Chapter 9

Exploring forgiveness

I cannot overstate the therapeutic value of forgiveness. My approach to this aspect of the change process has been informed predominantly by contributions made to the forgiveness debate by Eva Kor, Desmond Tutu, Marina Cantacuzino and Megan Feldman Bettencourt. Their research and personal experiences have added greatly to the pool of knowledge of what forgiveness is, how to achieve it, and what it means to us as individuals and to humanity more generally.

You might well feel that forgiveness is irrelevant to your life; that there’s nothing you want to forgive or seek forgiveness for. Yet, when interacting with others, either inadvertently or deliberately, we are harmed or we do harm to others – it’s a simple, albeit unfortunate, fact of life, and such harm can lead to feelings of great discomfort.

Forgiveness is a choice; it doesn’t feel right for everyone. As a therapist, I neither require you to forgive, nor do I view it as your ethical duty to do so. But, when making a decision about whether to forgive or not, it’s wise to make an informed choice …

Romanian born Eva Kor is a woman who, as a child, survived Auschwitz. Aged 10, she and her twin sister Miriam were imprisoned at Auschwitz where Dr Josef Mengele used them for medical experiments. They both survived, liberated on 27 January 1945, but Miriam died in 1993 as a consequence of the experiments done to her as a child. No one else from Eva’s family survived the war.

Over time, Eva was able to contact other twin survivors and exchange memories – something she found very healing. Later still she found the courage and strength to forgive the Nazis and, specifically, to forgive Dr Mengele. In doing so she says ‘I felt the burden of pain was lifted from me. I was no longer in the grip of hate; I was finally free.’ ‘I had the power now…the power to forgive. It was my right to use it. No one could take it away from me.’ (Cantacuzino, 2015)

The day Eva forgave the Nazis, she also, privately, forgave her parents whom she had hated for not saving her from Auschwitz. She had expected her parents to protect her but now realised that they could not have done so. Then she forgave herself for having hated her parents. Eva has gone on to write and speak publicly about her own experiences of forgiveness.

Desmond Tutu is the South African born cleric who played a major public role in opposing apartheid. South Africa was a country of ‘internalised racism, inequality and oppression.’ (Tutu, 2014) There were protests; there was violence; atrocities were committed. In 1993 apartheid finally came to an end, and in 1994, South Africans democratically elected Nelson Mandela as their first black president.

It was widely feared that the transition to democracy would become a bloodbath of retaliation. But, people chose to seek forgiveness rather than revenge. President Mandela appointed Desmond Tutu to head a Truth and Reconciliation Commission, a commission focused on restorative justice, tasked with investigating and reporting on the atrocities committed by both sides in the struggle over apartheid. The victims of human rights violations were invited to give statements about their experiences, and some were selected for public hearings. Perpetrators of violence could also give testimony and request amnesty from both civil and criminal prosecution.

In 2003, a journalist, Marina Cantacuzino, in response to the imminent invasion of Iraq, collected stories from ordinary people who had lived through violence, injustice or tragedy and had sought forgiveness rather than revenge. In 2004 she founded The Forgiveness Project a ‘charitable organisation that uses personal narratives to explore how ideas around forgiveness, reconciliation and conflict resolution can be used to impact positively on people’s lives’. (Cantacuzino, 2015)

American born Megan Feldman Bettencourt is a journalist and author who, in 2015 wrote The Triumph of the Heart: Forgiveness in an Unforgiving World. Being a self-admitted holder of grudges, her interest in forgiveness was triggered by her introduction to Azim, a man whose only son had been shot and killed during a robbery. He had forgiven the man who had killed his son, and seemed to be at peace. Intrigued by Azim’s attitude that ‘there were victims at both ends of that gun’, Megan began a quest to understand the complex concept of forgiveness, drawing on the latest scientific research and humanitarian perspectives.

