Thursday Thoughts on... Forgiveness

I spent a LOT of time thinking (and writing) about forgiveness several years ago. At that time, the wounds for which I needed to forgive were raw, fresh, still bleeding. That seems like a lifetime ago now. At that time, a friend told me "Unforgiveness is about as effective as drinking poison in hopes of it killing your enemy."  I remember making a conscious choice to forgive.

I have never regretted that choice.

Forgiving old hurt has proven much more difficult.

Perhaps I believe these old hurts are part of who I am. Maybe it's because I have carefully boxed all that old hurt up, taped the lid shut, wrapped it in brown paper, tied it up with rope and buried it so deep that in order to deal with it, I'd have to WORK to dig it up.

Well, that may have been my intention... but as I have said before... buried "stuff" is a time bomb.

Last year my bomb went off and all that stuff I'd been so careful to bury spewed everywhere. It left all sorts of emotions, memories, feelings, and thoughts all OVER the place. It felt like everything in me was out of place. It felt as though every negative thing in my entire life ripped through my already fragile heart and then rushed to the front of my mind so that the only thing I could think was, "You are such a failure. You never get anything right. You will always be a screw up. You are unlovable. You are a terrible wife, mother, child, sister, and friend. Everyone would be better off without you."

It takes a bit of therapy to get yourself together after a full blown come apart.

One of the "exercises" that all the therapists I've seen seem to agree on is the exercise of writing letters to the people I feel I can't talk openly to. Mailing the letter is optional; the purpose of the exercise is to give voice to the bottled up and buried emotions that keep me bound. It is an opportunity to say all the things I would never say. It is an opportunity to remove all filters and just... word vomit.

This sounds wonderful.

It SEEMS that word vomiting every thought that comes to mind about every hurtful thing (real or perceived) that anyone has ever done to me would be welcome. "Give a voice to little Kris," and all that good stuff... but I couldn't do it. I cannot even tell you how many hours I spent staring at a blank page. The words would not come. Everything I THOUGHT I wanted to say... I really didn't want to say at all. I don't want to spew venom. I don't want to be filled with hate and I distinctly remember thinking that hate would overwhelm me if I studied all those hurts that I'd kept buried all these years. A year later and still have not completed this exercise.

This week, I came across a little snippet of something that made all those "forgiveness of old hurt" pieces finally start falling into the right places. I watched Nadia Boylz-Weber's video on forgiveness.  Now, before you freak out... Anyone who knows me know I am not a militant feminist, nor am I Lutheran. None of that has changed but this particular video is a gem for me. You can look it up for yourself if you want to hear the whole thing by searching "Nadia Boylz-Weber Forgiveness."  Here's what I took away from her words:

We can be connected to past hurt and mistreatment like a chain. (oh my WORD! yes!!!!That's EXACTLY what it feels like! A heavy chain!)

Forgiveness is not an act of NICENESS, it's not being a doormat. (Agree...but shouldn't I take a stand against the "wrong" that's been done to me?)

Retaliation and holding onto hurt doesn't actually combat evil...maybe it feeds it. (WHAAAAAAAAT??? well...maybe so... I guess it makes sense... since the hurt I hold onto causes me increasingly more pain as time passes...)

What if forgiveness is actually a way of yielding bolt cutters and snapping the chain that links us to that mistreatment and hurt? (SHUT UP! Are you SERIOUS?? I haven't thought of it this way! YES! But HOW???)

What if it's saying "What you did was so NOT okay that I refuse to be connected to it any longer"? (oh.....wow.... so what if "I forgive you is NOT saying "what you did is excusable? What if it REALLY is saying "What you did was completely not okay... SO not okay that I refuse to be tied to it any more. That's really good stuff)

FREE people aren't controlled by the past.

FREE people are not easily offended.

FREE people are not chained to resentment.

THAT's worth fighting for. (Ummmmm...YEAH!!!!!!)

And so... I finally wrote a letter...actually I wrote a few sentences...but it was enough. I said what needed to be said.

Most importantly, I forgave. Before I wrote those few sentences, I forgave... completely and totally...deep down in my soul. I opened that imaginary box where all my baggage was kept, let out all those old hurtful memories, and...just let them go.

Know what?

It feels really good.

Just my thoughts (and some of Nadia Boylz-Weber's)

K