Forgiveness

Posted on March 10, 2005 in Compassion

All too often, when you have experienced hurt, there appear those who say “You must forgive.” Now. Before the sun sets. I am one of those people who does not get over hurt easily. It takes me a few days or weeks or months or years to get to a point where I can say “I forgive”. And it is utterly unrealistic to ask me or anyone else to “forgive and forget”. Sorry. The brain doesn’t work that way. When we experience a threat, norepinephrine floods the gooey toothpaste inside the skull. Whatever we are going through gets branded into our memory. We’re not going to forget because we’re made to remember.

Nevertheless, I feel that forgiveness is a good objective to set out forth as soon as possible. And, once I’ve removed myself from the initial terror of confrontation, I find I can easily commit myself to the first step: commit myself to enact no vengeance against the person who has hurt me.

For now, in many circumstances of my life, that is the one reasonable step I can take towards recovering my sense that the violator is a human being stuck in this world of suffering just like I am. I don’t have to drop my guard entirely: I can offer greater degrees of forgiveness as I feel safer.