Forgiveness is a Choice

For the longest time – I have known that I need to learn to forgive for without doing so, I will not be able to move on to better things ahead.  I have known this – but I guess I didn’t really understand the concept of forgiveness. First and foremost, I now believe, it’s not so much needing to learn to forgive. We all know that – intrinsically.  We all have forgiven others before. So, it’s not a matter of needing to learn or re-learn.  It’s a matter of CHOICE.  We choose to forgive or not to forgive.  

How often have you forgiven a loved one, a friend, a family member – someone, anyone .. you choose to forgive.  And yet with some others, we hold on to the memory of the “injustice,” the act (whatever it may be) that we think they did TO us. An act of betrayal, a lack of understanding, a taking for granted. Whatever it may be – something that hurt us in one way or the other.  But even that – the feeling hurt by an action of another – is a matter of choice.  So today, I’ve come to realize not only do I need to forgive but that I have to make a CHOICE to forgive. I choose to forgive. For if I do not let go of the past, nothing new can come in.

I have mentioned Wayne Dyer several times in my previous entries.  Obviously, I see him as one of the great teachers in my life.  And I found his experience with his forgiving his father as something very significant to me.  You see, while my dad was never an alcoholic nor did he abandon our family (not in the same way at least) as did Wayne’s father – we never did have a good relationship.  Like Wayne, I remember growing up through the years always trying to find a way to please my father, to win his love. Until his final day on earth, I never succeeded.  And in those years of growing up – the numerous things I did to sacrifice my relationship with both my elder brothers (by being a tell-tale or spy) for my dad still never won me any of his affection.

But anyway, among the similarities with the situation Wayne went through, I remember for many years (even after his death) I continued to have nightmares associated with him.  But in those dreams, I was a grown up and no longer afraid of him, challenging him on God knows what and often ending up with me beating him or striking out at him. Like Wayne too, I would wake finding myself drenched in sweat. This went on for years.

Then in 2008, I believe, when I was deciding if I should wrap up my private practice, I took a trip to do my annual personal retreat. During that time, I read the book The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle.  And when I returned home, for some reason I was led to make a trip to visit my dad’s grave (about an hour’s drive from my place).  At his grave, not only was I able to tell him I forgave him and that I wished him well – but at the same time I also asked him for his forgiveness for my holding on to him all these years with anger and hatred.  In my mind it was like I had been holding him bound to this physical world because I would not let him go (off to wherever souls need to go after this lifetime). 

And just like that – after that event, I have never had another nightmare with him in it again.  He still appears in some of my dreams from time to time. But they were no longer fights or anything like that.  Now to think of it though, the later dreams of him was always with a knowing that he has passed away and for some reason back in the house (whatever the home is) living with us as if he had returned from the dead – but that I still knew he was dead.  I know! Doesn’t make much sense.

So anyway, I know I have to choose to forgive not so much for the other person but for myself to be freed.  I mentioned in my last entry about this woman who was a board member of the NGO I was attached to.  I have searched my heart and have never found that I “hate” her or wish her well.  But then I now realize I have never or would wish her well either.  In a sense, I guess, what I managed to do was to block her out of my “feelings” thinking I have no feelings for her.  My reasoning then was that if I don’t hate her, then I must have forgiven her.  But today, I believe otherwise.  It is not just “no feeling” or “no ill feeling.”  That could likely be just a denial of my emotions or my pain.  Isolating and keeping her in a box so that I need not feel anything does not mean I have forgiven her for the things she did.  Forgiving is more than that. It certainly means not only letting her go so that the space in my heart will be freed, but accepting her for all that she is or is not and still wishing her well.

I am sure there are others in my heart I need to do the same with.  She just happens to be the one most on top and the first to surface when I think of someone I may be angry with and need to forgive.  So, today I make a choice.  I choose to let her go – forgive her for all that she did.  She must have had her reasons for her actions. I may never understand them, and even if did know the reasons for her behaviour, I may not agree. So, I will choose to simply trust that she did what she believed to be correct, and I wish her well. That she too will find the peace I am sure we all, in our own ways, are seeking to rediscover.  

Beyond forgiving her or my dad or anyone else I deemed to have wronged me – there are two other things I want to do in this entry.

One – to ask forgiveness from all those whom I have wronged knowingly or unknowingly.  For all the hurt I may have passed on to another. For all the mistakes made – and this includes both my dad and this woman. I send this out to the Universe believing that we are all of the same Source.

Two – to also forgive myself for having all the “mistakes”  I have made; the “bad decisions”; the ego-driven behaviors and so on. For all those I can remember and those buried so deeply then are no longer on the surface of my awareness. 

Peace

Syl