Forgiving is an act of kindness…. To yourself!
#forgiveness#emotional intelligence#personal growth#persoanl freedom.
What does it mean to forgive? What does it take to truly forgive when someone does you wrong? There is a cliché that people trot out from time to time which really annoys me. They say:
“I’ll forgive but I won’t forget”. What a dumb statement!
It is a cliché. It rolls of the tongue. But what does it even mean? Do the people who say it… say it to feel superior? Smug. Do they think that they are doing the other person a favour?
Let’s stop and analyse the cliché.
If you don’t forget them how on earth can you forgive? Every time you see the person or remember the deed, the whole thing comes up again to haunt you. The inability to forget gets in the way of your emotional intelligence and your emotional health. Because if you cannot forget what someone did to you…it is tantamount to telling the world that you live squarely in the past. If you can’t forget, and this is the essential part of the forgiveness equation then you haven’t forgiven anything or anyone.
This cliché needs to be dumped because it serves no purpose whatsoever other than to raise your defences… and pull up the draw bridge on your emotions. The people you encounter never get the real deal or the best of you. What they get is a person who is cautious and protected. If you do not forgive and forget then you walk around in fear that someone could hurt you again and so you don’t allow people to get too close. You carry people’s wrong doings from the past in a big emotional suitcase and you carry it everywhere you go. You ever trust or take people at their word. You are always waiting to see if they’ll mess up.
People are people and if there is one thing we are good at doing…it is messing up. I prefer to believe that people do not mess up intentionally. Seldom do people set out to hurt others. It happens! Shit happens! We are making life up as we go along. We do not come with a user manual. If you are waiting for people to make mistakes as sure as ‘eggs is eggs’ it will happen and if you are unable to forgive and forget all you get to do is haul around a big emotional suitcase on your shoulders. Excess baggage.
Why it’s hard to forgive and forget?
There are a 3 main reasons…
1. When someone has done something to you. You feel bad because the relationship that you thought you had with the person wasn’t what you thought it was. You suffer loss for what might have been and can no longer be. You feel disappointed in yourself for being suckered and you feel disappointed in the other person for letting you down.
2. You think the person will get the better of you. You don’t want to let them off the hook. You partially let them off the hook…but not quite… and you get to demonstrate how magnanimous you are.
But you never quite let it go because as soon as there is a whiff of misconduct you are at hand to drudge up all the ill doings from the past. Your anger is barely under the surface all you need is a little provocation and off you go again… like a broken record. What you are actually saying is that it isn’t over. The main reason why you do this is to reset the balance of power and control. Without forgetting… the forgiveness will never happen and so the relationship withers and die.
3. We find it difficult to forgive because of our egos. That voice inside our heads goes over the wrong doings over and over again. Our ego tells us not to be a pushover or weak, so we come out with nonsense about the other person and the situation. We are outraged. Shocked. Indignant. Insulted… these emotions are the work of the ego!
This story sums up all there is about forgiveness
There was a mother whose son was killed by a gangster on the streets. When the gangster was convicted she stood up in court and said “I am going to kill you”. She started to visit the gangster boy every week. At first he was very wary of her. She talked to him. She read to him and over time she educated him. When he was released she was waiting from him at the prison gates. She took him in. On day she sat him down and asked if he remembered the day when in court she said that she was going to kill him. He replied that he did. She told him that she had forgiven him the moment she had met him. He had taken her son’s live and she was dammed if he was doing to take hers. She decided that she was going to kill the ‘gangster’ in him. She asked him then, if he would be her son as she had lost hers. And he said “Yes”!
If this mother had not chosen to forgive and forget her life would have stopped the day her son’s had.