What forgiveness is and what it is not

Based on our right as human beings to live in the present without the pain of the past, Eva Kor describes forgiveness as a deliberate act of self-liberation; an active decision to voluntarily let go of what was done. As Nelson Mandela said on his release after 27 years of imprisonment, ‘As I walked out of the door toward the gate that would lead to my freedom, I knew if I didn’t leave my bitterness behind, I’d still be in prison.’ (Feldman Bettencourt, 2015)

In agreement with Eva Kor, Desmond Tutu describes the process of forgiveness, at an individual level, as being driven by the desire to no longer be defined by what was done to us or by what we did, facing the stark truth of what happened and moving towards acceptance of what was done. At a broader, humanitarian level, he describes forgiveness as being ‘the way we return what has been taken from us and restore the love and kindness and trust that had been lost – bringing peace to ourselves and to the world’. (Tutu, 2014) Marina Cantacuzino adds that forgiveness is not about excusing others’ or our own behaviour, but instead ‘embracing human frailty and fallibility and taking responsibility for a society we have helped to create’. (Cantacuzino, 2015)

People who forgive can often be viewed by others as either saintly or spineless, the first being humanly unattainable and the latter definitely undesirable. Until more recent experience taught her otherwise, Megan Feldman Bettencourt used to view forgiveness with disdain seeing those who forgave as feeble and almost pitiable. But, the reality of forgiveness is far from this. Forgiveness is neither an attitude of the weak nor is it the privilege only of the divine; it is a skill that we all possess that requires incredible determination and strength.

Forgiveness involves neither forgetting nor condoning what was done, but centres instead on having the courage to face and accept the truth of what happened. In many cases, forgiveness is neither quick nor easy to achieve; sincere unconditional forgiveness requires consistent hard work and commitment.

When first introduced to the concept of forgiveness, Mia saw it as a religious obligation, something she felt she ought to be able to do because she felt it was the morally right thing. However, after much research and reflection, she began to see the sense of power over her own life that forgiving might provide.

Duncan, on the other hand, saw forgiveness as a sign of weakness, a sign of ‘letting them win’. He really struggled with the thought of letting his resentment go and was a little afraid of who he might become without his anger – it was such a motivational force for him. He understood the massive challenge that forgiving would be for him, but again, having read around the subject and thinking about the consequences of not forgiving, he came to the decision that he would benefit by forgiving people from his past who had harmed him.

Having read the above, what does ‘forgiveness’ mean to you?

In relation to how experienced you currently are at forgiving, what past things have you forgiven?

What past things have you been forgiven for?

What past things have you forgiven yourself for?

We each have the individual right not to forgive; it’s a very personal decision. But, should you choose not to forgive, there are, of course, consequences – consequences that affect not only you, but others too.

Consequence One: The likelihood of remaining defined by what was done, living in the past, unable to live fully in the present. If you have been harmed, you can get stuck in victimhood and inaction, unable to reclaim your story and re-cast yourself as the champion of your future. If you have harmed, you can get stuck in guilt, self-blame, shame and inaction.

Consequence Two: The emotional consequences of harming others or of being harmed are strong. Emotions such as rage, hate, terror, desire for revenge, blame, guilt and shame are but a few. These strong emotions trigger the body’s stress response system, releasing chemicals such as adrenalin and cortisol through the body. If experienced for a prolonged period of time, this can have a damaging effect on the smooth running of the physical body, hindering our health and our immune system.

Megan Feldman Bettencourt discusses the ‘science of forgiveness’ citing research projects undertaken by Dr Frederic Luskin and Dr Robert Enright on the physical effects of forgiveness on medical patients. Quoting Dr Frederic Luskin, co-founder of the Stanford Forgiveness Project ‘When you don’t forgive you release all the chemicals of the stress response. Each time you react (to the memory of the offence), adrenaline, cortisol and norepinephrine enter the body. When it’s a chronic grudge, you could think about it twenty times a day, and those chemicals limit creativity, they limit problem solving… (they) cause your brain to enter… the ‘no-thinking zone’, and over time, they lead you to feel helpless like a victim.’ Luskin also found a significant link between patients who chose not to forgive and depression, anxiety and hostility.

Dr Robert Enright, a developmental psychologist who participated in the Campaign for Forgiveness Research demonstrated that cardiac patients with coronary heart disease who underwent forgiveness therapy were at less risk of pain and sudden death than those who received only standard medical treatment. (Feldman Bettencourt, 2015)

Consequence Three: Every individual has value; each one of us is an important human being. Yet it is our interconnectedness with others that gives our lives true meaning. (We are part of a family unit, a broader family, a social network, a community, a region, a nation, a continent, the world. We are human beings collectively.) What one person does can affect everybody. If rage and revenge are our chief motivators, it detrimentally affects not only us but all of those around us too.

