While the pleasure of exchanging gifts is thrilling but short-lived, the freedom from forgiveness is quiet but everlasting. However, forgiveness is much harder to give than a physical item.

I am no saint and struggle with forgiveness as much as the next person. I still get angry over the silliest of things. Yet over the years I’ve learnt to forgive more quickly and more completely. Here’s what I’ve learnt about forgiveness from people far wiser and more loving than me.

Why Forgive?

“When you hold resentment toward another, you are bound to that person by an emotional link that is stronger than steel. Forgiveness is the only way to dissolve that link and get free.”

- Catherine Ponder

I remember resenting someone so much that seeing that person laugh made me seethe. What right had she got to be happy when I was still suffering from the wrong she did me? I felt like a puppet – any movement she made pulled on my strings and my emotions got jerked around uncontrollably.

In ancient Aramaic, ‘forgiveness’ means to untie or let loose. By forgiving that person, I untied the puppet strings and was no longer prisoner to someone else’s actions. This was the first truth I learnt about forgiveness.

“To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover that the prisoner was you.”

- Lewis B Smedes

How to Forgive?

“True forgiveness is not an action after the fact, it is an attitude with which you enter each moment.”

- David Ridge

Forgiveness as an act is incredibly difficult. It is virtually impossible to forgive when you are filled with anger and resentment. So I’ve stopped believing in the “how” of forgiveness, and have started work on the “who.” Instead of DOING forgiveness, I’m working on BEING a forgiving person. Just as kindness comes more naturally to kind people, forgiveness comes easier to forgiving people.

So what kind of person is naturally forgiving? Probably a highly evolved person. Think about Jesus Christ, Buddha, Nelson Mandela, that cheerful old lady down the street… Forgiveness is a big task. Trying to forgive when we’re less evolved is like a sapling bending under the weight of a treehouse. A mature oak will much more easily bear that weight. So we just have to keep on growing.

“It is only imperfection that complains of what is imperfect. The more perfect we are, the more gentle and quiet we become towards the defects of others.”

- Joseph Addison

When to forgive?

“I worry about fast forgivers. They tend to forgive quickly in order to avoid their pain. Or they forgive fast in order to gain an advantage over the people they forgive. And their instant forgiving only makes things worse… People who have been wronged badly and wounded deeply should give themselves time and space before they forgive… There is a right moment to forgive.”

- Lewis B Smedes

The inability to forgive is often accompanied by guilt, because forgiveness feels like a moral obligation. I need lots of space when I’m hurt or angry, and don’t want to see or talk to the other person. I used to feel bad about this, until I learnt to honour my emotional make-up. And I’ve learnt that if the friendship was true, that person will still be there when I’m ready to re-engage. The bonus is that the other person knows, when the forgiveness finally happens, that it is real.

In my experience, there is usually a crystal clear moment when I know forgiveness is ripe: a sudden image of dying in my sleep that night without telling him I cared, or a tinge of sadness that I would love to attend a function with her except that we weren’t talking… At this point there is a distinct change in the energy I feel between myself and the person, a change from a repelling force to one of attraction.

“You will know that forgiveness has begun when you recall those who hurt you and feel the power to wish them well.”

- Lewis B Smedes

Who to Forgive?

“The remarkable thing is that we really love our neighbour as ourselves: we do unto others as we do unto ourselves. We hate others when we hate ourselves. We are tolerant toward others when we tolerate ourselves. We forgive others when we forgive ourselves.”

- Eric Hoffer

As an angst-filled teenager I planned to write an entire book about all those who had wronged me. As a young adult I narrowed it down to just a list of awful people. I now realise that there’s only one person on that list – me.

You see, I didn’t need to forgive that person who publicly called me a bossy person – I needed to forgive myself for not being the sweet demure person I’d like to be but am not. I didn’t need to forgive that ex-boyfriend who cheated on me – I needed to forgive myself for poor judgment and not seeing the signs. It was never about them; it was always about me. And once I accepted and forgave myself, there was nothing left to do – I had forgiven them in the same act of forgiving myself.

“With a little time, and a little more insight, we begin to see both ourselves and our enemies in humbler profiles. We are not really as innocent as we felt when we were first hurt. And we usually do not have a gigantic monster to forgive; we have a weak, needy, and somewhat stupid human being. When you see your enemy and yourself in the weakness and silliness of the humanity you share, you will make the miracle of forgiving a little easier.”

- Lewis B Smedes

The Forgiveness project

This post on forgiveness came about because of Albert at Urban Monk, whom I deeply admire for his wisdom and insights on being human. He proposed a writing project where a few bloggers write about forgiveness. And the suggestion came at just the right time – when I myself needed the reminder to be more forgiving. Here are the links to the other posts:

Albert Foong at Urbanmonk.net – Our Innate Innocence – Reflections on Forgiveness

Tom Stine at Tomstine.com – There Is Nothing to Forgive

Takuin at Life Beyond The Image – The Wound of Forgiveness

Davidya at In 2 Deep – Deep Forgiveness

A Christmas blessing on all my readers

Thank you for reading this blog. I am grateful for all of you, and pray that forgiveness brings you peace and love brings you joy. Merry Christmas!

While I’m happy to stay put for at least the next few years, the practical effect of this idea is that I now have a simple way to narrow down life’s essentials. I ask the question – will this go into my two suitcases?

Life Essentials

I found it easy to pick out the really important items: for example my journal and fountain pen were always the first items to come to mind. I could live on borrowed clothes and beg for food, but without a journal to pen my thoughts I would probably lose my self and not know what to think or do.

It was also easy to know which items I would not take along: most of my clothes and shoes, all the furniture, and painfully but necessarily most of my books. This has helped me to stop accumulating these things, because they can’t be that important and worth my money if they will be left behind without a second thought.

Then there are the items in the grey area: non-functional items with sentimental value like soft toys, fridge magnets and personal letters. These serve no purpose except to remind me of the people and places I love, and surely I can hold them in my heart without the need for external reminders? Yet it’s hard to let go of these irreplaceable mementoes.

Living Simply

I have no intention of packing my bags for good soon, yet I’ve adopted this little exercise to help me live simply. I’ve started buying less stuff, just because I can’t fit a lot into two suitcases (I actually started thinking about just one suitcase but decided to go easy on myself and allow two suitcases). I’ve also started buying better quality, since whatever I do take with me has to withstand the hard knocks of being on the road all the time.

This is a different variation of the three times as good, one-third as much approach I wrote about before to increase our quality of life. I’m having great fun with my “two suitcases” mentality and thought I’d share it in case someone else finds it a useful practical guide.

Two sidenotes

A nice side effect of this way of living is that I have become more generous. I find it much easier to give away stuff since I know it’s not going to fit into those suitcases anyway, so if someone else likes it I’ll just say “take it”.

If you’re much more serious about living around the world on literally two suitcases, check out the Location Independent website where people who are living the dream write about their experiences.

photo credit: mattbuck4950

Do pop by to read about how you can use the current recession to make you richer!

Further reading

You could also check out some of Jeremy’s great posts on the recession:

A Depression is Merely Anger without Enthusiasm

Why the Government is Bailing Out the Weaker Companies

How to Maintain a Structured Life While You’re Unemployed (guest post)

Comments

I’m closing comments here so that we can answer all the comments for this post on the post page itself at Insight Writer. Do pay a visit, thanks!

photo credit: Kevin Cortopassi

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