"The cost to me of not doing so. I'm unwilling to pay the cost of
carrying a resentment (or whatever) around, so I draw on the
intelligence of
forgiving."
This essay,
Let The Healing Begin,
is the sequel to
Straight Talk.
I've made an inventory of people in
my life
before. The last
time
I made one, it was at
Werner's
suggestion. It was an inventory of people with whom I had a
withhold and / or a perpetration - and
possibly (in some cases) more than one of each.
Definition
perpetration
noun
from the verb
perpetrate
to
commit
a crime or a violent or harmful
act
<unquote>
The inventory was both extensive and exhaustive - not to mention
worldwide.
I tracked down everyone in it: by snail mail (it was before the days of
e-mail)
and by telephone (local, long-distance, and international). In the
process I found out some people were no longer
alive.
That didn't stop me. You can
communicate
with anyone -
deadoralive
(communicating
with someone who is
dead
is a subject for another
conversation
on another occasion). I
asked
each person for permission to have a
conversation
with them. I 'fessed up to what I'd held back from them. I took
responsibility for my harmful
acts
against them. I
asked
them to
ask me anything
and / or to tell me anything they wanted to
ask
me and / or to tell me, to get closure with ie to be
complete
with and
forgive
what I'd done. I
answered
every one of their
questionstruthfully.
I
got
everything they told me
unflinchingly.
Whatever they told me was their
truth.
I did absolutely
nothing
to explain or defend my version.
It could be said you'll only know how much baggage you're carrying (ie
it could be said you'll only know the full extent of the
weight of the baggage you're carrying) from the
past,
when you
complete
a process like this. You'll know how much baggage you were carrying
because of the lightness you'll experience when it
disappears.
That's a 1,000% certainty. When you 'fess up to your withholds and
perpetrations to the people with whom you have withholds and
perpetrations, baggage from the
pastcompletes
and
disappears.
There's a new lightness. You won't need convincing this process
works.
You'll know. It's like an
elephant
has crawled off your back.
Recently I made another inventory of a different group of people in my
life, this time of my own volition. It was much shorter than the first.
It was an inventory of people I hadn't
forgiven.
The process of
communicating
with the people with whom I had withholds and / or perpetrations was
much
easier
in retrospect. In it, I had to 'fess up to something I'd not 'fessed up
to before and / or take responsibility for something I'd not taken
responsibility for before. With this new inventory, I had to
give up something I'd not given up before. In many cases,
what I had to give up was being a
victim.
I had to reach around behind myself (so to
speak)
and pluck the arrows out of my back (if you will) or out of my
heart,
as the case may be.
Although giving up something is often harder than 'fessing up to
something, I knew going in to
forgive
the people I hadn't
forgiven,
that they had
upset
me in a
way
I'd been
upset
before. What does
that mean
Laurence?
It's liberating. It means you're never really
upset
with the person (or people) you're
upset
with: rather, you're
upset
with whomever the person (or people) you're
upset
with reminds you of. That's
vintage Erhard,
by the
way.
And it's a
powerfulplatform
on which to
stand
when you're
forgiving
people. It allows you to own something that maybe wasn't
fully
own-able before. To
forgive,
you must first be willing to own.
If there's a definition of
forgiving
which I think is worth something, it's
Werner's
"To
forgive
is to give up the right to resent and / or to give up the right to
punish". This implies when I
forgive,
it's a
gift.
And it's really only secondarily my
gift
to whomever I
forgive.
Primarily (and unavoidably) it's my
gift
to myself.
How
so? Here's something I
love
that
Nelson Mandela
was fond of saying about resenting (and resenting is really the
withholding of
forgiving,
yes?). He said "Resenting is like taking poison, hoping the
otherguy
will
die.".
When I
forgive
someone ie when I give up resenting someone, I stop poisoning myself /
I heal -
clearly
the intelligent choice.
I
began
contacting the people in my second inventory. Between you and me, I was
really, really relieved I'd finally
begun
the process (I always knew not
forgiving
never did me any good - but that said,
the truth
is I remained stuck and didn't
forgive).
I told them I was no longer willing to not be
fullypresent
to them ie no longer willing to not be
fullypresent
as my
love
for them. I said I didn't want an explanation or an apology from them,
indeed neither of those was expected on my agenda.
What became
clear
to me as the process unfolded, is my
gift
of
forgiving
/ healing may or may not be accepted. If it wasn't
accepted (and on one or two occasions, it wasn't), I let that go - and
was
happy
to let it go.
Listen:
it's quite obvious that resenting people for not accepting your
gift
of
forgiving
/ healing would be (shall we say)
stoopid.
An
authenticgift
is offered without regard to whether or not
it will be accepted.
Forgiving
(at first, and at least) is a
gift.
And when I
forgive
(at first, and at least), I'm a beneficiary of the
gift
too, regardless of whether or not it's accepted by whom I
forgive.
That's the
magic
of
forgiving.
The
gift
of healing. Both ways.
