A road map for forgiveness

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One of the things that we did in our
Friday seminar in the early days

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in the mid 1980s, was find
a road map for forgiveness.

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So we talked to many people
who said they had forgiven.

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I would give talks on it and we
started building this road map.

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Here's the short version of
that roadmap that we have now

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tested scientifically with the
incest survivors,

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or cardiac patients or
women who are in hospice

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or various kinds of groups
who are hurting and need

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some relief by forgiving.

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First you have to be aware
you've been treated unjustly.

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Sometimes pride gets in
the way.

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Oh no no it wasn't that bad.

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But forgiveness asks you to
take a humble path and say

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I've been treated unfairly
and I'm hurt.

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I have pain and out of that
pain it's come complications

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such as anger,
sometimes sleeplessness,

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sometimes fatigue,
sometimes thinking over and over

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about the person in the
event where the injustice

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itself tumbles into other
injustices such as pain

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and anger and rumination
and decreased energy.

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And when people see that
the question that is,

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What are you going to do about this?
How are you going to heal?

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People have taken up jogging
programs or taken medicine

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or read books or
tried to just forget it.

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But oftentimes this resentment,
this pain, this anger gets

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a hold of them and they don't
know how to get rid of it.

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So there we say: "Would you
like to try forgiveness?"

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and we give them the definition so
they know what they're going to do.

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You're got to acknowledge injustice,
struggle to get rid of resentment,

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and offer goodness
to the ones who hurt you

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without condoning, forgetting,
reconciling necessarily

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and not abandoning justice.

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Would you like to try it?

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Hurting people usually
say yes.

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So then we put people through
a thinking exercise.

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We first asked them to take up
what we call a personal

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perspective on the one
who hurt them.

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Is it possible the one who hurt
you is hurt themselves by others?

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Is it possible that you've been
wounded by someone

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who is a wounded person?

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Did something happen in their
childhood or their adolescence

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or their adulthood by parents
or partners or at work or even

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by their children
that wounded them,

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and wounded them, and wounded
them so their wounding you?

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Do you see now you're not
seeing a monster who hurt you.

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You're not seeing evil
incarnate who hurt you.

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You're seeing a human
being who's wounded.

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Then we take a global perspective.

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Do you share a humanity with
this other person?

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You're both going to
die one day.

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You both need nutrition,
when you're both cut you bleed.

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You both are carrying around wounds.

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I know they gave you wounds
but you both carry wounds.

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Do you see a common humanity?

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And then we take a cosmic
perspective

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but that depends on the faith base of the person.

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So if there's not a particular
faith base we don't go to the

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cosmic perspective but it's to
use the knowledge of the faith

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to go deeper in forgiveness.

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For example if someone has read
the Bible whether it's Jewish

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or Christian we ask the
question which is

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in Genesis 1, the
first book of the Bible.

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Are you both made in
the image and likeness of God?

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You can ask the Christian,
Did Jesus died for you?

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Did Jesus die for the one who hurt,
you can you both see yourself

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at the foot of the cross,
both in need of that forgiveness

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and then we ask the feeling
question

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when you take the personal global
and cosmic perspectives.

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How's your heart?

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Is it a little softer
toward that person?

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Is it not so stony cold?

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Can you enter into the world
and experience of their woundedness?

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That's empathy.

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So if you can empathize with
the other and you can have a

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little bit of a softer
heart, that's compassion.

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We ask the person to reflect on
that because that's

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a movement toward forgiveness.

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And then we ask this:
"You have pain don't you?

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And the other person
gave you that pain.

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Are you willing to stand
in the pain

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and not throw it back to
the other?

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Are you willing to stand in
that pain and not throw it back

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to your own children or your
old partner

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or your old coworkers?

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And you see how heroic and
strong that is that you're not

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passing pain in the world?

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And can you give
a gift to the other?

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Why a gift?

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Because forgiveness is
about gift giving,

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maybe it's a smile,
maybe it's a return phone call,

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maybe it's donating some
money to a charity for them

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if you're not reconciled.

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But if you do that you're
really wishing the other well.

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Did you find
meaning in your suffering?

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It's not about nothing,
when you suffer,

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when you forgive,
you become more attuned

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to other people's sufferings,
as well as the suffering

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of the other,
you become more sensitive

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and people than realise
they have a new purpose in life

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which is to help
diminish the wounds of the world

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because there are too many of them."

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And we realized the suffering
that happened to me has made me

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a conduit of good toward the
one who hurt me

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toward my family and even
toward others outside of my family.

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And that's when you experience
the paradox of forgiveness.

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You, yourself are healed by
standing in the pain

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for the other,
by giving a gift for the other,

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you are the one to experience
this healing,

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and that pathway, this road map

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if you will is all worked out in

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American Psychological Association
publication's of mine called:

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"Forgiveness is a choice".