Forgiveness Works!

The other day I was working with a client who’d had recurring back pain for 10 years. During our brief session, she suddenly realised she was blaming someone for her back problem. After she’d engaged in a simple forgiveness process, the pain had totally gone.

The blame she had projected onto the other person had a nasty side-effect – Guilt. She had unconsciously punished herself by creating a back problem.

“Forgiveness” is not a very popular term. It has overtones of piety perhaps. Many people prefer to use terms like “acceptance” and “letting go” instead.

So what exactly is Forgiveness?

To forgive: to give up resentment against or the desire to punish…Webster’s New World Dictionary.

• Forgiveness is for you and not the offender.  It is an internal process that is a feeling of wellness, freedom and acceptance.
• Forgiveness is about your healing and not about the people who hurt you.  It is accepting that nothing we do to punish them will heal us. It is no longer wanting them to suffer as much as we did.
• Forgiveness is taking back your power and no longer being a victim.  It is no longer building your identity around something that happened in the past.  It is recognizing that we no longer need our grudges and resentments, our hatred and self-pity.
• Forgiveness is a choice.  You can claim the right to stop hurting and to stop being hurt by events that were unfair in the first place.
• Forgiveness is moving on.  It is freeing up and putting to better use the energy once consumed by harbouring resentments and nursing unhealed wounds.  It is breaking the cycle of abuse.

photo credit: lepiaf.geo

In addition to defining what forgiveness is, it is also helpful to look at what it is not.

The “old” idea of forgiveness looks something like this: “You’re guilty, because you’ve done something to hurt me. However, from my lofty position (I’m so much better than you) I forgive you.”

This leads us to something that many people have a lot of difficulty with. However, if taken on board, it is the first step towards healing all discordant aspects of our lives: We are 100% responsible for what we are (unconsciously) projecting out onto the world, which causes the faulty perception of our experiences.

This is a tough one, but once we stopped blaming other people, places, and events for our unhappiness, it is actually very empowering. It could be said that really, the only choice we have is to either let go of (forgive) something or to hold onto it. In other words, we can choose to change our perception.

In Forgiveness: The Greatest Healer of All, Gerald G. Jampolsky, M.D., addresses the ego, that part of us which interacts with the physical world, and states, “There is always a choice to be made: We can listen to the voice of love or the voice of the ego.” Since we need an ego to function in our physical existence, he advises not to make it our enemy but also not to become attached to its advice.  Because of its limitations, the ego can become fearful and defensive, living in a state of guilt and shame and will project these out onto the world – looking for others to blame.

Albert Einstein is famously quoted as saying “You cannot solve the problem at the level of the problem.” Rather than running around trying to fix up our lives by shifting the various parts around to make a better “picture”, we actually need to acknowledge that we can in no way see the bigger picture because, we are clearly not Omniscient and cannot possible know all the variables involved and who might be affected – for good or ill, by our actions.

This is where many spiritual traditions would mention the “G-word” – God. It seems that this word is sometimes as “uncool” as the word “forgiveness”.

 

photo credit: h.koppdelaney 

 

So let’s use the word Self (“S” capitalised, to indicate a higher aspect of ourselves – beyond the ego, but connected to God)

Dr. Jampolsky also calls the Self  ”The Voice for Love”. He advises readers to become acquainted with the ego’s messages so that you can recognize them when they come into your thoughts.  Then you
can choose whose voice you are going to listen to, the ego’s or the voice of love, the voice of forgiveness.

“What’s in it for me?” you may ask. Well, forgiveness will always offer us inner peace – that’s a given. Plus, as our perception of who or what “wronged” us changes, there will sometimes be positive side-effects.

For example, if we are in a troublesome relationship and we practice forgiveness, there are two possible outcomes: Either the person will peacefully leave our lives or, if they don’t, what had previously bothered us about them simply won’t bother us any more!

Having said the above, it goes without saying that if one is in, for example, a violent relationship, common sense should prevail and you would of course need to physically distance yourself from the other party.

However, even in a case like this, forgiveness can result in the other persons behaviour being radically healed.

It is not only relationship with people that can be healed by forgiveness. In any situation, we are in relationship – either to a person, place, or circumstance.

One thing is always certain. Regardless of whether the circumstances of your life change or not, forgiveness is a sure way to guarantee peace of mind at all times and, with practice, under all circumstances.