On Forgiveness
Anybody who tells you not to take the things that hurt you so seriously is not interested in your healing. Pain resolves when we attend to it, not when we ignore it.
— @DeanAbbott
For a long time, I struggled with forgiveness. I used to think I was someone who forgives easily, until a burnout that happened to me transpired into what seemed like an almost impossible task to resolve. It was a war that I had with myself for a few years. I was bitter and angry, and among all that bitterness and anger lay unforgiveness. People will tell you to just forgive, because God forgives, so who are we to not forgive others? Or that famous saying that has been attributed to many different individuals, that by harbouring bitterness you're drinking your own poison. Whenever someone told me not to hold on and just forgive, I felt a tiny twang of anger because who the heck are they to tell me how to feel about something? Who are they to tell me when I should forgive? They say forgiveness is for me, but by the way they were saying it, it felt like they were asking me to do it to make them more comfortable. It's like if someone did you wrong and they told you to forgive just because God forgives. Talk about using God's name in vain.
I'm not saying that one should never forgive. I'm saying that such things take time. Time to process your place and position, and time to process the place and position of the ones who have wronged you, consciously or unconsciously.
When some people eat, they never chew properly before they swallow. And so the food that they've swallowed can't be properly digested. So it is with forgiveness, you can only take a dump when you've eaten. And good dumps are a result of proper eating habits, like taking the time to chew slowly so that one's body can digest the food properly before exiting the body.
Those who advise us to: move on, let it go, & forgive because they have, are full of shit.
— Patrick Teahan
Then, I came across this quote by Patrick Teahan. Some religious people might see this and say: "How dare a therapist call us who ask to forgive full of shit. What kind of language is this? Did Jesus not ask us to forgive?" This is where I have reservations with people who do therapy and counselling from a biblical lens. They don't understand internal processing. What Teahan is saying is this: it's not your place to tell someone how they should feel about something. Forgiveness is not just an act, and if it were, it wouldn't be so difficult. Forgiveness is an action of one's being. It's not just emotions, it's also will. It takes everything in someone to forgive. When someone says they forgive us, they're saying I remember everything that you've said and did, and I remember how I felt when you did those things, and I know that you're capable of repeating those things, and I am now at a point and place in time where I am willing to part with what transpired in the past. And I will still remember them (because who can truly un-forget something?) but I will still forgive you. Forgiveness is not a clean slate, it's the individual's resolve to move forward. Forgiveness is not returning to how it was in the past, and sometimes forgiveness can also mean never speaking to the person again.
I also came across this quote by @lichthauch which hits the very core of the matter.
You said i forgive you before you even felt the knife. that is not forgiveness that is fear. you cannot release what you refuse to hold. and now the wound walks beside you like a second shadow and you wonder why you are so tired. because it takes muscle to pretend something is dead when it is still breathing. real forgiveness takes years because you must first admit what it cost you and you have not admitted this. you skipped to the resurrection without the crucifixion. and the thing you buried is growing roots
This person said it so well.
You said i forgive you before you even felt the knife.
This is something a lot of "good" people do. They never sit with the emotions in the aftermath of an incident. And when they say I forgive you, it's not that they don't mean it, but it's because they haven't processed it. And so their words become cheap, because how can a person really mean what they say if they've never truly put much thought into what they've said?
that is not forgiveness that is fear.
Most people fear being alone. They fear the end of a relationship. And so they forgive because they treasure the relationship, but not because they've truly forgiven someone.
Forgiveness that stems from fear is not true forgiveness. True forgiveness sometimes also means accepting that there is no point of return.
you cannot release what you refuse to hold.
If you haven't eaten, how can you expect to shit?
and now the wound walks beside you like a second shadow and you wonder why you are so tired.
Acting out something that is incongruent with how your body feels can lead one to exhaustion. Service workers like customer service staff and waiters feel this the most because every single time they have to smile and be pleasant to a Karen customer, they are doing emotional labour.
No wonder some of you are tired all the time.
because it takes muscle to pretend something is dead when it is still breathing. real forgiveness takes years because you must first admit what it cost you and you have not admitted this.
Real forgiveness takes into the account how much time, effort, and energy that you have wasted, and how much it has been unreciprocated. It's you saying: I acknowledge all the times you have sucked everything out of me and I'm ready and willing to now forgive you.
you skipped to the resurrection without the crucifixion. and the thing you buried is growing roots
Spiritual bypassing is a real thing.
There is no resurrection without crucifixion, so there is no forgiveness without the processing of pain.
Forgiveness, like taking a dump, must be done at the right time. Forcing oneself to take a dump when you're in a rush or when you're not ready can be pure torture. Think of it this way, when you're trying to take a dump in a public toilet or restroom, and someone is asking you to hurry up. Isn't that annoying? But when you're doing it in the privacy of your home at the right time with no one to bother you, it feels like pure bliss. So it is when you're forgiving someone. This is why taking a dump feels so good, when you're ready.
