Sometimes we meet people, who have a plaque hanging on their heart saying “sorry, closed”! Yes, some people live life with a closed heart. They have been hurt too many times and they are not able to make room to trust again. Their heart is already carrying a colossal of hurt, pain, bitterness and resentment caused by the others and sometimes by themselves too.
We all suffer from deep hurts caused by betrayal by others, and the anger and the resentment towards those who cause us immense pain, intentionally or unintentionally. We can either take revenge, hurt back, or at times these feelings of rage, wrath, enmity and the hurts we nurture, can become our traumas if they are not catered in time.
People who harmed us are enemies? Is revenge the way out of the hurt? The unassuming answer to these questions is, yes. But both holding on to the vengeance and the grudge against the presumed enemy is like living in the trap of the enemy.
We are all wounded souls, and sometimes we move around with open bleeding wounds outwardly and inwardly. We go around bruised and don’t let ourselves heal, letting the wounds remain untreated and tender. This makes us bitter, resentful and sometimes we fester hatred.
The bleeding wounds become grounds for more hurt and excruciating pain, and people become victims of their own neglect to take action to treat their own wounded self. The adverse sentiments become our state of being, where we are always feeling vexed, anxious, jealous, bitter, harmful and toxic.
Our anger and resentment are like invisible chains of ego which weigh us and drown us into the deep oceans of hatred, animosity and begrudging oneself and others at all times. These chains keep us from rising above the surface to breathe, to forgive.
What is forgiveness and is it that easy to forgive?
Our mind builds thousand stories around the wrong that has been caused to us and by whom it has been caused, and forgiveness requires letting go of resentment and giving up all claims to be compensated for the hurt or loss. It is a conscious decision to acknowledge the suffering inflicted on us by the unconscious dysfunctional people, who create misery in the life of others by their unconscious living. Our hurts keeps us chained to the past. To forgive does not mean we condone or forget the misdeeds of another but forgiveness is giving up the hope for a different, better past and moving on to creating a better present and future for ourselves.
Anger and resentment creates a vicious cycle of reaction keeping us entrapped in pain and we are never free. We create our history of guilt, shame, low self-esteem and blaming others for our unhappiness.
People keep waiting for some good, some right reason to forgive others. An apology, some acknowledgement that they wronged us, we have this innate urge for them to suffer the same pain, hurt, and shame in the same way as we did and seek forgiveness for all their misfortunes towards us.
Should you be forgiving when people are not apologetic?
Our forgiving them cannot be dependent upon others earning it or deserving it, that is our ego at play, which needs an apology. Holding on to the pain of the past is like nurturing the pain, which is wearisome. We need to release the past and not carry bitterness and hate in our heart. In forgiving others we forgive ourselves. It liberates you from the burden of shame, guilt, self-hatred and self-judgment, and it sets others free from all expectations of undoing the wrong, or to justify why wrong was caused.
Is forgiveness absolute or conditional?
The Latin root of the word ‘forgive’ is ‘perdonare’, which means ‘to give completely, without reservation’. Forgiving may therefore involve an act of completely abolishing any feelings of resentment or retribution. For forgiveness to be complete it has to be unconditional, it cannot be served with conditions applied.
Not forgiving is like paying the cost of the damage caused by your neighbor. Forgiveness is not a mundane act, it is a spiritual act, and only comes with the understanding that all wrongdoing is rooted in ignorance and in suffering. Thus, forgiveness is both an act of compassion towards another and a means to achieve self-transformation. It is difficult to be grateful to those who hurt us, as they have given us an opportunity to advance spiritually, but that is the eventual intent of forgiveness. Forgiveness, other than the one embedded in compassion, will simply perpetuate the cycle of begrudging, retaliation, affliction and creating a spiral of negative karma.
Forgiveness needs to be understood as a way to end our suffering, to bring dignity and harmony to our life. Forgiveness is fundamentally for our own sake, for our own mental peace and health. It is a way to let go of the pain we carry.
Whom do we really need to forgive?
We may still be suffering terribly from the past while those who betrayed us are on vacation, without even a hint of realization that they have left a trail of mess in our life. Their understanding or awakening to the causes they have created in making our lives hell, is not a precondition for us to set ourselves free from such unhealthy dynamics of relationship.
I personally have come to believe that forgiveness is important for all relationships, but it is most important in a relationship, you want to keep! The real need for forgiveness is in our marriages, families, business relationships, friendships, between siblings.
People who don’t know you, they can offend you, and more than often you find yourselves easily forgiving towards them because they are not a part of your lives, they don’t occupy your mental, physical or emotional space as your spouses, parents, children, siblings, business partners or friends do.
We find it unbearably difficult to forgive our families, our spouses, our siblings. We either don’t believe or we conveniently forget that they are the chosen ones for our destiny to help us in living and experience life as humans, and, we will end up paying numerous costs for the undesired hurt, or a wound that we haven’t resolved in our mind and heart with them. These unresolved issues all accumulate to become triggers for stress chemicals in our body, and we carry them like big heavy stones that we don’t want to get rid of instead, keep adding more to our backpack with every argument, disagreement, disappointment. We need to unpack. We can’t always change our situations or our relationships; the challenge is to change ourselves.
You don’t want to take these hurts and grudges to your grave or pass it on to your next generation, to live with and keep working on the inherent trauma of their ancestors. We need to start working with the antidote of forgiveness to free ourselves from the poison of suffering.
We are all flawed human beings, our relationships are flawed too. Discover and practice the art of forgiveness and allow it to work its magic and free you from the outrage and grief, let them go. Open your heart for more love, acceptance, happiness and peace in life.
Dr Navita Sandhu, LL.M., Ph.D., is a well known educator having vast experience. She is also a motivational speaker and a child and parent counselor. Presently she is working as a life coach. She has authored various articles and published her papers in renowned law journals.