We have all been deeply hurt by family members, friends, or coworkers at some point in our lives and the impact can be quite traumatic. To protect ourselves, we have created defense mechanisms like blaming others, rewriting the story, or masking our pain. These coping skills can help in the short term, but long term, they only prolong our suffering. When decide that we are right and the other person is wrong, we become a victim in our own narrative.
Forgiveness Definition: Forgiveness means creating a new story about what occurred which is both peaceful and self-empowering.
• Forgiveness is taking back your power.
• Forgiveness is taking responsibility for how you feel.
• Forgiveness is for you and not the offender.
• Forgiveness is a about being a hero and not a victim
If Eva Kor can forgive, so can you!
Holocaust survivor Eva Kor has been honored as a Hero of Forgiveness by the Worldwide Forgiveness Alliance. After a lifetime of seeing herself as a victim, Kor decided to forgive the Nazis and war criminal Josef Mengele who conducted inhuman medical experiments upon Eva and her twin sister and killed all of the other members of her family. Kor bravely realized that continuing to hate the Nazis was ruining her life:
At first I was adamant that I could never forgive Dr. Mengele but then I realized I had the power . . . the power to forgive. It was my right to use it. No one could take it away . . . It became a gift to myself as well, because I realized that I was NOT a hopeless, powerless victim. . . Forgiveness is really nothing more than an act of self-healing and self-empowerment. I call it a miracle medicine. It is free; it works and has no side effects.
STEPS FOR FORGIVENESS
Preparation: gather your resources; friends, family, spiritual community, & therapists
choose a person or situation that needs to be forgiven
Describe your situation, including who is involved, what occurred and how you feel about it. Use as much paper as you need to write everything you feel is important about the situation. Don’t hold back, and don’t censor yourself. Be as truthful and complete as you can in expressing how you see the situation.
Deconstruct Your Story
What aspects of the situation have you taken personally?Have you blamed someone else for how you feel in this situation? Who have you blamed and for what? In what ways have you seen yourself as a victim?
Consider the Impact
The next step is to consider the impact of your story. How does it shape and influence various aspects of your life experience? What is it costing you? It is important to take stock of how the situation impacts you on all levels -- mental, emotional, spiritual and physical.
Listen to Your Emotions
As you go through the Forgiveness Process, if you are experiencing deep emotional issues and/or feeling stuck in an emotional pattern, begin to recognize your emotional patterns or habits. Realize that it is generally your story, i.e., your thoughts, that triggers your emotional reaction. Therefore, as you create a new story, your emotions will shift as well. Often, the greatest healing comes when we can begin to see a challenging situation as a precious gift
FORGIVENESS MEDITATION
Reflect and remember. Recall the person who needs to be forgiven. That includes what happened, how you reacted, how you felt, and how the anger and hurt have affected you since.
As you inhale, feel the pain it is causing you: physically, mentally, & emotionally. as you exhale,, open your mouth and let it go.
Empathize & Learn:
What is going on in their life right now? Why are they acting that way? Are the stressed out, not sleeping, or having a personal crisis? Try to understand the thoughts and emotions that led to their wrongdoing.
Create Understanding and Let go.
Did their behavior have anything to do with me or was I just the messenger. Maybe they were triggered by their emotional patterns and then you were triggered by how they mistreated you. Untangle the hurt.
Understand & Empathize with Yourself:
Why does their behavior affect me so deeply? Have I ever acted this way? Ask yourself why you felt so upset by their actions: what are your emotional triggers? Why am I holding on to this pain.
Forgive Deeply:
See the other person’s face and say, “I understand, and I forgive you”. Visualize letting go of painful emotions. Imagine breathing in Forgiveness and breathing those painful emotions out of your mind and body.
Gratitude for the opportunity to Grow.
What have your learned from this situation that will help minimize your suffering in the future?
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