How difficult it is to forgive

“My father “got away” when I was 4 years old. He disappeared in his home country and I never heard from him again, nor did my mother. I am a father in my turn and I appreciate even more what I did not have on the emotional, material and intellectual levels. How can you leave your child and never again try to find out what happened to him? I believe that I am capable of letting go and forgiving in general, but for my “father”, I should say my progenitor, I can’t do it, I am so angry with him!”

Lay down your burden

Forgiveness is not, first of all, a moral act, although it is an injunction widely given by religions. It’s all about doing good for yourself! Many authors familiar with research on forgiveness highlight the importance of being able to “drop the burden of resentment”, find serenity and inner freedom. One of them (I forget his name) described resentment like this: remaining grudged, condemning without forgiving was like taking rat poison and hoping to kill the rat.

It is not a question of approving, minimizing, accepting what is not acceptable, but of taking responsibility for one’s life, of putting oneself in a position to no longer block the love that one would like. give and receive.

For therapist Eve Hogan, taking responsibility for one’s life is the magic door that allows one to escape from the victim situation and restore one’s power over what affects us.

How to achieve this?

First, it is a question of examining the way in which we responded to the offense. Of course, at 4 years old we experience lack, we cannot explain the situations but, then, everything depends on the story we have told ourselves. Have we added aspects that make the offense even more painful? Like: “I was never loved by this father, I wasn’t interested in him,” or, worse, mixing in guilt: “I couldn’t hold him back.”

Our human nature often leads us to distort reality and complicate a situation by interpreting it negatively. And, finally, by reacting more to the story we tell ourselves than to reality.

Next, in the case of our correspondent, it is worth exploring the reasons that led the “offender”, the father, to leave. If the mother is still living, it is important to ask her questions and, if this is not possible, to find other people who could speak about this absent father. A certain understanding of the events, of the character of this man, of his life, can make possible access to compassion, to the kind gaze which promotes the path towards forgiveness. This information will not be an apology, but perhaps the possibility of understanding that this man’s actions were dictated by other events and that he may have suffered from no longer having contact with his little boy.

This exploration can take time, it can be destabilizing at certain times. But when resentment slowly changes into benevolence or compassion, a feeling of freedom and lightness is born which allows us to live better.

At this point, says Eve Hogan, we can go even further and explore what, perhaps, was positive in the situation experienced: “My father was absent, I lacked security but I learned to rely on myself, to take charge of myself, which allows me to have great professional responsibilities.” Or again: “I couldn’t count on my father, but my basketball coach taught me important values ​​with so much kindness that he played the role of a father during my adolescence.”

Forgiving yourself

True freedom is built much more on the compassion and esteem we have for ourselves than on external events. Even more difficult than forgiving others, it is very difficult to forgive yourself. Even if we cannot see where we ourselves participated in what happened, we may feel guilty. Our society tends to devalue “victims” who carry with them what Tara Brach calls the “trance of devaluation”, this tendency to always believe oneself guilty of something, according to false beliefs linked to the notion of original sin.

Reading the above, one may say to oneself: “This is impossible for me!” However, the desire to forgive gains by becoming a decision: “From today, I am setting out to no longer carry the weight of this resentment, of this non-forgiveness. I will (re)find this inner serenity that will allow me to give and receive love with a peaceful heart, without judgment, without tension, without anger or negative stories!”

“To forgive is to cover our wounds with love!”, Zohra Aaffane.

To you, dear correspondent, and to each of you, Reader Friends, I wish a very wonderful week.

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