Change Maven Musings: On Forgiveness

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{On forgiveness} It’s not like I feel good about you…it’s that I don’t want to hold onto you anymore. ~Glennon Doyle, We Can Do Hard Things podcast

I grew up in a Judeo-Christian religious context where forgiveness was synonymous with forgetting. If we extended forgiveness to someone, the ensuing - and unspoken - expectation was to forget the transgression and continue on as if it hadn’t happened. As a young girl and woman, I did my very best to live out this doctrine, extending forgiveness without a thought as to whether or not I could forgive, wanted to forgive, even knew what it meant to forgive. I was very good at forgetting. It was almost like I had amnesia, that was how good I was about forgetting. I was hard-pressed to call up specific examples in the midst of a debate or argument that could’ve seriously helped me out because I’d learned how to forget almost everything.

But, as usually does in these types of situations, the felt sense of all of that forgetting caught up to me. I’m alternately saddened and enraged that I let people off the hook so easily. That I felt I had no choice but to forgive and forget, even though how the transgression in question made me feel had a long and deep-reaching impact in my life. As a woman today, I want to remember more and forget less, and I find that it’s hard for me to do. It feels strange to remember, to return to something long-forgotten and deeply hurtful so I can excavate, see what was beneath it. It feels like a transgression I ought to share in the confessional booth (and I’m not even Catholic!), even though I was often reacting to someone or something else in my immediate environment. I find myself emerging from these deep dives into myself soot-stained, limping, and disoriented, eyes blinking wildly from the sudden light at the surface.

And yet, because things can linger, I go back down into the mines of my inner world for another round, to spelunk a bit more, to have a proper sit and look around because maybe there are some rare diamonds in there that I can carry back with me as a talisman against future forgiveness too-readily meted out.

The things that linger can be vicious, vindictive, and hard to forget. I read something a while back about the act of forgiveness happening by degrees, and that resonated. It no longer feels right to forgive it all in one fell swoop. It feels right to check in, see how I’m feeling, forgive as I’m able (even if it’s only 1%), and to see forgiveness as more of a practice than a one-act show. And I’m not just talking forgiveness for others; the biggest piece of forgiveness is towards myself, which is often the hardest thing to do.

I heard Glennon’s above quote in one of her podcast episodes, and I was like, DAMN. THAT is what I was missing on forgiveness. In that moment, I was able to decouple the act of forgiveness from forgetting, and instead see it as a lessening of burden, of something I no longer wanted to hold or carry forward. My choice now was to extend gratitude through the act of forgiveness for the learning, the growth, the return back to self. Feeling good wasn’t the goal, was never the goal. I don’t have to feel good about the person I’m forgiving, which may be impossible, depending how much of a dickhead they were. Some people are selfish, entitled, unaware assholes that are never going to change, no matter how much kindness, grace, and space you extend them. I’m a person who has a hard time letting go, particularly if there’s been an injustice or unkindness involved that I want to see righted, but it’s not my job to convince someone to my way of thinking or being via the act of forgiveness.

What I can do is to forgive as a release, to relinquish the hold on my thoughts, heart, and soul, and accept that I may never feel good about it or them. Not everyone is for us, no matter how much responsibility we may (wrongly) take for their actions, how many sacrifices we make, how many second chances we give. We don’t have to feel good about them. In fact, I may not feel good about you at all, and - actually - am fucking exhausted from having held you for far too long. The act of forgiveness frees us from the tyranny of forgetting so we can remember ourselves and extend the kindness, the forgiveness, we need on the path back to our authentic self.

Reflection: take a few moments to consider the following questions and leave your thoughts/examples below - I would love to hear from you!

• Do forgiving and forgetting have to go hand-in-hand? Can they exist separately? How can they serve two different purposes?

• How can remembering change the nature of how we extend forgiveness to ourselves and to others?

• How has forgiveness provided an opportunity for you to release a hold on someone/something, even if it was hard to forget? What was the experience like for you? What did you feel? What did you learn and take forward?

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Warmly,

Kristina

Chief Change Maven, Changemakers Confidential