Mia wanted to forgive. There were many people in Mia’s life who had harmed her, but she wanted to begin by forgiving her father. She wanted a better, more fulfilling relationship with him. She yearned to move beyond that sense of powerlessness that she felt, and create a new life for herself, a life that she was in control of. She believed that forgiving her father was the best place to start this process.

As we know, Duncan was reluctant to forgive at first. He felt that, if he forgave, he’d be meekly giving in to what was. He wasn’t sure that the people who’d harmed him deserved his forgiveness; he was so angry at the injustice of others’ actions. However, he too came to the decision that he no longer wanted to be defined by his past experiences. Focusing on the sense of isolation from others that he felt, he wanted to start by considering the possibility of forgiving his birth mother whom he believed had abandoned him.

Do you feel that you might want to forgive or be forgiven? If so, why?

Who might you want to forgive or seek forgiveness from, and for what?

How do you anticipate your life will be once you have forgiven or been forgiven?

If you choose not to forgive or seek forgiveness, how might this decision impact your current and future life?

How will your relationships with others be affected by your decision to forgive or not forgive?

What constitutes ‘a harm’?

We don’t always get things right. Some of our interactions will go wrong and we will be hurt or we will hurt. But, what constitutes a wrong? We typically know the laws of the land in which we live. Our laws define specific wrongs – the law is pretty black and white. Plus, within each culture, each society, there are commonly accepted norms surrounding rights and wrongs: It’s wrong to lie, to cheat on your partner, to bad-mouth a friend behind their back.

And then, things get a little less clear cut. As we grow and experience life, the things that happen teach us our own personal ‘rules’ concerning appropriate codes of conduct/rights and wrongs. We accept these rules as facts and expect others to follow them as we follow them. However, others have different life experiences and form their own codes of conduct that inevitably differ from ours. So, what one person considers is a serious transgression may be of little consequence to another.

What could prevent forgiveness?

1. The desire for revenge

For every state law broken, there is a punishment meted out to the perpetrator by the state. Our legal system, as it stands, underlines the concept of punishment as both a deterrent and as a means of retribution for a crime committed. This influences our understanding of what justice is; crime and punishment are associated. So, at an individual level, when someone harms us, the tendency is to seek revenge, to make the offender pay. An eye for an eye. Justice.

Thoughts of revenge (wanting to hurt the offender back) can act as a motivator, an energy that makes living after the offence worthwhile. Duncan was one of these people. But, in seeking revenge, we tend to hold the original offence in the forefront of our minds, causing us fresh pain, hatred and suffering every time we remember it. And, remember the physical damage hatred does to our bodies (the anxiety, the nausea, the exhaustion).

What was done to us was unfair, unjust and we have every right to be outraged, but hurting back rarely satisfies. At best, retaliation will give us only momentary respite from our pain and is likely to result in other uncomfortable emotions such as guilt and shame – in enacting revenge we place ourselves at the same level as the offender. Given that we are all capable of causing harm to others, this eye for an eye approach, as Mahatma Gandhi so clearly stated, will ‘leave us all blind’. Think back to South Africa, just after the ending of apartheid, would the quest for revenge have benefitted the South African nation?

2. Guilt

We may feel that the offence we have committed is so heinous that we do not deserve forgiveness. To have transgressed our own codes of conduct and caused harm to another is a difficult fact to face – we often expect so much more of ourselves than we do of others. Guilt holds us in that time and space in which the offence was committed and can lead to isolation, self-destructive behaviours, and feelings of depression and anxiety.

When we’ve hurt someone else, there is a tendency to believe that we’ve done something bad therefore we are bad. The way forward is to begin to understand that we are all imperfect people who deliberately or inadvertently hurt others. It’s about separating our behaviour from who we are as a person, understanding what we did and acknowledging the pain and suffering we caused to the other. We can choose to learn from this experience to make sure we don’t repeat the same mistake and then, ideally, seek forgiveness from the hurt party. Even if forgiveness isn’t granted to us, we can work towards accepting what we did, putting the lessons we learned in place and allowing ourselves to move forward and develop as a human being by forgiving ourselves.

