The Powerful But Difficult Task of Forgiveness

Recently I ran into an old neighbor of mine, someone that at one time I spent a lot of time with talking and reviewing our respective lives and often our divorces. This woman is quite a bit older than me and at first I had seen her as a kind of second mother to me since my own mother had passed away, but as I got to know her I realized that in many ways she was not a nurturing person as she had too much venom hiding just beneath the surface of her smiling demeanor. She was angry, bitter and often depressed by how her life had turned out. She held a major grudge against her ex husband who had cheated on her and treated her in ways that made her feel hurt and wounded.

When I saw her this time I asked her how she was doing. She told me that she was “Bad, bad, bad” – her way of telling me that she was depressed again. I talked to her a little bit about this and tried to give her some encouraging words. As we chatted she asked me what I had been up to and I told her about writing my book and how recently my ex husband and his significant other had given me a party to celebrate the publication of it. He had invited our children, their spouses and the grand children. I told her it was a wonderful party and how I felt loved and valued by them.

Her response to this at first was that she thought this was great but then she said that my situation was very unusual and then went on about how most people could not and would not have the kind of relationship we had, that this just was not possible for most divorced people. At this point she began talking about her ex husband, who by the way has been gone to the great beyond for at least 30 years – this woman is in her late 80’s – and how she simply could not forgive him for what he had done to her.

Forgiveness Is Not Condoning 

I then talked to her about forgiveness and how it was not a condoning of the person’s actions but a letting go of the anger, hurt and bitterness. I let her know that I knew this was not easy and often took some time – several years in many cases, but that eventually, if you do not forgive, that is, let go of the pain and bitterness and move on, this lack of forgiveness will both run and ruin your life and not only will you be a victim of whoever hurt you, but now you will be a victim of your own thoughts and feelings - a double whammy if there ever was one.

What I saw with this woman, and I would like for you to think about this in relation to your own life, is that her anger and resentment about her ex husband was part of her story and she regaled in telling it. She often used it to garner sympathy and used it as Carolyn Myss in her book Why People Don’t Heal, called a type of currency. She used it to get attention and to feel validated. She became a martyr. But now in the late stages of her life she was no longer getting much from telling this story, everyone had heard it and most of us, me included, had a kind of so what attitude. Since almost everyone has been hurt in one way or another by someone or some thing, who wants to hear the same old story, over and over and over again – not only was she getting older and moving into despair, her story had grown old and stale as well. She needed to forgive him and let go or she would leave this earth a miserable and angry person.

Integrity Vs. Despair

Erikson in his stages of growth and development calls this last stage of life Integrity vs. Despair. He says you have two choices in each stage of human development – the positive life affirming choice or the one that will cause you to live a dysfunctional life. But don’t wait until you are at the tail end of your life like this woman is, instead begin today to forgive and let go of what has hurt you in your past. You can take your time with it, but your goal needs to be to get to a place of forgiveness. So sit down and write out a letter to whoever has wronged you. Spell in out in as much detail as you want – use cuss words if that makes you feel better and then burn that letter. Or keep it for a little while longer – but don’t mail it, and then at some point burn or destroy it.

Put Them on Trial and Then Pardon Them

Another way to go through the process of forgiveness is to put the person on trial, metaphorically speaking. As Scott Peck has said “You can not pardon someone for a crime he has not committed. Only after a guilty verdict can there be a pardon.” This process involves making sure the person actually committed this crime against you. But do this on your own – don’t involve others, except for one witness or possibly a therapist or minister. Write out their offense, gather evidence and then do your own sort of mock trail of them. Once you feel certain they are guilty – let some time pass and then when you feel ready, burn or otherwise destroy all the evidence in a ceremony of forgiveness – if you want to, you can invite a witness to the ceremony, but then once you have done this make a point to consciously move on.

Don't Forget to Forgive Yourself

One other important thing - make sure to forgive yourself as well, particularly in cases where you had a choice to either stay or leave the person or situation.  We often need to forgive ourselves for our part in what happened since many of us have reasons for staying and not seeing what we could have seen had we wanted to or were willing to take the risk to leave.  This is sometimes more difficult than forgiving someone else, if you need help with this you might consider a therapist or a minister.  

The Four Stages of Forgiveness 

Sometimes when something bad happens to us, particularly a hurtful thing done by someone close to us, we want to get over it as quickly as we can and so we rush to forgive them since the conventional wisdom is to do this, just as I am suggesting here.  But it's important to spend some time in grieving what happened and not go too quickly into saying you forgive them - let some time pass, let yourself feel hurt and upset.  This is normal - but then get on with what I have written here.  As Estes said in her book Women Who Run With the Wolves we should, "... Forgo - leave it alone...Forebear...abstain from punishing...Forget - to aver from memory, refuse to dwell and last to Forgive - to abandon the debt."
If you do the things I've talked about above and the ideas of these other writers, then  I guarantee you that your life will begin to feel powerful and energized. 

Blessings, Lorraine

Remember to check out Lorraine’s new book, Second Act Soul Calls – Your Guide for the Re-Invention of your life at Midlife and Beyond with Passion, Purpose and Possibilities – available now on Amazon.