Forgiveness

We are often told to forgive those that have wronged us or harmed us, even if they are no longer living. But what does that really mean? In ancient Hebraic thought, the act of forgiving is a two-person process. It usually starts with one person, who did something against another, admitting their wrong and seeking forgiveness (repenting) and the other performing the act of forgiveness. The origin stems from the thought of removing a weight, such as a yoke, off of another person and placing it upon yourself. That can be no small task. But what if we, for one reason or another, are unable to forgive another person? What if the other person doesn’t come to us to get that weight (their wrongdoing) removed? And even worse, what if that other person is yourself?

When a person seeks forgiveness from someone else, they are crawling, humbling themselves, to the person they wronged; weighted down with such a force that it is difficult to move. Without humility, it is like walking up and saying, “Yo! How about you remove this here weight?” It’s less of a request and more of a direct instruction. When a humble repentance happens, the person doing the forgiving removes the weight and places it upon themselves. Then that person can toss it and get rid of it. The memory of the weight is still there, but the weight itself is not. And once the weight is upon your shoulders, you can do with it what you will. You can carry it around or you can toss it and get rid of it.

Why not simply toss it away in the first place? Well, that would be like someone stealing from you, or even stabbing you, and then you going to them and saying, “It wasn’t a big deal. Don’t sweat it.” There is no emotion in that. In fact, you didn’t actually forgive them. You dismissed them, as well as what they were coming to you for. By taking their weight and simply tossing it aside, you are, in essence, saying, “I don’t care if you want forgiveness. I don’t care if you are apologizing. I’m not going to give it to you.” This could, and does, happen when the person who was wronged is still very angry at OR still very afraid of the other person.

We, as trauma sufferers, carry the consequences of our trauma(s) with us. We continue to suffer. Yet, we are told that we will do better when we forgive those that hurt us. Since they rarely come to us to get the weight lifted, what are we to do? How do we place that weight upon ourselves? That is a difficult task. Such a task takes courage and emotional strength, more than moral aptitude. The task takes standing tall and being confident, without fear. Yes, without FEAR. I said it. I said the trauma dictionary F-word. We have to be willing to put our fear of our transgressor aside in order to see them in front of us, whether they are physically there or not, and perform the action of removing that weight from them and placing it upon our shoulders. What does that weight feel like? Does it get lighter every inch you move it closer? Not really. But what it does is frees us up emotionally. I’ll get to that in a minute.

But what if the person who we want to forgive is the one staring at us in the mirror – ourselves? How can we remove the weight that is hanging around our own neck? Well, this one isn’t as easy as it may sound. Because when we have a weight around our own neck, sometimes it is there because it grew like a tumor and other times it is in addition to the weight we need someone else to remove. But many times, the weight isn’t really there at all; it is invisible. When a weight is there because we wronged someone, and we may have many of them, the first thing that we need to do is forgive ourselves. That is not always possible at first, as I will explain. BUT HOW?? The how isn’t as important as the WHY. The reason we NEED to remove that weight is because eventually that weight will grow, or it will be there so long that it will start attaching itself to our body, making it even harder to remove. If you have a weight around your neck, you NEED to get it off of you. Sometimes, the weight that you put on yourself because you wronged another person is buried under the weight(s) that you need that person to remove. In other words, sometimes you can’t forgive yourself until another person forgives you first.

Once the other weight(s) are removed, the only weight we have around our neck is the one we placed there. Whether you needed to have other weights removed first, or whether you started with the weight you placed upon yourself, you need to look at how it got there in the first place. What did you do that was so wrong? Why did you do something to hurt another person? Is there already a weight around your neck that is rubbing you to the point causing you to do something against another person? This is something you need to figure out before attempting to remove that weight. If you don’t, you may find that as soon as you remove one weight, another one shows up.

In the forgiveness process, you WANT to place that weight upon your own shoulders. You want to feel the emotional heaviness that they have felt. Why? Because by doing so, you empathize, even in the slightest, of the guilt they experienced. And once you see them begin to experience the freedom without that weight, then you will see that when you remove the weight, you will also experience that freedom. Forgiveness means that you are no longer full of anger at them. Forgiveness means that you have accepted their admission of guilt and their apology, and removed their weight.

