There is no love without forgiveness, and there is no forgiveness without love.
Bryant H. McGill
What is the miracle of forgiveness? How does it measure up as a miracle? First let me say that forgiving is perhaps the most important action we will ever take within the many relationships we cherish. Forgiveness can free us from the past: by letting someone off the hook for a bona fide putdown or other action that felt demeaning, or even a suspected action that we are obsessing over, or in many other ways. For instance, willingness to forgive a betrayal can seem unfathomable when first considered, but the release it offers us as soon as we have forgiven the perpetrator is palpable. The importance of forgiveness, of any action by another—lying, stealing, even the horror of sexual abuse—simply can't be overestimated. Until we let go of the very real or imagined transgressions of others, we will know no peace. None whatsoever!
To repeat, it's hard to overestimate the power of forgiveness. This isn't the first time that I have written about the importance of forgiveness. In fact, I have shared my personal experiences with forgiveness myriad times in other books while recounting my growth in the many significant relationships throughout my life. I have been convinced for many years that without forgiveness, we simply don't grow. But we also don't stay stationary. Without forgiveness, we regress step by step, relationship by relationship. And what a sorry existence we have if we resist the opportunity to forgive ourselves and all the real or imagined attackers in our life.
Forgiveness by one person heals many.
I assure you that forgiveness is a gift—one that continues to bless us and all the many individuals we encounter every day of our lives. Many would say it's the only gift that never stops giving because of how it changes who we are, how we think, and every action we take. When we hang on to the past and refuse to forgive whatever the many resentments or judgments might be, we not only hold ourselves back from life's joys, but we cling to any and all past experiences we felt sure were meant to destroy us. Not a single one of them, regardless of the circumstance that gave rise to it, is or ever was worth holding us hostage for a lifetime, or even for a day.
I have become convinced that the true value of forgiveness comes from the way in which it weaves two individuals together. We become joined with those people we forgive, and that's where healing is birthed, theirs and ours. The separation we had curried heretofore gives way, and our hearts become one. We can actually feel the transformation as it's taking place. It's an inner shift, sometimes slight, but at the same time, quietly profound. Always. In some circles this is referred to as a holy instant.
Forgiveness closes the gap between all of us.
Forgiving ourselves for our judgments of others (and for most of us, judgment is all too common) may be even more important for healing. When we are willing to cultivate a truly forgiving heart, healing becomes the underlying theme of every encounter we experience every day. Though it may sound daunting to cultivate such a heart, this challenge will continue to entice us once we have experienced even the slightest gift that it produces.
When interviewing the many men and women for this book, I found that the act of forgiveness played a key role in their lives, too. As I have already discussed, forgiveness of others, as well as ourselves, shifts our perception of every moment. That's where the miracle lies. When we allow ourselves to let go of anger, resentment, or judgment, and simply rest in the act of forgiveness, the resulting shift in perception lessens the heaviness of our lives. We simply can't appreciate how freeing life feels until we have embraced forgiveness. Nor can we make the most of any present moment if we have not embraced forgiveness of the past.
Forgiveness is perhaps the kindest, most loving act we can ever perform.
Our lives are indeed undeniably changed when we let ourselves hear how others have been changed too. William, the avid reader with the distant father and the volatile mother, didn't want to forgive his parents. His very neurotic, angry mother and emotionally distant father molded him in such a way that for him to reach out to anyone, or be touched by any other, emotionally or even physically, was seldom appreciated or sought as a nurturing gesture. He shared with me that he had never considered forgiveness to have any value until after he began to work a twelve-step program, which he entered solely because of his wife's alcoholism. In each of the circles that invited him in, many gifts gradually came to William as he became willing to quietly listen to the stories of others, gathering the wisdom of all those who shared their experiences with forgiveness.
As William explained it, nothing looks the same to him now. Absolutely nothing. And even though he may not be entirely forgiving of his parents—yet—he can allow the past to be what it was, accepting that his parents did the best they could with what they had been taught about survival and parenting. He can claim the benefits of today and the growth he has garnered as the result of what he has learned about forgiveness from other twelve steppers. He knows this has helped him as a parent, a role he treasures, and as a more understanding husband. And he can finally see alcoholism as a disease, not as an attack on him or a weakness in his wife.
The universe shifts when we take on forgiveness as an assignment.
