The Four Steps to Forgiveness
Forgiveness is Power
By William Fergus Martin
Forgiveness: are you as forgiving as you would like to be? If not, then this probably means that something is blocking your natural ability to forgive. We all want the freedom, peace of mind and happiness that forgiveness brings. Yet it is one thing to want to forgive; it is another to really be able to do it.
We may tell ourselves that we “should” forgive. Yet, that just seems to add to our burden and does not help. Trying to push, bully or cajole ourselves into forgiving gets us nowhere and may push us into false forgiveness, which does not bring the sense of completion and resolution that genuine forgiveness brings. In fact false forgiveness can keep us locked into painful situations, abusive relationships, unworkable partnerships, etc, rather than giving us the wherewithal to free ourselves from them.
Forgiveness may be part of the religious teaching we grow up with or still adhere too. Yet, most religious teachings seem to tell us that we “should” forgive, but say very little – if anything – about how to actually do it.
We can end up feeling a niggling, or even achingly painful, sense of guilt that we are not the person we would like to be as we store up old resentments and don’t know how to release them and set ourselves free. The idea of forgiveness is then feeding our sense of guilt rather than liberating us from it as intended.
If we look at why we have not forgiven a particular person or situation we might find that we are afraid to do so. We may be worried that we will place ourselves in harm’s way again if we forgive. We might feel that whoever hurt us will then just hurt us again in the same way. Unless we see any real evidence of change in that person common sense tells us that is not only possible, but also very likely that they will just do the same again. How then can we forgive them? What is called for in those situations is tough forgiveness. Tough forgiveness is where we forgive the person, but put clear boundaries or conditions around how we reconcile with them. We want to forgive them, but we have the right to see some sign that they have changed before we establish a relationship with them.
Awesome! This hit the nail on the head for me. Forgiveness does not have to be taken for weakness. Tough forgiveness is forgiveness that works. This is a great article.