I wanted to acknowledge that last paragraph before continuing on talking about our own weights. I interrupted that thought because that had to do with other people, and not as much of ourselves. But now it’s time to talk about the last weight we put on ourselves – the imaginary weight. As trauma sufferers, we often blame ourselves for the trauma. What if I did this different? What if I had done that ahead of time? What if I drove there instead? What if… What if… What if…??? In the end, all of these “what ifs” cause four things: anxiety, guilt, shame and depression; pretty much in that order. The more “what if” questions we ask ourselves, the more anxiety starts building. The more questions we ask, the more we feel guilty for not doing something, or a lot of somethings. The more guilt we feel, the more shame we develop for not acting upon those “what if” scenarios. And the more guilt and shame we build up, the more depressed we become. THIS is the invisible weight that we put around our own necks! This is why this is the most difficult to remove. It’s not just a matter of forgiving ourselves. It’s a matter of recognizing how the weight got there in the first place, and why we don’t actually see it.

When we need to forgive ourselves for something we NEVER did, we need to look at the source, piece by piece, tiny bit by tiny bit. We need to go back and start asking all of those “what if” questions that created the weight in the first place. By doing so, we can start recognizing other ingredients, per se, of the invisible stone that the weight is made up of. So, using the questions I used in the above paragraph, let’s start an imaginary scenario.

WHAT IF I did something different that day? Okay, let’s visit that. What would you have done differently? If you got into your sedan instead of the Jeep, would that have changed the speed of the oncoming car that hit you? If you left five minutes earlier, would have that have changed the mind of the gunman who shot your husband? If you brought your dad a beer as soon as he walked in the door, would that have changed the fact that he had a bad day and was still angry enough to hit you?

WHAT IF I had done that ahead of time? Okay, let’s visit that. What would you have done earlier, and what difference would it have made? If you had put the hamburger out to defrost when you left for work instead of when you got home, would that have made your ex-husband’s mood any better? If you had put the photocopies on your boss’ desk earlier in the day, instead of near quitting time, would that have stopped his sexual advances? If you had mowed the yard on Saturday instead of Sunday, would that have stopped your brother from hitting you?

WHAT IF I drove somewhere different? Fine. Let’s take a look at that. If you drove to Walmart instead of Safeway, would that have stopped the person who grabbed you? If you drove to the bank instead of to a friend’s house, would that have stopped your jealous husband from accusing you of adultery?

See…the “what if” game does nothing except cause a buildup of anxiety, which causes you to ask more questions, which causes more anxiety, which leads to guilt, which leads to shame, which leads to depression. So, the “what ifs” that you asked yourself in the beginning, ask yourself again. But this time, think about the question as you ask it. What if I had done something different? My boss would still be an ass. My husband would still be jealous. My [fill in the blank] would still be [fill in the blank]. In other words, nothing that you could have done would have changed the outcome that caused the trauma. And if you recognize that with each “what if” question, you will start noticing that weight around your neck becoming more visible, but more importantly, lighter; as it loses the material that created it. So, when it comes to forgiving yourself, it’s less of a matter of gathering the strength to remove the weight as it is figuring out what caused it to be there in the first place. And when you work through everything, you will easily be able to take hold of that weight, which is now visible, and throw it into a lake. And once you do that, you will feel the emotional freedom that I spoke of earlier. This will not happen as quick as forgiving another person. This takes time. Sometimes, it takes a lot of time. But in the end, it’s worth every minute devoted to figuring out why the weight was there in the first place.

When it comes to forgiveness, whether of someone else or yourself, examine what the reason is for you forgiving them. Are you doing it to get someone off your back? Are you doing it because a third party said you should? Or are you doing it because “it’s the right thing to do?” I hate that phrase! The reason you should be doing it is to have the emotional freedom I spoke of. Do it so that you, and hopefully the other person, can move on in life. The more we harbor ill will, the more we hang on to negative feelings, the more it affects us, even our health, later in life. Forgiveness is not always easy to do. But it should be both given and received in humility. Once forgiven of a matter, the matter is put to rest. Don’t lord the wrongdoing over the other person. Don’t keep bringing it up. Just let it be a matter of the past.