I had originally planned to write this blog on forgiveness as a fairly direct follow up to my recent blog entitled “When is an apology really an apology,” but then needed some time to sort through my thoughts about the issue. Forgiveness seems to follow naturally from accepting an apology. If an apology is genuine, then forgiveness seems to be a good way to resolve the issue. I’ve been struggling with how to approach the issue of forgiveness. First, is forgiveness “earned” or is it “given,” or both? Second, what do you do when you can’t justify forgiving someone, but you also do not want to hang onto the negative feelings you have about something someone has done? Can you just “choose” to forgive them, even when they don’t “deserve” your forgiveness?
Is forgiveness something that one must earn from another? If someone does something to you that you believe is wrong, that injures you somehow, either emotionally, financially, or in some other way, should you just forgive him or her? Should you offer forgiveness whether they apologize or not, whether they are sorry or not, whether or not they are willing to take responsibility for what they have done, even if they might do it again?
I had been pretty clearly in the camp of “no forgiveness without earning it” until a client recently gave me another point of view, which they considered a fundamental part of their deeply held religious faith: we should be willing to forgive others even if they do nothing to earn it, even if they do not ask our forgiveness, even if they might do it again? I had been thinking of forgiveness as a kind of transaction (that might be the lawyer in me rising up). In other words, I will forgive you, but you must do the following things first…. This client pointed out that forgiveness was a gift we should be willing to offer freely, for ourselves, for others, to make the world a better place.
At first, I’ll be honest, I thought this was a bit naïve, and might lead to exposure to continued injury. Take a battered woman. Her husband gets drunk, beats her. Next day, he is sober, sorry, remorseful, asks her for forgiveness. I’d say, even with the remorse, she ought not forgive him. Why should she believe he is really sorry right after he did this to her. Besides, even if he is sorry, what difference does that make to her, while she has bruises on her face and a swollen cheek and the emotional trauma of what he’s done still swirling around her mind? Is he going to change? The jury is still out on that isn’t it? Shouldn’t she wait until she knows if he is going to really change, to prove just how sorry he is and how safe she will be, if she forgives him?
Why do we even bother with forgiveness at all? Why does it matter? Should we do it because we think it makes the world a better place to “forgive those who trespass against us?” I don’t know if it makes the world a better place. Maybe it does, sometimes. Doesn’t everyone deserve a second chance? Maybe. Again, I don’t know if everyone in every circumstance deserves a second chance. Anyway, that’s not really for me to decide.
Here’s why I care about forgiveness. As a therapist, forgiveness is often the only way to repair a damaged relationship. Some damaged relationships are worth repairing. So, forgiveness is an important part of the healing process. Maybe even more importantly, forgiveness is sometimes the best way someone, as an individual, can really resolve their issues from a past event. With forgiveness, the person can begin to move past their resentment, trauma, or other emotional limitations and embrace the possibility of real change. Think of the truth and reconciliation work done in South Africa after apartheid and minority white rule gave way to true democracy. Many abused people in that nation were willing to forgive so they and their nation could heal.
There’s a problem, though. It can feel really good to forgive someone for something, so you can get on with your life, but what if that person didn’t really “deserve” your forgiveness. What do you do with your forgiveness, already offered, if they didn’t really change anything, and they continue to do the same thing? Do you ignore it or look the other way? Do you take your forgiveness back? Is that even possible? Even if they don’t repeat the offending behavior, what if you weren’t really ready to forgive, and you offered forgiveness only so that you would feel better? This can lead to deep resentment, or a lingering sense of unfairness, or unresolved pain, which becomes difficult to get at, because it is now lying underneath a layer of what felt like forgiveness, and now might feel more like denial or repressed anger.
Let me approach this issue with an alternative. Is there any way to move past feelings of hurt and anger toward someone who has done something that feels really wrong without forgiving them? The answer is actually yes. Forgiveness says something like (use your own words here if you like), “I am okay with you despite what you did, and now we can be fine again.” There is an alternative short of this “clean slate.” It is, simply, letting go. Letting go of a feeling like resentment, or an attitude or judgment toward someone is a choice. It is a way of saying, “I am not okay with you because of what you’ve done, but I also don’t like the way this feeling I have about what you did affects me now, so I want to get rid of it.” In other words, you don’t have to be okay with the person in order to let go of the difficult feelings associated with whatever they did.
I am not advocating withholding forgiveness when it is the right thing to do for you. I am simply saying there is an alternative, called letting go, which can be a better option when forgiveness is not earned, deserved or even wise. Choosing to let go of difficult feelings can bring us the relief that we need from those feelings without creating the need for denial of anything through premature or a false sense of forgiveness, including the possibility that we are not okay with that person, even though we want to overcome our feelings about what they did.
This still leaves us the question of when should we choose to forgive, which includes letting go, and when should we choose to let go, but without forgiveness. That’s what I will discuss in Forgiveness and Letting Go, Part Two.
Copyright, 2011, Michael Kinzer. Blog entries and other materials available on Jupiter Center’s website are intended to stimulate thoughts and conversations and to supplement therapy work with Jupiter Center clients already in therapy. If you or someone you know suffers from a mental illness, you are strongly encouraged to seek help from a mental health professional. For further information about this blog, or Jupiter Center, contact Michael Kinzer at 612-701-0064 or michael(at)jupitercenter.com.
Tags: abuse, boundaries, conflict, conflict-resolution, feelings, personal growth, self-awareness, solutions, well-being
