The Forgiveness Gamble
When it works, when it doesn't
In conversations where I volunteer and also with people in my church community, there's been a lot of talk about forgiveness, not just because of the whole Casear Chavez thing, but because it's always relevant to people who are healing and in recovery. So many people struggle with Forgiveness and the desire to move on, and also the issues of whether forgiving is choosing not to remember that something wrong happened. How do you forgive? What if something is unforgivable? IS there anything that can never be forgiven? The questions linger.
Forgiveness has been a tough issue for me to tackle as a coach, as a formerly incarcerated person, and as simply a human living amongst humans. Recently I had an encounter with my own complex myriad of emotions when someone who had wronged me and others, after being asked to step down from a role for a period of time to try and “get right” waltzed back into my life and the lives of others only slightly changed (he quit weed, but never apologized and openly despises me so much he can't be in the same area as me). Another person who never apologized to me, however, is someone I have managed to forgive because he has shown a change in behavior. That's the strange thing about forgiveness-It's not always dependent on a proper apology. I am usually quick to forgive others, but I don't actually expect or ask for forgiveness. I don't expect to be forgiven..it's just not something that I can muster, command, or expect anymore. Maybe this is shocking, or being harsh on myself, but it's my ironic reality. I can talk to others who have been forgiven and encourage forgiveness as a Recovery Coach, yet if someone were to truly forgive me for my past, I probably wouldn't know what to say.
Many people in Recovery seem to have 2 key problems when it comes to Forgiveness-They can't forgive themselves fully and firstly, and also they cannot forgive others easily. There's so many people I have met or coached who struggle with all this..Too many who wonder if forgiving is really just an act of pretending. We always hear the saying “To Forgive Is To Forget”. If this was true, who could truly be forgiven? Real harm, actual wrongdoing is hard if not impossible to just erase from our minds, hearts, and souls. Expecting this is what leads traumatized people into relapse. Forgiveness Starts with forgiving yourself for your addiction and what came with it. Forgiveness extends to forgiving the dealer who got you started, the judge who put you in jail, the CO's who called you a Junkie or a loser, or “Boy” or “Buddy”.
Feel what you feel, name the wrong, don't pretend, and then release that energy. All that you keep in from unforgiveness is poison, and it's toxic, and it's killing the hell out of your healing. You don't need to ever absolve the sin that happened, but you can release the energy behind it, forgive yourself, move on from the hold of others and their emotional toll on you, and find true freedom. Your healing is worth it, isn't it?