The Grace of Forgiveness (continued)

“Forgiveness is the fragrance the violet sheds

on the heel that has crushed it.”

Mark Twain

Whenever I’ve thought about forgiveness, I’ve typically thought about forgiving others.  However, as mentioned in the poem in the previous post, I believe we have to begin with ourselves.  This is a very hard thing to do.  As the poem relates, throughout our life, layers and layers of negative or shameful input seep into our brain; those thoughts become etched into beliefs and we begin to live out those beliefs.  In fact, often we don’t even know how we came to believe such negative information, so it’s hard to know who to forgive.  In the process, we begin to realize those negative thoughts made us react in a negative way to someone else.  We begin to show frustration, anger, or spite toward others, creating even more negativity, which then eventually requires us to forgive ourselves.  Unfortunately, humans do not typically react as kindly as the little violet in the quote above.  Instead, these negative feelings spill into our family communications, our work life and our community and can eventually be the cause of wars among countries.  It’s so hard to believe tiny seeds of negativity can multiply amongst all of us and reach that degree of tragedy, something we’ve experienced way too much in our country recently.

Much has been written about forgiveness and its impact; I’d like to share a few thoughts:

Tom Carpenter, in his blog The Forgiveness Movement: http://theforgivenessmovement.org/blog1/

“Happiness and love are interchangeable; neither exists without the other.  Judgment and pain are also interchangeable.  The choice to exercise either forgiveness or judgment determines which you will have.”

“Forgive the world and you have changed its purpose from judgment to joy.  Forgive yourself and you have found the freedom to love.”

Iyanla Vanzant, in her book One Day My Soul Just Opened Up (1998):

“The truth is, when you forgive, you are doing it for yourself.  As it relates to forgiveness, you must give up what you do not want in order to make room for what you do want.  You must give up pain, anger, resentment, and fear in order to experience goodness, joy, peace, and love.  Offering another the forgiveness they need strengthens the spiritual nature in you.  When you withhold forgiveness or love from anyone, for any reason, it diminishes your awareness of the abundance of good in life.  In essence, the good that you withhold from others will be withheld from you.”

“Sometimes, we make the mistake of thinking that other people have the power to control or alter our destiny.  It is our beliefs, mistaken and otherwise, that ultimately determine what we will do or be in life, not another person.”

“The biggest mistake we all make is believing that other people can hurt us.”

Eckhart Tolle, in his book The Power of Now (1999):

“Forgiveness is to relinquish your grievance and so to let go of grief.  It happens naturally once you realize that your grievance serves no purpose except to strengthen a false sense of self.  Forgiveness is to offer no resistance to life – to allow life to live through you.  The alternatives are pain and suffering, a greatly restricted flow of life energy, and in many cases physical disease.”

Caroline Myss, Ph.D., in her book Anatomy of the Spirit (1996):

“…illnesses develop as a consequence of behavioral patterns and attitudes that we do not realize are biologically toxic until they have already become so.”

“To create disease, negative emotions have to be dominant, and what accelerates the process is knowing the negative thought to be toxic but giving it permission to thrive in your consciousness anyway.  For instance, you may know you need to forgive someone, yet you decide that remaining angry gives you more power.  Remaining obsessively angry makes you more likely to develop a disease because the energy consequence of a negative obsession is powerlessness.  Energy is power, and transmitting energy into the past by dwelling on painful events drains power from your present-day body and can lead to illness.”

“Power is essential for healing and for maintaining health.  Attitudes that generate a feeling of powerlessness not only lead to low self-esteem, but also deplete the physical body of energy and weaken overall health.”

“By releasing our emotional pain, by letting go of our need to know why things have happened as they have, we reach a state of tranquility.  In order to achieve that inner peace, however, we have to embrace the healing energy of forgiveness and release our lesser need for human, self-determined justice.  [This type of] energy can give rise to jealousy, bitterness, anger, hatred, and an inability to forgive others as well as oneself.”

“Genuine, complete healing requires honesty with oneself.  An inability to be honest obstructs healing as seriously as the inability to forgive.  Honesty and forgiveness retrieve our energy—our spirits—from the energy dimension of ‘the past.’”

Lewis B. Smedes, in his book Shame and Grace (1993):

“Forgiveness is a personal drama with five scenes: 1) We blame the shamer [instead of ourselves]; 2) We surrender our right to get even; 3) We revise our caricature of the person who shamed us; 4) We revise our feelings; 5) We accept the person who made us feel unacceptable.”

“When we genuinely forgive, we set a prisoner free and then discover that the prisoner we set free was us.  We walk in grace and gradually learn to dance.”

“If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them;

if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”

(John 20:23)