The first time the concept of forgiveness was brought to me was in a women’s group that was being lead by my therapist. She gave us all some literature on forgiveness. I don’t remember all of it, but I do remember the line that forgiveness does not mean forgetting what happened. I think when I read that I wished that forgiveness could mean forgetting because that is what made it feel so difficult to forgive–I remembered all of it in high-definition.
I decided to confront one of the people in my life who had done some terrible things. I did it first in a letter and received an apology letter back. Next, I confronted him in person. That was more revealing. He told me to tell him what happened because he could not remember. All these years, decades really, he couldn’t remember. Meanwhile my life had revolved around hate–hating him, despising him, hating myself, hating everyone really. You would never know so much hate was inside of me because I hid it deep within me and disguised it with a smile–a smile I would later describe as my rage smile.
After this confrontation I realized that the only person who had really been suffering for all of these years was me. The Buddha says, “Holding onto anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned.” Even better,–“Holding onto anger is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die.”
I really did feel as if holding on to this anger was somehow hurting him and hurting all the other people whom I had not forgiven. How could I let them off the hook for what they had done? How could I not keep reliving these moments? Isn’t reliving these moments the only way to protect myself? None of these was true. None of these brought me any peace.
After I realized that the only person who had been suffering was me, I decided I would try this so-called forgiveness. Just the mere fact that I wanted to forgive anyone forged the way for help to show up for me. I prayed every day for help in doing this because I only knew how to hold on to the past. I did not know how to let any of it go.
I would sit in meditations and feel the feelings about it. I journaled, spoke to my mentor and my spiritual director extensively. Slowly, like the drip of water can erode a mountainside, little pieces of anger would chip away. Under all the anger were the true feelings. The anger was really just stopping me from feeling the deep well of sadness, betrayal and fear. Once I felt all my feelings, I began to do something that was harder than forgiving anyone else, and that was the work of forgiving myself.
Forgiveness, I found, is really releasing the energy around myself that was holding me hostage. The things that people had done to me or I had done to myself were not forgotten through forgiveness nor did forgiving them validate it all and make it, “right” or “O.K.” What it did was take the shackles off and allow me to be present and dream a brighter future. The truth is the judgment and anger were just part of the darkness. The only way to heal any of it was to allow in more light, and that for me is what forgiveness did. It unblocked the channel for more love, more light, more peace, more compassion, more joy, more abundance, and more of all the goodness in life. I felt a freedom that can only be described as grace.
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Release Me
“An anger so deep that it went to the core of me and my being,
It cut into all the other parts of my life and my feelings would bleed out sideways,
You don’t remember what happened and I stand here with the memories for both of us–dumbfounded by the years of suffering,
The prison I built around my heart was only destroying me.
Slowly, like the drip of water erodes a mountain,
I chipped away at the anger, the sadness, the betrayal and the fear.
Small glimpses of a different life,
Lead me to the shore called forgiveness which lead me on the journey to freedom.”