Desmond Tutu believes ‘there is nothing that cannot be forgiven, and there is no one undeserving of forgiveness.’ (2014)

3. The desire for recognition and repentance from the offender

We might feel more inclined to forgive on a conditional basis, that is, if the offender recognises the pain they’ve caused, repents and apologises. But, such a requirement hands power back to the offender. Unconditional forgiveness is forgiveness with no strings attached. It removes any authority the offender might still have over us because, for us to move on, we need nothing more from the offender.

4. Secondary gains

We might be unwilling to forgive because we’re unwilling to release the attention that being a victim affords us, or unwilling to release the ‘weapon’ that the harm has become against the perpetrator. Perhaps we believe, at some level, that the anger we feel after the offence is protecting us from worse emotions such as pain. Maybe we are loath to seek forgiveness because we feel our guilt is justifiable punishment.

What might stop you from forgiving or seeking to be forgiven?

How do we forgive?

Based on the approach adopted by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, whether the offence committed was of monumental significance or was more moderate in nature, I take my clients through a five-stage process of forgiveness. I now invite you to consider it.

Stage one: Detailing the facts of the offence – telling your side of the story

If we want real forgiveness, real healing, we first face the stark reality of the real injury. This initial stage requires the strength, willingness and ability to face the facts of what happened. It involves the detailing of the specifics of the harm that was caused because, when you understand the clear, hard facts and hold them to the light for further investigation, you can begin to make some sense of what happened.

(It’s important to take a moment here, to note that every person’s understanding of reality is different, and that re-telling the hurt will not necessarily represent the absolute truth of what was. Memory is not a faithful record of a moment in life, instead, memories are reconstructions of events, and are coloured by other memories and events. Memory is fallible; this is a fact. But, the way in which we have experienced and stored events is what’s impacting our current life, therefore, our perception of the harm is what’s important at this stage.)

Where her father was concerned, Mia felt that he’d failed in his duty as a parent to protect her from harm. In her eyes, not only had he left her, he had also sided with an adversary, his new wife, and, in so doing, had neglected to prioritise his daughter’s needs. She blamed him for retaining the family home and for ‘forcing’ her, her siblings and her mother into inhospitable accommodation. She also held him responsible for her inability to know what to do in the face of conflict. Mia felt that her father had let her down.

Duncan felt a deep-rooted sense of abandonment by his birth mother. He knew none of the details of the adoption that took place; there was a dark void where the specifics were concerned. His imagination filled in the gaps. He believed that he had been an unwanted, ugly baby, a terrible mistake, and so was rejected soon after birth.

If you have been involved in ‘an offence’, what are the specifics of the harm? Write down all the facts about the transgression as you remember experiencing them.

Stage two: Examining the emotions caused by the offence

This stage is about detailing how the offence affected us, identifying the emotions it generated and giving those emotions names – rage, grief, pain, anxiety, fear, guilt, shame and so on.

Mia felt such anger towards her father for not managing to work through the relationship difficulties with her mother, and rage at being forced by her father to leave the family house and live in a place that bore no resemblance to home. Mia also felt a degree of shame where her parents’ divorce was concerned – embarrassed by others knowing about the family breakdown. Having developed a high degree of empathy, she felt guilty that she might have somehow caused the divorce: ‘if only I had been a better daughter’. She was afraid of her stepmother and worried about what Marlene might do next. She felt powerless and began to see life happening around her and to her. She came to understand that life was unstable, uncertain and a frightening place to be in. However, as she grew, this realisation helped her to recognise that, if she wanted her needs to be met, she’d have to meet them herself; her sense of self-reliance began to emerge and she became driven and ambitious to succeed (although her fear of conflict and desire to avoid it remained).

Where his birth mother was concerned, Duncan felt a deep-seated sense of loss and rejection. He was outraged at the injustice of his mother’s abandonment of him, and felt such shame at being born unwanted – it was his fault that he was born unlovable. Duncan learned that he didn’t quite belong and experienced a sense of isolation from the rest of humanity.

What emotions did the offence generate within you? Consider what the weight of these emotions is, and how you, your life, your world-view has changed as a result of what happened.

Stage three: Seeing the other side of the story

There are four aims to this phase of the forgiveness process:

What was it that led you or the other person to offend? What is your and their background story?

What part did each of you play in the offence?

If you are the harmed party, how would you have behaved had you been in the offender’s shoes?

