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"And still, after all this time,
the Sun has never said to the Earth,
"You owe me."
Look what happens with love like that.
It lights up the sky." ~ Rumi
Forgiveness is such a vast and amazing process, not something done all at once. In his book on Relationships, Serge Kahili King mentions three main obstacles to forgiveness:
What the person did is unforgivable, and I'm NOT going to change my mind about that!If I forgive that person, I'll be doing him or her a favor, and I don't want to do that!
If I forgive, I'll forget and the same thing will happen to me again!
I talked about the first obstacle in the above mentioned article. In this article, I want to talk about the second one. We hear so much about forgiveness and how important it is and how, ultimately, forgiveness is for ourselves. "But," says the inner voice, "if I forgive it's like letting that person get away with what they did. I'll be doing that person a favor and they won't have to work through it." Our inner voice is a smart lawyer and knows exactly which words to say to put a stop to our good intentions.
Probably someone you love and care for has hurt you by words, actions, beliefs or thoughts either consciously or unconsciously. You have every reason to be hurt and angry and decide you don't want to forgive and won't do so until that person... admits they were wrong and they hurt you, decides to mend their ways, or does reparation for the hurt caused.
As I mentioned in my previous article, the anger and tension caused by the hurt, anger, confusion, pain and resentment do stay in your body -not the other person's body-and may affect your health and well-being in many different ways. These emotions start draining your energy in subtle ways; it's like having a leaky faucet. You don't HAVE to fix it, but it will be wasting water which is a precious resource, it'll increase your water bill, rust your pipes and it will stain your sink. We get so caught up in the story of what happened; that we forget that it really is telling us a lot about the other person. Imagine for a moment that someone you love, say your sister, has just accused you of cheating her out of some money and you are outraged because you know this isn't true.
You can start by acknowledging that even if you are hurt (sad, angry, and/ or resentful) and would very much like the other person to acknowledge this; you choose to feel good about yourself. If there is any element of truth to what was said, acknowledge it. If there isn't, acknowledge that too. Once you do this, you are open to seeing that probably your sister is in pain, caught in her own shadow, victimhood and unhappiness and this has led her to a mistaken conclusion. If she was happy and centered, she probably wouldn't feel that way and she wouldn't have hurt you so. Maybe you can now forgive her flawed character, even if you still can't forgive her. Would you be doing her a favor if you forgive her and would you be letting her get away with it? Probably not, even though you might still feel hurt you most likely feel some compassion for her.
You can "be right or be happy," the saying goes. If you choose being happy, send a blessing to the person who hurt you; bless them and wish them happiness and peace. Life is fragile, forgiveness really IS for you. To love and be loved is the best way to be forgiving and forgiven.
© 2011 Patzia Gonzalez
Patzia Gonzalez has a Psychotherapy and Life Coaching practice in Newmarket, On; she specializes in using EFT, Emotional Freedom Techniques, to treat relationship issues, emotional components of pain, shock after a medical diagnosis, anger, anxiety, phobias, love pain, divorce, abundance, money problems and stressful changes in life, work or family. Patzia coaches clients from all over the world using Skype.
Visit her website at: http://www.healingheartscentre.com/
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