To forgive is divine

Some of you may have seen my Facebook post with the quote by Maya Angelou, “Forgive yourself for not knowing what you didn’t know before you learned it”.  

Forgiveness is something that has come up a lot in my conversations with people lately.  During these difficult times, many people are struggling with resentment and forgiveness issues and it seems they are contemplating their ability to forgive, including forgiving themselves.  I teach forgiveness and compassion as part of my stress management classes and it’s a tough talk.  

Forgiveness is hard.  Damn hard.  And it’s not forgetting.  Sometimes you think you’ve forgiven but then feelings of resentment come bubbling back up again and you wonder if you truly forgave or just went through the motions.  It’s really hard to tell.  And sometimes we just remember the transgression and that is just the act of not forgetting.  

To me, not forgetting is a survival mechanism.  Someone hurt us or we hurt someone and when we remember, with absolute awareness, it reminds us that we know better now and can behave or react differently.  

I had someone hurt me in a relationship for over 5 years.  I was in a bad place when this relationship started so my self-esteem was at a low point. This person was emotionally closed off and somewhat emotionally abusive.  They also used me, which I’ve since learned is financial abuse.  Our break up was difficult and I used something I knew would hurt them so that they’d just leave and wouldn’t want to try to work things out.  Well, that backfired on me because they wanted to work things out and then when we didn’t, they took what I used to hurt them and used it to hurt me and my reputation.  

There are two pieces related to forgiveness in that story.  One, I hurt this person in my effort to protect myself by lashing out, thinking it was the best course of action.  As a result, I had to forgive myself for hurting this person.  After a number of years, what finally got me there was Maya’s quote above.  I did what I thought was best with where I was at mentally and emotionally at THAT time.  Now I know better.  And Maya also said, “When you know better, you do better”.  Looking back, I wish I could change how I reacted but I can’t. (Picture that scene from The Lion King when Rafiki bonks Simba on the head for living in the past).  BUT looking forward, I know that I would behave differently if in the same situation again (let’s hope not!), so I’ve learned from the situation.  I can now do better. Two, this person hurt me for a number of years and then again after we went our separate ways.  I had to learn to forgive them so that I could move forward and let go of the anger inside me.  That was hard.  Part of me wanted to hold on to that anger so then I could be the victim.  But that’s not a healthy way to live. Being a victim is just as much hard work to keep up. It took a lot of introspection, meditation and ceremonial letter writings and burnings, but at the end of the day Maya’s quote was what it took.  That person had been hurt in a previous relationship and, in turn, they were behaving in the only way they knew how to protect themselves as well.  That was what did it.  I will never know if they realized that they hurt me, but that’s up to them not me.  I have forgiven them.  And it is freeing…divine.

Our world today needs more forgiveness.  And with forgiveness comes compassion.  

We have so many people, individually and in groups, who hold other individuals or groups accountable for their hurts from people that aren’t even alive anymore.  My grandparents lived in The Netherlands during WWII with their small children (my dad being one of them).  They owned a General Store and the Nazi’s came and took everything they had.  Until her Alzheimer’s was so bad she was a different person, she hated every single German.  Even long after the war and towards people born long after the war, she carried that opinion. My grandmother was a biggot.  She, thankfully, didn’t pass that opinion or sentiment to her children or grandchildren (that I know of).  But now that I’ve put that in writing, will I be held accountable for her thoughts and opinions? I had no control over them. I, myself, don’t think or feel the same way she did.  We need to forgive people for not knowing any better at that time.  We need to find compassion for people who did the best they could at that given time in their lives based on what was going on in the world around them.  Think about how much kinder, more gracious and loving our world would be if we just kept that in perspective.  

We are seeing so much history being criticized, erased and changed because our ancestors thought differently than we do now.  That was the thinking at THAT time. That’s the whole concept of evolution.  We learn from our ancestors, their mistakes, our mistakes; we grow as human beings and as a culture. They didn’t know any better. We do.  We know better so we do better. Wouldn’t the world be so much better if everyone could find it within themselves to forgive?  I think it would be divine.