With the benefit of hindsight, what could have been done differently? What other options were open at the time?

Are there other ways to explain/alternative interpretations of the offence that was committed?

If you are the hurt party, separating the person from the harm they inflicted, how do you feel toward the person who harmed you? Is it possible for you to separate them from their actions?

Through this process we can begin to accept what happened and so begin to open our minds to what we learned from the experience. When we learn, we reduce the risk of repeating the same mistakes.

What did you learn from this offence?

It’s often easier to forgive or be forgiven if the offender seeks to atone for the harm they caused.

What is it you require or what is required of you, to make amends for what was done?

Stage four: To forgive or not to forgive, that is the question

As I said at the beginning of this chapter, forgiveness is a choice, not a requirement. Having considered all the above, spend a moment or two just reflecting on how you feel about the possibility of now letting this harm go. There’s no need to make a decision yet, instead, leave your mind ajar to the possibility and wait to see how you feel whilst being guided through Audio 7a – Exploring the possibility of forgiveness.

N.B. If we choose to forgive, how will we know we truly mean it? This will be different for everyone who forgives or is forgiven. Some clients have described feeling as though a massive burden had been lifted, others as though they suddenly felt clean, no longer sullied. Many have described forgiveness as a sense of peace, a grace, an awareness of calm within themselves generated by letting something very cumbersome go. Others have experienced a feeling of acceptance of what happened and a readiness to move forward in their lives.

If there is someone you might want to forgive, or someone you might want forgiveness from, cue Chair Therapy Audio 7a – Exploring the possibility of forgiveness.

Mia’s story: Rather than exploring the possibility of forgiving her father through Chair Therapy, Mia decided to meet with him face-to-face. She asked her father out for dinner. When he remonstrated that he ‘couldn’t come out without Marlene’, Mia explained to him the importance of her request, and, with reservations, he agreed to meet. It took a while for Mia’s father to take on board what she was saying and, at first, he denied her version of events. However, Mia calmly stuck to her message and one by one, her father’s self-protective barriers came down. He was able to listen to her words and understand what they meant to her. His regret was palpable; he was able to acknowledge her pain and apologise for his ‘failings’ as a father.

After he had listened to her, Mia was able to give her father the chance to explain his actions. She learned that he had experienced a difficult childhood, being one of five children. His own father had been a man of his time and was absent from family life for much of the time. His own paternal role model had been a poor one, and he had very little understanding of what a father was other than providing for the family financially. Mia’s father was regularly smacked for misbehaving and, where conflict was concerned, had learned to keep his head down. When Mia was five, her father took on board a very demanding job and was fatigued and irritable at the end of each day. When the divorce happened and it was decided that the father remain in the family home, Mia discovered that it had been her mother’s decision to leave – her mother had insisted that she no longer wanted to remain in a place in which she had felt such misery. Once Mia’s father had re-married, he had so wanted this new relationship to work that he buried his head in the sand and became blind to what was actually happening. He regretted all these things.

On hearing her father’s explanations of why he had behaved in the ways that he had, Mia’s understanding of this flawed individual grew and she felt empathy toward him. The knowledge of how things had been for him allowed her to walk a while in his shoes, and she realised that, given who he was, her father had probably done the best he could with the skills and abilities that he had at the time.

To begin to make amends, Mia wanted her father to acknowledge the mistakes that he had made and to apologise for them. She also wanted reassurance from him that, in relation to their present and future relationship, he would no longer prioritise Marlene’s well-being over hers.

Although neither forgetting what her father had done, nor condoning his behaviour, she was able to whole-heartedly forgive him. She described this act as ‘cleansing her inside and out’.

Duncan’s story: Duncan did not know who his birth mother was and had decided not to make enquiries to seek her out; a face-to-face meeting was not possible to arrange. So, we devoted an entire session to Chair Therapy in which he imagined a one-to-one conversation with his mother:

Duncan was able to imagine his birth mother and what she might say that could explain her decision to give him up. He pictured a woman in her late fifties with a deep sadness in her eyes. He gave his imagination free rein, unhindered by the logic of the conscious mind. His birth mother, as he saw her, was dressed demurely, with a string of pearls around her neck, her hair mid-length and somewhat unkempt. Duncan imagined that the pearls had been inherited on the death of his mother’s mother, the only thing that she had been bequeathed. The lady who sat before him had disgraced her family; she had become pregnant aged fifteen having been swept off her feet by a local married man. The shame that this brought to the family was intolerable and she was forced to leave the area for the duration of the pregnancy to stay with distant relatives. It was decided on her behalf that the baby be given away and that the incident never be spoken of again. The young mother never recovered from her loss and remembered her long-lost child every day of her life.