One of the joys in my interview with William was his sincere gratitude for all he has learned since becoming “teachable.” He had considered himself very self-sufficient and had prided himself on not really needing the input of anyone. After all, he was well educated and was raised to be independent and very self-reliant. Now he truly relishes what he learns from the many others he now proudly walks among. His attention to what the others around him are saying serves as a great example to the newcomers who have come to the recovery rooms.
It doesn't matter where we learn the finer points of forgiveness. Learning them is what's important. However, one thing is for certain: it's the blending of all the experiences of one's past that brings us to the threshold of willingness to finally seek another way to live. Every part of William's past—his cold, Scandinavian upbringing; his dangerously neurotic mother and his emotionally unavailable dad; the untimely death of his first wife; the alcoholism of his second wife—combined to ready him to receive the tools of forgiveness. Seeing life, his own and others, from a fresh perspective gave him hope that his future could be whatever he wanted it to be. It wasn't set in stone as he had once imagined it was.
Forgiveness has an inherent power that is life-sustaining and everlasting. Life never feels the same once we have truly practiced forgiveness.
Valerie, the astonishingly resilient young woman who survived great odds in her family of origin, has had to become very practiced at forgiveness too. As mentioned earlier, she was parented, if you could call it that, by two actively alcoholic and drug-addicted parents. She was the youngest of four children and were it not for her grandparents, she might not have survived the trauma of her existence. She certainly could not count on either parent to guide her or be available for her, emotionally or physically; nor could she count on them even being home when she returned from school. But because her grandparents were aware of her home life, she did get fed, she did have clean clothes, and she wasn't left alone during the long nights. She and her siblings could call on one grandparent or the other, and help came.
Unfortunately, Valerie paid dearly for the lack of parenting. Although she never developed a dependence on alcohol or pills, as had been the case with both parents and one sister, she did develop severe anxiety, which crippled her emotionally for many years. Her battle with anxiety will never be completely won, she assumes, but she does function comfortably now with the help of medication, talk therapy, and meditation. She is quite convinced that her eventual willingness to accept that her parents did the best they could has made her growth possible.
Valerie didn't develop the willingness to forgive unaided, however. Most of us don't. That she did forgive them has made her far more accepting of all people, which in turn lessens her anxiety. It's interesting how we get payoffs in many respects, in other areas of our lives and in relationships, when we strengthen the practice of forgiveness. Being willing to fully forgive in one relationship improves our level of acceptance of everyone we encounter. And that's the direct result of the changed heart that is the ultimate gift of forgiveness. Imagine a specific example: that coworker who drives you crazy or the friend who is always complaining about relatively inane problems can be overlooked with greater ease, or even quietly blessed, once you have become a practitioner of forgiveness.
Forgiveness isn't limited in its reward to only the person who is forgiving the perceived adversary. It spills over and brings comfort to all relationships.
Let's review for a moment before going any further. What does forgiveness look and feel like? Based on my experience, I'd say it does not look or feel the same in every instance, but it will always have a softness about it. It will always draw formerly disparate souls together. It will send forth a healing balm to anyone who is close at hand. Even those who are miles away and unaware of the particulars of the forgiving act will be touched. Some call it the butterfly effect—a generally accepted fact of quantum physics that every action, large or microscopic, has a consequence; each of those consequences in turn creates another consequence and another, ad infinitum.
Forgiveness cannot be contained. It fully permeates a moment, and then it reaches far beyond that moment. I have come to image the “give” portion of for-give-ness as the heart opening up to the former adversary and saying, in its own way, “let's close this gap between us forevermore.” And by extension, gaps then close between other people too.
I do think that we break hearts when we refuse to forgive—our own, and others'. We mend them when we listen to the ever-present inner call. Each person I spoke with agreed at some point to listen to that inner call, and their life was transformed. In that process many other lives were transformed too.
A decision to embrace forgiveness creates its own momentum.
Let's return to Valerie's experience. Her mother made a commitment to recover from her own addictions, and this led to Valerie's willingness to forgive her parents, particularly her mother (her father died while she was still young). Even though her mother was a bit slow to make amends, her children were patient, particularly Valerie. Her life remained troubled for a time. She was in the hospital for anxiety, depression, and suicidal tendencies on more than one occasion, but she has stayed the course, and continues to make forward progress. And she has made a commitment to self-improvement, which has included inventorying the past and making the effort to lead always from a place of love in all her relationships. This led to a kind of softness, which is one of the benefits, really, of embracing forgiveness. It softens us as it softens those around us. Love is more easily expressed when the heart is soft.