Why you should learn to forgive and forget…
Forgiveness is all about you and the way that you chose to live your life…and that is a life which is light with no excess emotional baggage. Actually the whole point of forgiveness is so that you can free yourself and move on. Forgiveness has nothing to do with the other person and everything to do with you. Forgiveness and forgetting doesn’t mean condoning what happened. It is not a sign of weakness on the contrary it is a sign of great strength, humility and empathy. To forgive and forget is an act of kindness to yourself and is a deep process of the heart. There is loads of evidence to suggest that forgiveness boasts your immune system and is good for your emotional wellbeing. Forgiving and forgetting is emotional intelligence.
Principles of forgiveness
Forgiving is not about overlooking or accepting what happened. It is about dealing with what happened in a skilful way. This means facing what happened with mindfulness. Working it through in every sense so that it releases its hold on you.
In reality non-forgiveness does damage to you and nobody else. Let’s face it in a many cases the person who has offended you is probably walking around and getting on with their lives, completely oblivious to the fact that you are hardening our own arteries with resentment or sticking metaphorical pins into effigies of them. When someone has done something to you it sets of all sorts of stress signals in our system. The body acts as if it is in real danger. Every time you see that person you get a rush of adrenalin. The brain alerts the body to watch out. The mind reminds the body what happened and to look for signs for betrayal. All the emotions associated with the event come flooding back and puts you in an emotional head lock. Commonly known as a double bind.
Get your attitude right
• Decide that no one can take away your joy unless you let them. It is your moral obligation to be joyful.
• Understand that forgiveness and forgetting is a process. It is an act that is easier said than done. You’ll probably need a few stabs at it before you can really say that you have forgiven and forgotten.
• Realise that forgiveness, forgetting and empathy go hand in hand. People make mistakes. According to my knowledge none of us have been here before. We’re making it up as we go alone. We all make mistakes. We all do things unwittingly. If you put yourselves in the other person’s shoes for a second and empathise, then it is easier to forgive.
How to forgiveness
1. Start of small. Think of someone who has done you wrong. Let’s say the person who stepped on your toe and didn’t say sorry or the person who cut in front of you at the traffic lights the other day. Think about what happen…who did what…and now decide to forgive the person. How does it feel? If you have really forgiven then you will feel a shift in your body. If you have really forgiven then you then you will not be able to remember the details of what happened and when. You have removed it from your psyche and you are prepared to move on.
Now you can move on to something a little bigger. Forgive a work colleague. Forgive your parents. Forgive a lover. Notice were you get stuck. Notice if when you say “I forgive you” if you mean it or not… or do the words sound hollow. If you get stuck it doesn’t matter. Think about what being stuck is doing for you. Are you massaging your ego? Are you being superior or are you being self-righteous, are you he victim or just plain pig headed. Take your time and chip away at it and one day you will be free and healthier.
2. Take responsibility and take the opportunity to face the person who has done you wrong to let them know exactly what they did and how what they did offended or upset you. Instead of hoping that the person get struck by lightning or that bad karma comes their way… face them and deal with it. Own up to your feelings and let them know. Letting people know how you feel is the only way they will know. If you say nothing, they may live under the illusion that what they did didn’t affect you. Which of course leaves you wide open for them to do it again. Sometimes is may not be feasible for you to face the person. It doesn’t matter do the forgiveness in your head. Look in the mirror and talk to the person as if they were right there in front of you. In doing this, you exorcise the grudge and the negativity associated with the incident. Eventually you release the energy necessary to forgive and forget.
Final word
You will know when you have processed what has happened to you well enough and you will know when it is time to move on. When there is no more hurt or pain and you actually feel a push away from the situation…just like the feeling you get when you push a door open. When you push open a heavy door it needs a bit of effort on your part, but once you apply the effort the door gives way. You walk through the open door you let the door close gently behind you. That is what forgiving and forgetting feels like…
The beautiful picture is by the artist Alexander Milor f/b the Idealist who work depicts this very topic.
20 years experience….Consultant and Trainer to large companies including Microsoft and Intel…Subscribe and every 7 – 10 days you will receives… career coaching… life skills and professional advise…from me…Bev
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