Duncan simply needed to give voice to his grievances and expose his pain to the daylight and for those grievances and pain to be heard. After he had said all he wanted to say to her, he invited his mother to acknowledge and apologise for the pain her actions had caused. He was able to imagine her doing this and, as a result, he felt like a terrible weight was lifted from him. His imagination had allowed Duncan to picture his mother’s desire to keep him and enabled him, for the first time, to feel a sense of self-worth. Imagining this scenario engendered such a feeling of empathy toward his birth mother that Duncan was able to instantly forgive her. He described the feeling as ‘utterly liberating’.

Now that you have listened to the Chair Therapy Audio 7a, Exploring the possibility of forgiveness, write down all that transpired. Have you forgiven or been forgiven? What are the likely consequences of this for you and for others in your life?

If you have decided to forgive or have been forgiven

Forgiveness represents the end of something old and the beginning of something new. During my years as a therapist I’ve come to understand that the marking of such events can be incredibly beneficial and can represent a symbolic ‘moving on’. It is for each individual to identify the most appropriate way in which to do this but, for example, the simple opening of a window can symbolise the exchange of old air for the new, or, the deliberate shutting of a door can represent closure, the opening of the door representing a beginning. Some of my clients have chosen to light a candle or plant a beautiful flowering plant in a meaningful spot of their garden to then nurture on a regular basis, whilst others have written the name and description of the offence on a piece of paper and then burned it.

Mia chose to mark her joy at having forgiven her father by throwing caution to the wind and spending money on herself, getting her hair re-styled, while Duncan sat quietly in his bedroom at his adoptive parents’ house, looking at the adverts of properties to rent; he was ready to begin to take charge of his life.

If you have chosen not to forgive or not to be forgiven: understand why you have made this choice and what the likely consequences will be, and accept your right to have decided thus.

Is there anything you would like to do that could symbolise you having forgiven, having been forgiven or deciding not to forgive?

Stage five: Renewing or releasing the relationship

If you decided the relationship is worth renewing, it’s important to understand that this does not mean going back to how things were prior to the transgression. The fact is that what happened changed things. It’s now about making a new relationship with that person, a relationship that acknowledges and accommodates the harm that was caused.

If you decide to release the relationship, it is understood within that decision that you wish the other no harm, but choose no longer to have them in your life (or they choose no longer to have you in their life). Such a choice is a valid one.

Mia chose to renew her relationship with her father. She saw this as a work in progress and took small steps where he was concerned, accepting his phone calls, and meeting up for family meals every now and then, hugging him hello and goodbye. Her father suggested a big family holiday, but Mia felt that this was too soon, and thanked him for his suggestion but said she wasn’t ready for that yet. He accepted her decision.

Duncan had already decided not to try to find his birth mother. This is the decision that he stuck to.

Is your relationship to be renewed or to be released? What are the likely consequences of this decision?

Forgiveness of self

We are all regularly called upon to forgive each other – it’s the nature of being in relationships. But, it’s often harder to forgive ourselves; we have broken our own codes of conduct and this can really sting.

Forgiveness of self is every bit as valuable as forgiving others and being forgiven by others. Megan says: ‘While blaming others is linked to anger and hostility, chronic self-blame is correlated with high anxiety, depression and negative self-esteem’ (2015). She explains that those who showed self-compassion by forgiving themselves were able to better cope with stress over time.

Irrespective of whether you have been forgiven by the person you harmed or not, the process of self-forgiveness follows a similar path to the one described above:

Is there anything you want to forgive yourself for?

If so, cue Chair Therapy Audio 7b – Exploring the possibility of forgiving myself.

To re-cap: Forgiveness is a choice. It neither condones what was done, nor excuses the harm caused. What forgiveness offers is the opportunity of freedom from the pain of the past – physical and psychological liberation. As Desmond Tutu encourages: ‘Forgive others, not because they deserve forgiveness, but because you deserve peace.’