Why should I?

When we get burnt, we let go, heal and return to normal. Hopefully we learn to be more careful, but unless there is more to the encounter, once we’re healed, we don’t usually go around reacting every time we see something hot.

Change that scenario to someone who is allergic to bees running across a clover field on a hot summer day beside their friend who is not allergic to bees. The two friends are going to process the same field very differently. Either might put on shoes and socks and go for it or stay away from the field altogether. But one does it knowing that they will react if they get stung, the consequences are huge for them. The other just knows that if they get stung, it will hurt for a bit and they’ll recover within a day or so.

How we process any situation is different between people. Some of us trudge through something tough and know that we’ll come out the other side and recover. Some of us don’t know how seriously our reaction might incapacitate us and so our defenses go up to protect ourselves before we even hit the difficulty.

The struggle is real. When someone hurts us, whether it was intentional or by mistake, the most natural response in the world is to put up our defenses and protect ourselves from further harm. Just as pain in a physical situation triggers a response to get away from the source of the pain, so we mentally or emotionally put up blocks when we’re hurt to prevent further injury.

The trouble is when we walk around with our walls constantly up, we don’t get to return to normal. There is no rest and recovery time. We end up putting our walls up higher and higher until we can’t see out and there’s no way in. We end up isolating ourselves because everyone out there is so dangerous that we can’t trust anyone. At first I didn’t want to get hurt. Now, I’m constantly hurt. This is not the way it was supposed to be!

“Ugh”, you say. “Don’t say that I need to forgive them, you don’t know what they did to me! Why should I?”

Well, here are a few good reasons for starters at least: It gets you off that downward cycle of emotions; it frees you and allows peace back into your rhythm.

I mentioned a few weeks ago that A more excellent way: Be in health by Dr. Henry W. Wright has a helpful progression of emotions that we go through if we don’t forgive. Now, to be fair, I might have this slightly wrong because my copy is currently in storage while we do an extension on our house, but it goes something like this: unforgiveness leads to resentment which leads to bitterness, which leads to anger, which leads to hatred, which leads to violence and ultimately to murder. Murder includes murdering with your words mind you, like gossip or slander, so if you’re anti-violence, you are not exempt.

Again, we have this idea of walls getting higher, or one emotion building a platform for the next one, each one worse than the last. So if you observe your emotions or listen to your thoughts, where are you at? Are you feeling resentful? Bitter? Angry? Is that emotion spilling over into your words? If you’ve already reached resentment, that’s a major clue that there is something that you are holding on to and not forgiving.

You might have heard Marianne Williamson’s well used analogy of unforgiveness being like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die from it.

Another picture is holding the ends of a rope wrapped around yourself and pulling the rope tighter and tighter, assuming that the other person is the one being bound. Forgiveness is not actually about the other person. It is about you. It is about freeing yourself from the prison of pain that you’re stuck in. That’s the crazy thing. We struggle against forgiveness, it seems counterintuitive. We judge the other person guilty and try to sustain our verdict by refusing to forgive them. Spoiler alert: you are hurting yourself by refusing to forgive.

Forgiveness does not mean putting yourself back in harm’s way. Forgiveness does not mean trusting them again. Forgiveness does not make you a doormat. You can forgive someone and still hold them accountable.

Forgiveness is a choice that you make to let it go. When something has been deeply painful, you might need to let it go multiple times every day for a while. Eventually it becomes daily and when you are practiced and you’ve done the processing, you can finally let it go once and for all.

The great thing about forgiveness is that it allows you to experience peace again. It is the pivot point that allows you to reverse the negativity that you’ve slipped into. That thing that used to really upset you becomes a memory without all the emotional chaos attached. Like a person who got burnt by a hot handle, you can be careful around the pot, but you can come off high alert when you have stepped away from the heat. You can rest. In this high pressure world, sometimes what we need is to rest.

When you forgive it’s like taking the walls down and approaching each interaction like you might with a hot pot. You now know the nature of that pot. You are aware of the dangers and how to navigate them. You might use a mitt to protect yourself from the heat or some other strategy to avoid injuring yourself. Each interaction with that pot is assessed based on what you have learnt and you can navigate it knowingly with the tools at your disposal.

“Why should I?” you ask. For your own benefit!

It is the key to getting off that downward cycle of emotions; it frees you and allows peace back into your rhythm. Maybe we’ll look at some more reasons another time.

If you’ve had a bad burn or you are allergic to bees, you may need medical intervention to help you heal. Equally, if you have been traumatised by an event or by a person, you may need professional help to process well and to learn those strategies that can help you moving forward. I encourage you, get help. It is worth it to come out the other side healed.

As someone who has dealt with chronic pain for years, I also encourage you to keep searching. If you only reach a measure of help with one practitioner, there might well be another one out there who has a key to unlock a different part of your puzzle. Persevere. Perhaps there is major consequence to the thing that you experienced. There will be someone out there who is equipped to help you regain as much as possible in your recovery.