I don't want to imply that we must live in totally dysfunctional families in order to reap the benefits that accrue from forgiveness, but at least we can find benefit from having survived those families, and that's worth rejoicing over. Forgiveness is one of those life-altering expressions, and if the only way we can claim the reward is to suffer the dysfunction first, so be it.
I return to Carl, the hard worker with the abusive father, again because I was so moved by his struggle. Even though he did finally get to a place of forgiveness, it wasn't before his father passed on. And I'm not sure he has yet to reap the full benefit of it. You can still see the sadness in his face and feel it in his demeanor. The pain of his upbringing because he didn't meet his father's expectations was profound. His father was a perfectionist personified. He ridiculed Carl throughout his young life. As I mentioned in an earlier chapter, he didn't even stop after Carl left home and married. And even though Carl moved away to escape the constant criticism, it left an indelible mark. Was Carl's father a mean man? Not really, Carl said. He was simply as hard on his son as he was on himself, and no one can match the expectations of a perfectionist.
Forgiveness heals the aching heart like nothing else.
The truly unfortunate thing about Carl's experiences was the manner in which they molded his self-esteem. To say he had low self-esteem for most of his life would be an understatement. The saving grace, he said, was his marriage to a woman who loved him dearly, for his failings as well as his few successes. He and his wife had two children and he excelled as a father. He attempted to be everything his father was incapable of being. His heart just wouldn't allow him to do to his children what had been done to him. He lovingly showed up, in every way imaginable. And he learned to let his own past be over.
Whether Carl went as far as true forgiveness of his dad, I couldn't say, but he did begin to understand that his dad had been a tortured soul. And that lessened the impact of how his dad had behaved. He came to understand that his dad's treatment wasn't truly personal, but rather reflected his own low self-esteem. We do such unkindnesses to others because of how we feel about ourselves, and these unkindnesses continue to happen among friends, strangers, in families, and in the workplace. How we see ourselves is how we see others. The treatment follows suit. And the die is cast. Over and over, the die is cast.
We can be introduced to the blessing of forgiveness, however. We can listen to the stories of others, their experiences, and then dare to practice forgiving others too. That's what William has done. Valerie learned the value of forgiveness by practicing it after a bit of coaching from her therapist. And with Carl, his wife set the example. She knew because of her own healed heart that Carl could heal too. And she showed him how. As his demeanor is still a bit sad, perhaps there is still work to be done, but the timeline is open. The benefits will wait for Carl and any of the rest of us who journey to a better tomorrow. The benefits will wait for as long as it takes.
Before moving on to the next “opportunity” these interviewees and I were able to glean from our dysfunctional rearing, let's review what we have learned about forgiveness:
Forgiveness closes the gap between us, all of us.
It is a decision, first, that creates its own momentum.
It's an act that doesn't limit its reward to just the person who is forgiving the perceived adversary. It spills over and brings comfort to all relationships, as when a pebble thrown into the water sends ripples that travel outward for a long time.
Forgiveness heals the individual, the family, the community, the universe. Does this seem unrealistic? Think again.
Forgiveness by one person heals many.
The forgiveness we offer others returns to us tenfold.
Forgiveness offers loving closure in all relationships.
Seeking the guidance of one's Higher Power makes forgiveness an easy offering.
Forgiveness is quite possibly the kindest, most loving act we can ever perform.
Forgiveness heals the aching heart like nothing else.
Some think that our greatest act is to forgive, both ourselves and others.
The universe will shift when we all take on forgiveness as our assignment.
If you have not forgiven your adversaries yet, today is the day to begin.
Forgiveness has an inherent power that is life sustaining and everlasting. Life never feels the same once we have truly practiced forgiveness.
Who have you forgiven so far? How did it change you? How did it change the relationship? Was any other relationship altered too? Who is on your list to forgive? Consider making a plan, now, for how and when you will approach him or her. This will not only offer you relief but it will begin the heart-softening process. After the plan is made, write a paragraph or two about how you feel.