The Book of Forgiving: The Fourfold Path for Healing Ourselves and Our World

by Desmond Tutu

In each of us, there is an innate ability to create joy out of suffering, to find hope in the most hopeless of situations, and to heal any relationship in need of healing.

Forgiveness is the journey we take toward healing the broken parts. It is how we become whole again.

acceptance that is the hallmark of forgiveness.

Together, we will explore each aspect of the Fourfold Path of forgiving: Telling the Story, Naming the Hurt, Granting Forgiveness, and Renewing or Releasing the Relationship.

Without forgiveness, we remain tethered to the person who harmed us. We are bound with chains of bitterness, tied together, trapped. Until we can forgive the person who harmed us, that person will hold the keys to our happiness; that person will be our jailor.

there are times when I look at some of those who are described as “monsters” and I honestly believe that there, but for the grace of God, go I. I do not say this because I am some singular saint. I say this because I have sat with condemned men on death row, I have spoken with former police officers who have admitted inflicting the cruelest torture, I have visited child soldiers who have committed acts of nauseating depravity, and I have recognized in each of them a depth of humanity that was a mirror of my own.

You will no longer define me You

If there is a pattern of hurt from the perpetrator, then each instance of harm is not discrete. There is history, and we are not served by forgetting our history.

It is best to break our forgiving down into bite-size pieces, and begin from wherever we are standing. Tell your story for as long as you need to. Name your hurts until they no longer pierce your heart. Grant forgiveness when you are ready to let go of a past that cannot be changed. Reconcile or release the relationship as you choose.

everyone who has harmed another has also been harmed.

Forgiveness is rarely easy, but it is always possible.

To relegate someone to the level of monster is to deny that person’s ability to change and to take away that person’s accountability for his or her actions and behavior.

Let us condemn ghastly acts, but let us never relinquish the hope that the doers of the most heinous deeds can and may change.

I have said before that given the same set of circumstances, under the same pressures and influences, I may have been a Hitler, or a Kotze. I would hope not. But I may have been.

Forgiveness is simply about understanding that every one of us is both inherently good and inherently flawed.

it is not the trauma itself that defines us. It is the meaning we make of our experiences that defines both who we are and who we ultimately become.

If I tuck my secrets and my stories away in shame or fear or silence, then I am bound to my victimhood and my trauma.

this acceptance and recognition of the hidden gifts that suffering can bring is an important part of healing and forgiveness.

In the ideal model of forgiveness, there is an exchange of stories, and if done with total honesty and no justification or rationalization on the part of the perpetrator, there can be great understanding and healing between the two people.

The power of the human mind to justify its actions is truly endless. No villain has ever thought he was a villain.

If you can show the person that you see their goodness, then they don’t have to work so hard to defend it.

To quote the comedian Lily Tomlin, “Forgiveness means giving up all hope for a better past.”

It is not just what happened to us that matters but how what happened hurt us.

Grief happens whenever we lose something that is precious to us, even our trust, our faith, or our innocence.

We grieve as much for what might have been as for what was.

Denial protects us from remembered pain and can serve to pace our grief.

People need space to be weak and vulnerable for a time before they can become strong.”

I had to stop my impulse to try to make it better, to fix it, and to try to take her suffering away. The only way I could really help was just to listen and offer my presence and my love.

How do we allow our suffering to ennoble us? We make meaning out of it and make it matter. We use our experiences as many of the people in this book have used theirs: to make ourselves into richer, deeper, more empathic people.

I felt sorrow for whoever had done this horrible thing. I feel sorrow for anyone who commits such a brutal act of violence, and sorrow for our world in general. And if I’m truly honest, I know there is not as much separating us as I’d like to imagine.

I know that the only way out of these feelings is to go through them.

A butterfly struggles against the cocoon that surrounds it, and it is this very struggling that makes it resilient enough to survive when it breaks free. So it is that you and I must struggle through our anger, grief, and sadness, and push against the pain and suffering on our way to forgiving.

Renewing our relationships is how we harvest the fruits that forgiveness has planted. Renewal is not an act of restoration. We do not make a carbon copy of the relationship we had before the hurt or insult. Renewing a relationship is a creative act. We make a new relationship.

When I harm another, whether intentionally or not, I inevitably harm myself. I become less than I am meant to be. I become less than I am capable of being. When I harm another, I need to restore what I have taken from that person. Or make a gesture of recompense. I need to restore what I have lost within myself through my harmful words or actions.

When we witness the anguish we have caused another, we help that person heal, and we help the relationship heal. Victims need to tell their stories. Victims need to express how much they have been hurt. And as perpetrators, we need to be fearless enough to stand in front of those we have hurt and open our hearts to make space for their pain. We had a part in creating it, and we have a part in healing it.

Victims need to feel they are being heard and affirmed. The best way to do this is to not argue the facts of their stories or the ways they are hurting. If your spouse says you lied last Wednesday, and you lied to them last Thursday, it will not help rebuild the trust by arguing the date of the offense. If your child says “You did not show up to my football game, and you are never there for me,” it does not serve a healing purpose for you to counter with all the other football games you have attended as irrefutable proof you are there for your child. When people are hurting, they cannot be cross-examined out of their pain.

There is something magical about saying “I am sorry.” There is healing in the very utterance. Who among us has not had to say these words and who among us has not wished to hear them? “I am sorry” can be a bridge between nations, spouses, friends, and enemies. A whole world can be built on the very foundation laid out in these three simple words: “I am sorry.” If we neglect this important step, we can create cracks in the foundation of our forgiving. We may need to utter those magical words many times before they are heard and felt. We may have to say them many times before they are believed. What is important is that we are courageous enough to say them, vulnerable enough to mean them, and humble enough to repeat them as many times as necessary.

When you apologize, you are restoring the dignity that you have violated in the person you have hurt. You are also acknowledging that the offense has happened. You are taking responsibility for your part in causing harm. When you apologize with humility and with true remorse for hurting another, you open a space for healing.

Our words can express our remorse and desire to do right, but it is often our actions that most show our true intentions.

Making amends is also how you heal yourself.

If the person you have harmed chooses not to have a relationship with you, this is that person’s choice. With grace and in full knowledge, you have done all you can to make it right. You must honor that person’s decision to release you and the relationship.

When we forgive someone, we let go of any demand that he or she should suffer as we have suffered.

Guilt helps us stay connected with others. Shame also plays its evolutionary role in keeping us in relationship to the group. “Have you no shame” is what we say to people who have no sense of how their actions harm others. But shame can be toxic. Toxic shame drives us out of connection and community and makes us believe we do not belong. It makes us think we do not deserve to be in relationships.

My self-forgiveness was definitely made easier by their forgiveness.

Brené Brown writes, “Guilt is good. Guilt helps us stay on track, because it’s about our behavior. It occurs when we compare something we’ve done—or failed to do—with our personal values. The discomfort that results often motivates real change, amends, and self-reflection.”

When you share your experiences with others, you create new meaning out of a painful past.

We feel shame in isolation. It can only be healed in a community and in connection with others.

The new story admits that “yes, I have caused pain and suffering.” The new story also recognizes that “the harm I have caused in the past is not who I am today.”

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow said, “If we could read the secret history of our enemies, we should find in each man’s life sorrow and suffering enough to disarm all hostility.”

It is our nature to forgive, reconcile, and rebuild the broken pieces of our relationships. Every hand that extends itself in a gesture of forgiveness is a hand working toward the creation of peace in the world.