Let’s go deep for a moment.
There have probably been times in your life when you needed to forgive someone for something HUGE that they did against you- and you knew from the beginning that you would never get an apology. I know how much that hurts, and how it can affect your future relationships without you even being aware of it. So today girl, we are going to talk about forgiving and forgetting.
I was severely abused as a child by relatives that were trusted to care for me. The experience left deep wounds that would take years to heal. I remember during an outburst, when I was accusing my father for not being there to protect me, he said, “I can’t do anything about it now. What do you want? Do you want me to say sorry? That won’t fix anything.”
“Yes, it will!” I screamed. (Oh girl, I really did scream.) He paused a moment and said, “I’m sorry.” And immediately, the burning in my chest stopped, and I felt the sobbing subside. I remember the quiet that followed, when we both realized in our way that indeed, there was great power in that word.
I never got an apology from my abuser, but somewhere along the way, I accepted that an apology just wasn’t going to happen. I began to allow other people to apologize when they felt prompted to (“I’m sorry you had to live through that”) and I began to believe that indeed, they were sorry although they were not guilty.
So for the times when you know stuff happened and confronting the guilty will not accomplish anything, here’s my tried and true forgiveness process.
1) Write down in detail exactly what happened to you. If there is more than one incident, try to separate them- we can’t deal with everything at once. That being said, there might be times when one incident will be closely tied to another. Just don’t take on too much. You may get emotional while writing; that’s okay. Take a break and come back to it.
2) Read what you wrote and allow yourself to feel the emotions all over again. Sometimes we harden ourselves thinking that it will help with the healing process only to find out that we are further removed from our authentic selves. Don’t fake the emotion, but if you feel it and remember it, let it come to the surface and come out.
3) Make a decision that regardless of how you feel, you will forgive. Speak the words out loud: “I forgive _______ for ___________.”
4) Allow some time for those words to be absorbed by your body. I firmly believe that our words have creative power and that the things we say in the physical realm affect the spiritual realm. During this time of absorption, you may pout. Cry. Scream. Here is the point where you get down on the floor and tell God how you really feel. It isn’t fair. S/he doesn’t deserve it. Ask for help to actually forgive.
5) Repeat that you forgive this person, and close it up for the moment. If you use a prayer box, (you might want to check out my post on that!) put it in the box and do something that needs doing. Move on.
It will bubble up again, and at that point, you might need to start again at step 2. If you find that the incident is still burning you up and you can’t sleep, you need to repeat the process. A variation I have played out in my head is I pretend I am the defense lawyer for my abuser. What defense could I offer? It doesn’t take away from what happened to me, but it does give me some perspective on the situation.
As it gets easier to deal with this person, go beyond forgiveness and bless him/her. Ask God for good things on his/her behalf. Sometimes you words will cause you pain, but you are retraining your body to accept that you have forgiven this person. Sometimes I like to test it out by looking at myself in my bathroom mirror, and saying out loud that I forgive ____ for ________. If I haven’t made much progress, the emotion will surface and I will see it on my face. When you can smile at yourself, you know that the transformation has taken place within. (And boy, do you feel better!)
Choosing to forgive sets you free of what was done to you. It gives you the ability to leave that mess alone and move past it. You will forget the emotions associated with the hurt and be able to speak to what happened without feeling the pain. (And for what it’s worth, this is how we should be handling our emotional business as adults- not walking around with our hazard lights blinking and blaming people for our “triggers”. Just saying.)