The Power of Forgiveness
The word “forgiveness” has always baffled me a bit. “Forgiving” someone possibly implies that they “wronged” us in the first place. How can we be so sure? How do we forgive someone for our own experience? Is it their fault that we feel the way we feel? Is it their doing that we remember things the way we choose to remember them? Is our resentment justified because we felt we were “hurt” instead of choosing to see our role in the situation? What did we learn from the hurtful experience? What is useful? What is freeing?
As a facilitator and trainer of Integrative Holistic Life Coaches, I challenge the notion that we are victims to any experience. I ask Legacy Coaches to look for their contribution and power in any circumstance. This is a practice that is not easy, but, if mastered, it is healing and freeing. To be powerful in the transformation of your thought, the understanding of your perception is really your choice. Is it possible that your view is never actually “factual” and often only interesting to you? Some people might struggle with these considerations, but embracing their validity is empowering.
Our need to belong and to matter is inherent in all of us, yet it will never be actualized without the experience of love and connection. Resentment is a great way to be alone, to continue to be “right,” un-heard, and angry. I ask my Legacy students to look deeper into the meaning that we put on every event in our lives — to search their souls for the “boot-camp-to-our-life-
“I forgive myself. I forgive my humanity.
I forgive my righteousness, and I forgive the times.
I have not fully loved.”
There is a process I use with my clients and my students that helps the unraveling of judgment and criticism. It is an in-depth evaluation of what is “known” and what is simply a strong preference or opinion. And, I ask them to consider that, perhaps, nothing is ever KNOWN, and everything is always preference. I am suggesting that letting go of self-importance is the beginning of self-realization. What better way to “let go” of self-importance than to let go of this misconception of “forgiveness.” All great coaches, ask great questions. Here are a few of mine that will help you let go and grow through the resentment (lack of forgiveness of self) that traps you in suffering.
The Power of Forgiveness Homework
Instructions (Please take the time to write out your answers):
Part 1: Answer the questions exactly how they are written. Each question builds on the previous.
- The Story: What is it that you need to forgive? [Example: I am made wrong.]
- The Person: Who did it? [Example: My wife makes me wrong.]
- The Event: What did they do to you? [Example: My wife brings up the past over and over again to punish me.]
- The Truth: Why did they do it? [Example: My wife has to be right and likes to punish me.]
- The Belief: What do you believe about you that has this occur in the mirror-of-your-life experiences? In other words, why is this experience of blame and resentment for someone else actually access to your own self-inquiry and highest growth? [Examples: I can see how I am making my wife wrong when she brings up the past; I can see that I am wrong, or I would never be defensive; I see when I make myself wrong, and then my wife wrong, that all I am seeing is “wrong”; This constricted way of viewing my life and my situation causes me to lose friendship and intimacy with my wife and the world; If I forgive myself and embrace my failures, mistakes, and wrong-doings, I will see what I have learned, what I need to repeat, and what I need to change; In this realization, I am grateful for my wife — she can be wrong or right in any given situation because I am free of my attachment to judgment.]
Part 2: [Bonus questions]
- The Fear: What are you scared of and why?
- The Want: What is it that you desire most and what would your life be like with this desire fulfilled? [Be specific.]
- The Lack: Why don’t you have this desire fullfilled now? [Explain]
- The Question: Is it possible that if you changed your belief about yourself [part 1., question 5. “I did it wrong”] that you would have the experience of being forgiven? [For example, if you changed the belief from “I did it wrong” to “I did my best or I did it well or I did what could be done at the time”] would you be forgiven? Would you be able to forgive the one you are blaming? [in part 1, question 2.]
- The Possibility: If “all is well” and “all is always [all ways] forgiven’, can you move forward? Will you stop waiting for things to change? Will you get up, try again and see your resentments as no longer useful? What if you are only as free as they are?
- The Acceptance: Are you willing to accept forgiveness if given? Make a list of everyone who you believe needs to forgive you and why.
- The Willingness: Are you willing to learn from your mistakes? Are you willing to see the exact same situation from love or a new perspective now that you are older, wiser? Are you willing to accpept that a person may not be ready to forgive you [yet], and even in that event you are still forgiven and forgiveable?
- The Guidance: Are you open to seeing your negative experience as positive divine guidance? If not, why not? What other perspective could serve you more? What else is worth seeing?
- The Service: Are you willing to GIVE of yourself fully to others regardless of what you are GETTING? If not, why not?
- To “Forgive” another would imply that you had the power of forgiveness in you. It also implies that you have the power of resentment and blame in you. By taking responsibility for yourself and your incredibile ability to love or hate is in essence what I am calling The Power of Forgiveness. And… put down any book that says otherwise. Consider that the “other” [the one you blame] is only a reflection of you winking in the mirror back at you and asking, “do you get it? did you get it yet? Oh, pardon me, you didn’t get it yet? Well, no problem who and how would you like to repeat that lesson again and who would you like to blame it on now?” Oh, and…Happy New Year!
