When I was growing up in the Catholic church, I internalized quite complex messages around forgiveness and guilt, salvation and damnation. The call to practice forgiveness was profound, an invitation to holiness and freedom. What I imagined this meant in practice was the capacity to endure all slights and indignities with grace and forbearance.
So I forgave others. Often before letting them know I was upset or hurt. And while I was smugly satisfied in my holiness for being so forgiving, my relationships were also quite distant and rigid. Some people experienced me as robotic and aloof. Then, when others didn’t practice the same automatic forgiveness, I had no idea what to do but please them, with resentment.
When I think on my younger self now, I see that what he saw as diligent holiness obscured his terror of confronting others, his aversion to disappointing or setting limits, and a fear of revealing that another person could hurt him. The religious practice gave what in Transpersonal psychology is called a “spiritual bypass,” the use of sacred teachings to suppress and avoid feeling pain and unpleasant emotion.
If we never allow loved ones to see our hurt and anger, resentment and distance is inevitable. There is not opportunities for loving care, for repairing hurts and strengthening communication, or for seeking out the roots of upsetting patterns. Not only do we carry our pains privately, we may inadvertently hide from them how much they matter to us, how much they affect us.
Five years ago I reached a point in which it became necessary to counter this by leaning into confrontation and conflict, saying aloud what I felt, how I was hurt, and what I needed. As I grew better at this, I further stopped automatically regarding another person’s hurt and reality as one to which I needed to surrender and caretake. I could stand up for myself and share my own reality as equal in validity. Relationships truly become beautiful and profoundly healing, effective, and connected when we are able to witness each other’s realities and their validity without sacrificing our own.
Yet there were people who could not “go there” with me. Certain relationships seemed to become unbalanced even while I was doing all this work to be accountable, honest, and direct. These folks might have said what I wanted to hear in the moment, but their behavior remained unchanged, and I kept feeling hurt in the same ways.
What became a tell for me was the vague apology: “I’m sorry for what happened the other day” now seems like it’s about disarming conflict rather than being accountable. It basically sounds like “It sucks you got upset for some reason.” Eventually I came to realize that I need clear, specific apologies. I need to hear what it is the person believes they did that was hurtful, their willingness to accept responsibility for that hurt, and an idea of the ways they were working to avoid doing it again.
Beside this realization is the clarity that claims of harm also need to be specific, clear, and actionable. Accusations of “doing harm” without these qualities feel muddied and confusing. There are absolutely times when all we can do is say “I was hurt” or “there was harm,” and we need time to get clear about the specifics. Taking that time to care for the upset and come to clarity about what wrong was done is worth doing. But if I cannot be sure what harm was done to me, it feels like a lot to expect another person to be clear on it, and make effective change.
After a year of COVID-19 lockdown and so much free time with my family at home, I notice the ways these grievances, now a few years old, continue to have an aliveness for me even when the people involved are no longer in my life. The common wisdom about letting someone live rent-free in my head applied, and it was because I was unable to get the closure and accountability I sought. Recently it’s occurred to me that I need to return to forgiveness, from a new perspective.
Forgiveness and acceptance go together, because forgiveness, as I understand it now, is about recognizing that we truly were doing all we were capable of doing. With accountability, there is an expectation that you or I can do better. To that end, in accountability I demonstrate respect by communicating boundaries, clarifying expectations, and working to build mutual understanding.
With forgiveness, it is clear this was the best we could do together, and expecting more from the relationship gives rise to greater hurt. To forgive is not to say that what happened was acceptable, or even that the relationship can or should be restored to what it was.
To forgive is a releasing of effort and expectation and separating ourselves out from the painful dynamic that could not find resolution. Rather than hoping to finally get witnessing, closure, revenge, or validation from the person who hurt me, I offer that fully to my own hurt and release the attachment.
To be forgiven truly is not about relieving the guilt of the one who caused harm, because guilt is an appropriate feeling when we are out of integrity with ourselves. Whether a person forgives us for hurting them or not, we have to do our own work to come into integrity.
Forgiveness, like grief, is always best when it’s on your schedule, and not rushed based on arbitrary social pressures or other people’s convenience. In deference to Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, I’ve found that it may be easier to say, “I’m willing to forgive” rather than, “I forgive.”
What felt scariest about forgiveness was the fear that it meant I would let the person back into my life in the ways that would get me hurt again. Given that was my pattern, before I did the work to learn to have conflict, stand up for myself, and prioritize my own happiness and health, there was wisdom in not forgiving. Forgiveness is not an opioid to apply to any discomfort or suffering. We achieve it through the full experiencing of our hearts.
Lately I’ve begun a simple practice of noticing when my mind is caught up in rehashing old hurts, pausing, and saying to myself, “I am willing to forgive them for this.” What I say instead of “for this” is often interesting. Rather than forgiving the hurtful acts, I find myself naming the underlying vulnerability that led them to doing what they did. Rather than the specific lie, forgiveness for the shame that made lying seem necessary. Rather than for the cruelty, forgiveness for the terror that made them feel they had to protect themself.
And, too, I turn that forgiveness toward myself. Forgiveness for the ways I participated in the hurt. Forgiveness for the ways I became more reactive and hurtful in turn. Forgiveness for not listening to what was being communicated through actions, if not through words.
Once I truly began to forgive, I was able to grieve more deeply. Sweet and wonderful memories I’d forgotten resurfaced, and I could feel the sadness of having had and lost that connection. And having moved through that, I could see us as struggling humans rather than malicious beings.
And the lessons I’ve needed to learn settled more deeply into my heart. The knowing that I must protect myself as much as I risk my heart in love. Releasing the subtle efforts to control others even in ways that seem benign and “healing” rather than accepting them exactly as they are.
Whereas forgiveness once felt divine, now I see it as a consolation when the greater work of accountability and repair of relationship has failed. Yet even relationships that involve hurt, relationships that end, have gifts to offer us in growing toward self-mastery, intimacy, honesty, and genuine belonging.