30 Jul Premature Forgiveness
Many people who come to see me announce that they have already forgiven the people who hurt them, so the work is done. They’ve read in spiritual books that forgiveness is the key, so wanting to be good people, they are anxious to forgive and forget. Unfortunately, it’s not that simple.
This type of forgiveness is done from the level of the mind, by making a decision to think about the situation differently, which is as helpful as putting a Band-Aid on a broken arm. The pain happened emotionally, physically, and/or sexually, and must be dealt with on these levels. For the mind to pronounce that “all is forgiven” is New Age nonsense, as if all it takes to come to forgiveness is to pronounce it so.
To truly get to a state of forgiveness, you must first fully experience the feelings associated with the betrayal or abuse. This doesn’t mean that you need to act the feelings out, become overly dramatic, or hang onto them for years. But it does mean that the energetic frequency of the emotion needs to be allowed to pass through the physical body on its way out. When forgiveness is merely an idea or a mental construct pasted over the inner rage, horror, betrayal, hurt, or anger, the emotions will continue to exert pressure to be released. When through the process of therapy we drain those feelings, leaving the person free and cleansed, the forgiveness process can begin.
It’s understandable that a person would want to bypass this step, because dealing with these historical emotions can be intense. The work is hard, but it is worth doing. To be free of blame and resentment is worth the pain it takes to clear it out of your system. It can be done. Get some help so that it’s not just a mental exercise.
If you try to forgive prematurely, or before you have done your work, you run the risk of being stuck with painful feelings lying hidden underneath everything you do. When you explore and confront past emotional wounds, eventually you will come to accept the humanity of whoever harmed you, along with the realization that we all hurt each other. Then true forgiveness is possible and when it comes from that genuine place, it will flow out truly like the love that it is.
© 2014 Catherine Auman This article is an excerpt from Catherine’s book Shortcuts to Mindfulness: 100 Ways to Personal and Spiritual Growth
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