Forgiveness is a way of healing oneself from pain, trauma, and tragedy. It is a means of self-liberation and self-empowerment.
Eva Kor – Holocaust survivor
To forgive or not to forgive, this is the question!
Forgiveness is an idea many of us wrestle with.
'What they did to me is unforgivable. How can I forgive them if they have never said sorry or they don’t feel the need to do so?'
This is something I hear a lot from people who talk about their abusers. Mine was my mother, yours might be your father, your grandparent, your boss or your friend.
Why do I believe it is a good idea to forgive the ones who hurt us?
My journey with the concept of forgiveness started the day I became a Christian back at the complicated age of 18. It was taught to me a must-do thing (amongst many others) to secure your place in heaven.
If you don’t forgive you won’t get forgiven goes the narrative.
Although this was used as just another scare tactic in the high-control group I was a member of at the time, it has a grain of truth in it.
One of the key elements of Jesus’ teachings was that we can’t change our communities if we first don’t change ourselves.
‘Love your neighbour as you love yourself’. It’s really hard to offer love if you don’t love yourself first.
We can then rephrase the above as, If you are someone who doesn’t forgive, you will find it really hard to accept or even ask someone’s forgiveness.
The more stories I hear and the more I learn about the human experience the more I come to realise that Jesus’ words on forgiveness need to be understood on a far deeper level. Regardless if you think of him as the son of God or one the great teachers, he taught some really deep truths on the power of forgiveness.
Before we tap into why I believe offering forgiveness is a key part of our healing I would like to talk a little about how we can get the concept of forgiveness from the wrong end of the stick.
Forgiveness so we can carry on living in a lie
In a religious context forgiveness will be demanded from us because we need to keep the facade of the shiny happy people. In a non religious context it can sound like, don’t worry about it, just letting go, just move on with your life and forget about positive thinking only… you know how it goes.
Both approaches are highly problematic. Under the inability to forgive some very raw emotions are hiding, and expression of emotions will make many feel uncomfortable. It is something we have been conditioned to hide and also many times is seen as weakness. If you are or were in an abusive relationship I believe you can remember the times you were made to feel stupid for being emotional.
Holding the space for someone to do this, requires for us to stop and actively listen to the other’s pain. But what I think often stops us from doing this is our own fear that we may end up listening to what our own bodies have to say about our own pain.
We can’t offer forgiveness if we first don’t process all of the emotional pain we carry and give permission to ourselves to express all of this hidden anger and bitterness.
If you are man, this becomes even harder because we have to carry an extra layer of macho before starting to touch and identify our feelings.
Forgiveness means forgetting
Forgiving someone doesn’t mean we have to act like nothing happened. The scars from the harm and the trauma caused to us will always be there as a reminder of where we were and where we are now in our healing path. Remembering is an essential survival mechanism for our safety and, if possible, to hold our perpetrators accountable.
Forgiveness means going back
This is something that is very prevalent within the purity culture of many high-control religious groups where an abused spouse (usually the wife) will be shamed into forgiving the abusive partner and return to the relationship like nothing happened.
It’s something that will be used as a shame mechanism by narcissists regardless of religion or lack of it. ‘I said I’m sorry for treating you like shit last night, so now forgive me so I can do it again tonight’.
Forgiveness doesn’t mean you have to have any contact with the other person. I get that sometimes this is not 100% feasible (ie you have a child together) but even then you have every right to keep it to the absolute basics.
Even if the other person has truly repented for what they have done to you, you still have the right not to want to have any contact if it’s too triggering for you.
Although I am a big believer of the power of forgiveness in our healing journey I do also believe everyone has the right to feel unable to forgive. In these cases no one should be made to feel bad about it or ashamed. I totally appreciate how much more difficult this can be if someone can’t physically distance themselves from their abuser.
With this in mind let me tell you why I believe so much in the healing power of forgiveness.
Do it so you can take back control
Given that you don’t share the same environment and have no other ties with your perpetrator, controlling your emotions is the only way they can still have a level of control over your life. This can look like a ‘random’ text message trying to pick up a fight or full on verbal abuse. Forgiveness can transform your reaction from a burst of emotions to a sense of annoyance, and even if you get upset you will be able to regain your emotional peace much easier.
Reclaiming control over our emotions is something we often work into the therapy room with clients recovering from abusive relationships and/or relationships with narcissists.
Abusers carry their own pain and shame
Have you ever heard of ‘abusers were abused’? The film The Cell with Jennifer Lopez shows this quite well. Google it for a plot summary. As Lopez’s character dives into Stargher’s troubled mind, a serial killer she goes deeper and deeper into his mind seeing memories of the horrible abuse he had to endure as a young boy.
I highly recommend this film but I need to warn that it can be quite upsetting for some.
I was abused both physically and emotionally throughout my childhood, and emotionally only throughout my adolescence. It damaged me in so many different levels and over 20 years I still go through the layers of pain in my healing journey.
Regardless of all this I don’t hold any grudges with my mother. What she did to me was unacceptable and inexcusable but she also had to go through an extremely abusive childhood, with her only escape being an arranged marriage with a man equally emotionally damaged .
This realization brought me face to face with my next challenge, forgiving my grandfather. Believe me, the guy was a pro level abuser, full of hate and a full blown narcissist.
Don’t do it because they deserve forgiveness, do it because YOU deserve peace
The best reason to forgive is to do it for yourself. I personally know a good number of people who end up living miserable lives due to their inability to let go and forgive, and the worst part is seeing them repeating the same exact patterns of behaviour with the ones who caused them harm. We become what we hate I guess.
Seeing where my grandfather’s hatred got him made me want to avoid this at all cost and forgiveness was my way out. I didn’t feel anything when he died, it was like a complete stranger’s death announcement. I guess in order to kill my hate for him I had to kill all emotions towards him.
Carolyn Spring, one of my favourite authors and extreme abuse survivor, said Recovery is my best revenge.
Taking the decision to forgive can be a long and painful process but totally worth it… I know it because I went through it and regret nothing!