Thinking on Forgiveness

I have been working on forgiveness presentations for Associates building on some clinical training I took several years ago on the subject so I could offer better clinical integration of this difficult topic in my work with patients.


German Lutheran pastor, Dietrich Bonheoffer, who was imprisoned by the Gestapo and spent the bulk of WWII in a concentration camp, only to be killed two weeks before the Allies marched on Berlin wrote these words from his prison cell: “Whoever cheats oneself out of the truth of one’s own life certainly also cheats oneself out to of the truth of God.”

Dr. Fred Luskin, Ph. D., Project Director, Stanford University’s Center for Research in Disease Preventions, the Forgiveness Project and author of Forgive for Good: a Proven Prescription for Health and Happiness, reports, what many people of faith know, that forgiveness is a spiritual activity supported by all major world religions and wisdom traditions. Luskin also reports that forgiveness improves our health and the overall quality of our lives.
Forgiveness research reveals that there are some fundamental changes which we all can make in our thinking which can help is begin the process of forgiving ourselves and those who have harmed us.

1. Change the kind of stories we tell ourselves and others about events which have harmed us. People tend to describe their experiences as awful, and their coping responses as weak. Luskin’s research suggests that we not talk so much about the terrible things that happen to us, but instead talk about what we can do, how we are learning to cope, and how we are growing from the experience.

The research reveals that shifting the way we tell the story of the event is probably the most important thing we can do to begin the process of forgiveness.

2. We need to have a stress management practice, some kind of meditation, visualization, breathing technique, martial art — something we can practice to dissolve the stress response when it hits our body. That is crucial and needs to be practiced whenever the feelings associated with the grief or grievance arises.

Engaging these practices and shifting our attention to area of our heart while seeking compassion—a Buddhist practice, or praying for the person who wronged us— the Christian tradition teaches us to pray for people who have harmed us— reduce the arousal of the nervous system and get us in tune with our higher selves. If we don't reduce the arousal of the nervous system when we think of something unpleasant, it's very hard to overcome the effect.

It's almost a mindfulness practice. "Oh, here I am experiencing the grudge again," and you do some kind of spiritual, stress management discipline to work it through at the moment.

3. Finely, we need to think more clearly. Most of us, especially around life’s griefs and grudges, are filled with some distorted thoughts or ideas about how the world should be and what's owed to us. Luskin calls these our “un-enforceable rules,” Roman Catholic author, Benedict J. Groeschel, CFR, calls them the “original wound,” Buddhism recognizes that “life is suffering.” The forgiveness research identifies for us a very simple practice we can engage to remind ourselves just what the truth of our living is, just how un-enforceable our rules really are, we can remind ourselves, as the old Rolling Stones song goes, that "you can't always get what you want."

If we change our story, practice stress management, and remind ourselves over and over again, as the old song goes: "You can't always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, you may get what you need," The practice can become shorthand for a willingness on our parts to begin to consciously change our thinking, so that our thoughts are more accepting of the truth of our own life. There we can begin to make choices for our living which bring more peace, happiness and freedom into our lives. There we can begin to glimpse the truth of God or our Higher Power as we understand him or her or it.

Only then are we beginning to cease our great argument with the way the world actually is and relinquish our heartfelt notion that it is we who created it and the rules we must live by. This is a spiritual movement, a process of grieving, not alone an act of forgiveness. The question at the heart of the matter is the deepest question of our own hearts: “How do I live in a world where that kind of cruelty is possible?” It is very difficult, and requires the patient, careful attention to our spiritual journey. In perhaps two or three or four years, the question can become: Is being furious at what happened — being bitter or despairing — is that helping me in my life, now today? If, and when, the answer for our lives is no, we might do well for ourselves to surrender that which happened to the past, committing then to simply living our lives to the best of our ability with a heart now open to new possibilities.

This does not mean that what happened is okay. It does not mean that what happened is not incredibly damaging. It just means just that we have made the choice either to put more of our energy toward loving ourselves and the people around us and to acknowledging ourselves as the heroes of our own lives for overcoming our tremendous difficulties. This journey is an announcement to the world that human beings have the possibility, even amid the most horrible difficulties, to find within themselves some truth which transcends, for it is only in knowing our own truth that we can begin to glimpse the truth of That which called us and all that is into being.

“Although the world is full suffering, it is also full of overcoming it,” Helen Keller.