to whatever level of capacity we have. There are cases when the person who has committed the heinous act is forgiven by the families onto which the harm was done. There are times when survivors forgive their attackers. It is up to each person to decide how they want to practice forgiveness.

In the same way that we are not owed an apology, we do not owe forgiveness. The only person we owe anything to is ourselves. And we have the power to choose when and where to activate our level of forgiveness.

Ultimately, in Judaism, we are taught that everyone deserves forgiveness, regardless of the act. Judaism also teaches us that the forgiveness that person deserves is forgiveness from G-d. We as people are simply asked to live by the word of G-d. Does this mean we must forgive everyone? It is up to you to decide how you wish to interpret this. If someone tries to tell you how to think or how to feel, the power is still within you to choose. Even in a room full of people who tell you forgiveness is the only way, you can choose to reject that notion.

Our individuality is what makes us human. That's what to me makes forgiveness so empowering. There are so many words, actions, events, combinations of all that can happen to people around the world, how are we to ever expect anyone to act or think the same.

Remember. Forgiveness is never a weakness. Forgiveness is always a strength and as long as you are being wise, empathetic, and patient, you are not a fool. You are not the village idiot.

-1,600 word mark-