How to Forgive – What you need to know about forgiveness

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How to forgive is a question that many of us struggle with. It can be very hard to truly forgive when you are hurt.

I remember years ago during the troubles in Northern Ireland listening to, Gordon Wilson, the father of a bomb victim explaining to an interviewer that he forgave the people who had killed his beautiful daughter.

Marie Wilson was a young nurse who had been attending a Remembrance Day service at a war memorial in Enniskillen when a bomb was detonated that killed 12 people.

You could see her father’s grief and feel his pain but as he spoke I felt an enormous sense of admiration for the man. The memory of the interview has stayed with me.

It took me a long time to realise Gordon Wilson understood that hatred and anger destroy. They are emotions which eat away at us – they are unfinished business which we carry around like a huge weight making it impossible to start over again. Gordon knew how to forgive.

The weak can never forgive.  Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.  ~Mahatma Gandhi

When those emotions take over – happiness and goodness leave and bitterness is all that remains. For Gordon Wilson the memory of his daughter was too precious to spoil.

Thankfully in life not many of us have to face the situation that he did and in comparison the source of our hurt and anger may seem out of proportion. However when someone hurts, offends or upsets us it is painful and can be very difficult to get over.

Do we expect too much of forgiveness?

Forgiveness did not bring Gordon Wilson’s daughter back. Forgiveness alone will not put the trust back into a relationship where a partner has been unfaithful.

Forgiveness is not about making the other party feel better.

Forgiveness is not about wanting the other person to feel our pain.

Forgiveness is not about justice.

Forgiveness is about healing us and allowing us to feel better and to move on.

We are angry and hurt – usually with the person who we blame for the causing the pain. The pain is very real and in truth we want the pain to go away and we want the person who is responsible for causing it to fix it. We want to feel better.

We may even want the person to acknowledge what they have done and apologise. But what do we do when they are totally unaware that there is a problem?

What do we do when they apologise but in spite of the apology we don’t feel any better?

What do we need to forgive?

When someone has hurt us or let us down we feel pain. Sometimes it is the pain of disappointment – perhaps someone did not live up to our expectation of them.

Sometimes it is the pain of confusion and frustration. Someone has behaved really badly – maybe they lied or took credit from something that we had worked hard to achieve.

Perhaps someone has made us look stupid – our ego has taken a big hit – maybe we feel the pain of embarrassment.

Someone could have walked all over our values and we may feel angry and insulted.

Do you need to forgive or to accept?

A client (let’s call her Julie) is hurt and angry with her mother. She is carrying a grudge. Julie had worked hard at school and university. She had gone on to get a good job – all things her mother had encouraged her to do as she was growing up. Her brother on the other hand had left school, got and job and after a number of years settled down and had children. Julie’s mother is very proud of her son and her grandchildren.

“I have done everything she wanted. Doesn’t she realise just how hard I have worked. Now it is all about my brother and his kids. She is complaining that I am too interested in my career and keeps asking when I will give her grandchildren.”

Julie is looking for approval. Many of us want that from our parents no matter how old we are. The truth is most parents do the best they can with the emotional resources they have. My own father loved me. He was the best father he could be but often that was not good enough for me.

Julie wrote a letter to her mother – a letter which she knew she would never send. She expressed all the anger, disappointment and hurt she felt. Then she ceremonially burnt the letter.

She is now able to say “my mother is my mother – what is there to forgive”

Do you need to forgive or to understand?

People don’t normally go out of their way to be nasty, deceitful or manipulative. However if they don’t have the personal skills or confidence to achieve what they want they will use the only tools they have.

My team and I worked very hard on a project only to have a senior colleague take full credit for it. He was frightened that he was going to lose his job and felt if he could do something impressive it would save his position.

Once I understood this my emotion changed. I was no longer angry. He did not become my favourite person but I learned the steps to take to ensure that the same thing never happened again. I was able to adopt a neutral view him. For me he became a sad character who I wasted no emotional energy on.

Are you trying to forgive the wrong person?

If your ego has taken a bashing because of the actions of someone else it can be almost impossible to forgive that person. If someone has made you feel stupid the truth is – it is time to look to you. It is time to take responsibility for your own actions and forgive yourself for whatever embarrassing thing you did.

Do you need to forgive or explain?

I had a client who was very angry with another family member because of his racist views. He made some comments at a family party and my client was horrified. He had stepped all over her values. Our values are exactly that – ours. We don’t have the right to convert others to them but we do have the right to ask that others respect them.

This client explained how she felt to the family member. She asked him to respect her and not to express those views when she was around as she found them hurtful and distasteful.

If someone doesn’t know the effect they have on you – it’s up to you to tell them – not to blame them.

Forgiveness does not change the past, but it does enlarge the future.  ~Paul Boese

What does forgiveness mean to you?

How do you deal with hurt?

Tagged as: forgive, forgiven, forgiveness, gordon wilson, how to forgive, human interest, marie wilson, northern ireland, positive psychology