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I’ll Never Forgive Him To forgive or not to forgive? “My father molested me. I’ll never forgive him.” “She broke my heart by having an affair. I can’t forgive her.” What happens when you forgive someone? What happens when you don’t? When you are holding energy about someone because of your own non-forgiveness, two things happen. First, you constrict your heart and body to maintain your hurt/defended stance. You aren’t as vibrant and alive as your true nature. Secondly, you have to constantly spend your energy to keep up your “I’ll never forgive them” stance. And that takes a lot of energy. Energy that you could spend doing things that delight you. Energy that you could use to bring light and joy to the world. Bottom line: it is very expensive to you, emotionally, physically and spiritually. Staying stuck in non-forgiveness, no matter how justified you are in being hurt or angry, is energetically expensive. So it’s time to get to work and forgive. (By the way…if you had any negative reaction to that last statement that is a clue that it is costing you even more energy to not forgive than you can imagine.) An important reminder: Forgiveness doesn’t mean you condone what the other person did. It doesn’t mean that you think it was okay. It doesn’t mean you have to like them or be friendly to them. It doesn’t mean you have to invite them to your party. It simply means you have other things to do with your energy and you want to move on and do the things that are really important to you. You are tired of leaking your energy on their behalf and have chosen to do the work to heal yourself instead. What To Do: 1) Get Selfish. On some level you might think that if you don’t forgive someone, you are getting revenge- that you are hurting them. If you are stuck in non-forgiveness you are the one getting hurt. You are poisoning yourself. Here’s my recommendation: do something that is totally selfish. Something 100% just for you. Get selfish and forgive someone. Forgiving people is fully and wonderfully and completely a selfish act. You do it for you, not them. If you are not quite willing to forgive, do something that will help get you ready. Here’s what I do if I am stuck: Pray everyday to be willing to forgive. Use the Inner Parenting Method to meet with the part of myself that doesn’t want to forgive and help her (me) resolve her feelings. We teach the simple Inner Parenting Method in both the Boundaries & Relationships and the Inner Boundaries Trainings. I also find that EFT, the meridian tapping method Emotional Freedom Technique, is like magic in helping unblock stuck energy. www.emofree.com for more information, or attend our Getting Real Training. So today, decide that you are going to forgive that person, even if you don’t want to. And do the work to be willing to be ready to forgive. 2) Finish processing the trauma or pain. Almost always, before you can forgive someone, you need to finish letting the energy or pain process through you. How can you do this? If you were injured, your body’s natural protection system is still waiting to fight back or run away. So you need to finish doing what your body wanted to do to protect itself. This helps reactivate your natural freeze/fight/flight mechanism. Have a friend approach you as if they were the person who hurt you. As they approach you, yell “no” and use a large pillow to shove them away. Do this several times and every time after you do this, stand tall, like a tiger reclaiming his territory- no collapsing or falling into tears when you do this. Just pure power. This will start to satisfy the part of you that has been waiting to successfully protect you. You can do this physical level repatterning whether the original attack was verbal or physical. In the Boundaries & Relationships Training, we do a powerful method to reactivate your freeze/fight/flight mechanism. Also, finish saying what you want to say by writing some “no-edit” letters to the person you haven’t forgiven. These are letters, full of your unedited rants, that you write just for the purpose of expression. You do not send them. They are a wonderful way to complete your unfinished emotional business. Be careful that you don’t try to dump your old hurts by continually complaining or blaming. If you are prone to do this, read the “Bonding Through Bitching” article now. 3) Look at any way you helped set up the situation. Not only will this empower you, it will help you avoid making the same mistake again. I know a woman who came to one of our free evening seminars, The Secrets of Great Relationships, where she learned to recognize an unconscious relationship dynamic. At this event we do some simple exercises to bring light on how these patterns get set up and to rewire participants so they stopped getting into damaging situations. This woman had been over giving, over caring, was constantly resentful and just darn tired. She felt like people always used her and even said “why can’t someone help me out for a change?” After seeing her part in creating these relationships, she completely forgave her ex-boss and former husband. It was easy once she stepped out of the dance. If the original experience occurred when you were a small child, where you didn’t have much power to set it up or to stop it, you need to look at how you’ve been setting yourself up to repeat similar dynamics as an adult. These unconscious templates can drive your decisions until you have clear boundaries and have unplugged from the pattern. When you contemplate starting your forgiveness work, ask yourself this question: Would you rather be right or would you rather be happy? If being right is your agenda, you’ll stay stuck in non-forgiveness no matter how much it’s costing you. I’d rather you go for being happy and start being who you were meant to be: beautiful, bright and joyful. You are too precious to waste your energy on past incidents that are a dead end. Get started now. Shine! Joan Casey M.S.W. Founder- Boundaries Solutions for Life www.joancasey.com Our mission: “To motivate and train people to create the relationships they really want.” Copyrighted 2006 Boundaries: Solutions for Life For more information visit www.joancasey.com
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