Defining Forgiveness (some further food for thought)

Dear colleagues in forgiveness,

In the study of any subject, it is always helpful to define the terms that relate to the subject of one's study. And when one is studying a process, it is most helpful to have an OPERATIONAL definition of said terms. 

I am therefore moved to share with you, not THE operational definitions of forgiveness and unforgiveness (as if their processes are set in stone), rather the definitions from which I myself perceive and procede in light of the psycho-dynamics of my own experience, as these dynamics are illuminated by my study of the process of being a forgiving person.

Please understand that I am not sharing these definitions in the spirit of telling you "this is it." I am sharing them instead in the spirit of mutally empowering us all to discern our respective come-froms. For instance, the more clearly I and others can see my own perceptual come-from, the more clearly all concerned can perceive how their respective experiences relate - or do not relate - to my own, and therefore discern why their perceptions may differ from my own. And the more these differences can be discerned and shared, the "smarter" all of us become than any of us.

So here is how I go about operationally (and in this case, psycho-dynamically) defining the process of forgiveness, preceeded by two quotations that are central to the psycho-dynamics of forgiveness.

(What follows has also been addred as a thread to the "General Discussion Category", where you can register any responses you are moved to make.)

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How I know I have forgiven someone is that he or she has harmless passage in my mind.
-Karyl Huntley

If you hate a person, you hate something in him that is a part of yourself.
What isn't a part of ourselves doesn't disturb us. -Herman Hesse

I decided several years ago to devote the remainder of my life to learning and teaching about forgiveness because my own experience had shown me that forgiveness is a powerful carrier wave of personal and social transformation. 

What my experience tells me has been illumined immensely by my successive readings of Dr. Luskin's book (and my ongoing study of other forgiveness-related material) as I continue to offer this course (now for the fourth time). What continues to be most illuminating, nonetheless, is my ongrowing re-search of my own inner psycho-dynamics.

To put what I have learned about the psycho-dynamics of forgiveness in a nutshell (a.k.a. an "elevator briefing"): Forgiveness is the release of all blame and hostility that I tend to attach to otherwise legitimate grief, thereby forming a grievance. Accordingly, unforgiveness is the harboring of a grievance that consists of legitimate grief fixated by blame.

When I unpack this nutshell and digest its kernel of insight, its nourishment of my understanding is as follows:

RELEASING GRIEVANCES

As psycho-dynamically defined and personally experienced, "unforgiveness" is the blameful prolonging of my grievances, and "forgiveness" is the release of blamefulness. A "grievance" consists of grief polluted by blameful resentment. Accordingly, "release of grievance" is the operational definition of forgiveness, while unforgiveness is operationally defined as "attaching blameful resentment to grief."

Unforgiveness is the psyche-state of sorrow gone sour with blame. Forgiveness is the liberation of sorrowing from blame. Only to the extent that I am willing to release any blameful resentment that is associated with my grief am I able either to be forgiving or to complete my grieving.

Grieving is an essential and legitimate response to the death of loved ones and other tragic losses, to betrayal and hurtful treatment by other persons, to incapacitating accidents and disease, and to all other distressful wounds and disappointments. However, "grievances" (grief plus blameful resentment) are always optional and serve only to indefinitely prolong my grief beyond its season.

Since there is nothing in the nature of grieving itself that necessitates blameful resentment, once I release my unforgiveness I can continue to grieve blamelessly so long as I feel inclined to do so. My inclination to grieve has its own season, and each grief's season is proportionate to its depth. Accordingly, I grieve my major losses for longer than I do my minor ones. 

In any event, grieving untrammeled by blame is essential to forgiveness because it is central to the very psycho-dynamics of forgiveness itself. As my grieving is allowed to run its natural course, the inclination to forgive emerges just as naturally.

Because my grievances consist of legitimate grief contaminated by optional blame, releasing my grievances is the process of freeing my grief from the blamefulness that serves only to perm my psyche with the grieving process. Once my grief is no longer held in place by blamefulness, the process of my grieving (and my movement toward forgiveness) is free to run its natural course.

In other words, forgiveness is inherent in the grieving process when the latter is freed from blame.

In ceasing to blame I do not excuse and condone irresponsible actions by those whom I thus forgive. I can continue to hold others accountable for their wrong-doings without recourse to blame. Accordingly, both "responsibility" and "accountability" are defined with no reference to blame, regardless of which dictionary I may consult.

No matter who or what is unforgiven by me, my unforgiveness exists only in me, where it serves to fixate my grief. As the sole repository of my unforgiving feelings, therefore, I need not seek for whom my unforgiveness tolls - it takes its toll on me.

It is with this understanding of the relationship between grief and forgiveness that so many people are able to forgive things too horrible for them ever to forget. As a colleague in forgiveness, Emmie Tse, has written about such persons:

"Many people from around the world have courageously and graciously forgiven others. They have found a place in their hearts to forgive. They have forgiven people in situations which most of us would consider unforgivable. They have forgiven the murderers of their own children and parents. They have forgiven a race of people or individuals that have oppressed them and abused them. They have forgiven fathers and mothers who have neglected and abandoned them. They have forgiven co-workers and friends who have betrayed them. They have forgiven spouses who were unfaithful to them. They have forgiven all manner of persons who have betrayed and/or tormented them, and have forgiven themselves for betraying and tormenting others.

"These people have come to terms with the past, and have given up the pretense that they can change it.

"These people are our heroes. They have the strength, the courage, the generosity and the grace to forgive. And through their journey of forgiveness, they have transformed the home within their hearts, a home that is warm, secure, loving, gentle and peaceful."

PUTTING FORGIVENESS FIRST

I presently nurture forgiving personhood by silently affirming many times each day that "I am a forgiving person." I began this practice following my realization that each occasion of forgiveness requires me to change the way that I perceive what I am unforgiving of - i.e., to cease perceiving with blame - and that making the required shift from unforgiving to forgiving (i.e. blameless) perceptivity is difficult. In the meantime, my grievances tend to pile up more rapidly than I am releasing them, so that I accumulate an ever-growing backlog in my grievance caseload.

This realization occasioned a logically related query: Rather than be an unforgiving person who piece-meals case-by-case exceptions to being blameful while my resentment-laden grievances increasingly pile up, how can I instead be a generically forgiving person whose grievance-releasing caseload is always reasonably current? 

This question occasioned my further realization that I could transform my grievance-beholden perceptivity by ongoingly affirming, "I am a forgiving person," and by reinforcing this affirmation with yet another question that I raise whenever I become aware that I am nurturing grief with blame: "What would a forgiving person do in this situation?"

Putting forgiveness first is not so-called "batch processing," because each grievance continues to present itself as an individual claim on my intention to release it. Forgiving personhood requires me to be singularly responsive in timely, specific release - when and as it occurs - of each grievance that arises in my thoughts and feelings.

Today, even though I continue to release my grievances on a case-by-case basis, each of my grievings now tends to be short-lived. This is because - and why - I maintain my own personal commitment to making the release of all my blameful grievances my permanent top priority.
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Loving Life!

Noel