We're told by Jesus in the Gospels that we must always forgive others who've hurt us. The Lord's Prayer mandates our forgiveness of them to ensure that we ourselves will be forgiven by God for the wrongs we've done. And Jesus places no limit on the number of times that forgiveness must be given - he says "seventy times seven" to indicate that our obligation to forgive is limitless.
And yet, while we can all agree that we need to forgive someone who's sorry, who's apologized, and who is clearly repentant for what they've done, what can we do when the other person isn't sorry?
The problem is compounded if the offender is dead, or mentally ill, or otherwise unavailable. We are certain that they can't feel regret or sorrow for the harm they have done to us, and yet the obligation to forgive is still there.
Many clients have told me they have found it quite impossible to forgive a really serious offence, including childhood abuse. The abuser may be long dead, and yet the harm they did lives on. I have had a client who seemed to actively enjoy holding on to her unforgiving nature. Her son had married the "wrong person", according to her, and she experienced this as a personal insult. She hated the new wife, and she could never forgive her son.
In this case, nothing I did helped her to let go of her hatred. Indeed, her anger and animosity seemed to give her some sort of pleasure; there was a grim smile as she talked about the family split, and she was clearly identified with her own hateful I's. She absolutely refused to let go of any part of her hatred, and I had to terminate our sessions. I think she was an example of what Gurdjieff calls a "hasnamuss", someone who derives pleasure from willing ill to others.
Sometimes, in cases of abuse or other serious harm, the offender may have apologized, may have shown complete sincerity in their attitude and be truly contrite, and yet the victim stays stuck and cannot move on, because he cannot forgive.
Forgiveness, however, frees us to go on with our lives. It releases us from the chains of misery, and from the truly horrible "inner accounting" we make in respect of those who've harmed us.
A huge amount of psychological energy is bound up in our resentments, our grudges, our internal accounts. They devour our time and attention and distract us from the vital business of personal work on ourselves. We simply can't afford to hold on them.
But it's often so hard to let go! It seems as though, if we were to take the leap of forgiveness, we would be letting that person off the hook, saying to ourselves that what they did was not so bad, after all. And, if we've experienced hurt or shame or abuse, what the other person did was very much not OK, not to be condoned under any circumstances.
The answer is to look at ourselves, rather than at the other person. What harm are we doing to ourselves, by holding on to past hurts and refusing to forgive and let go of them? If we're honest, the pain we cause ourselves through our own lack of forgiveness may be just as bad as the original harm caused by the other. It may even be worse, in a way, because it can endure for many years, as my hate-filled client experienced.
We need to be clear with ourselves, and with others, that just because we may forgive someone, that doesn't mean the hurt they caused was unimportant or in any way to be condoned. If we are talking about abuse, it most certainly is not; but what forgiveness can do is to let ourselves off the hook, as it were, freeing ourselves from the constant pain and tension that holding to resentments will inevitably cause.
The first step is to see that we are indeed suffering because of what we are doing to ourselves, over and above what the other person did to us. We can look honestly at our inner state, and decide that it's time to call a halt to that resentment. We make a decision to let go of the anger, the internal accounts - and we resolve that we will forgive the other, for our own good.
We can then look at that other, and see them as what they are; a person with their own mental problems, who acted as they did because they are themselves sick in some way, or oblivious of our feelings, or so mechanical that they had no choice in what they did.
An abuser is someone who's been abused. That is a counselling truism, and it is always the case. A victim of abuse does not have to become an abuser, but someone who does abuse others, in whatever way, is a person who in the past has been abused and has internalized the pain to such an extent that they don't even realize its existence.
And for lesser offences, the mechanical nature of the I's in the person who insulted us, or disrespected us, or offended our sensitivities, is easy to see when we look at them without prejudice. Mostly, people hurt us because they cannot help themselves. They are acting mechanically, and unless they are on a spiritual path, or receiving psychological help, they cannot see what they've done, or why they did it.
By not forgiving them, we are hurting only ourselves.
It's extraordinarily liberating to be able to let go of a past wrong. There is a real feeling of relief and an inrush of energy. We are finally free from that other person, and from the hurt they caused. They no longer have the power to harm us, because we have made the decision to detach from that harm.
Someone on a spiritual path will want to go further. We see the plight of the abuser, the offender, how they are locked into a painful situation they cannot change, because they can't see it, and we turn them over to the care of a Higher Power.
This is what Jesus means when talks of forgiveness. Instead of returning evil with evil, we let go, and leave the person in the care of God. We don't wish them harm, we hope they will one day change, but we can do nothing to change them; we are powerless over them.
If one day the offender does become more aware, and sees the harm they've caused us, they may indeed apologize. That would be wonderful, the best possible outcome. But we can't count on it, and so, for own sake, for the purpose of liberating ourselves from the past, we forgive and - one day -forget.
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