Vitamin F - Forgiveness

Vitamin F - Forgiveness

The lack of forgiveness and the need for forgiveness is one of the biggest challenges I think many of us face. There is a huge misunderstanding when it comes to forgiveness.

Here's the question: What is forgiveness?

Think about it for a minute. I think a lot of people have a confused definition of this. I think when most of us think about forgiveness, we think what it means is telling someone else something or accepting someone's apology or having a conversation with someone that tells them that what they did or didn't do was okay.

That is not what forgiveness is.

That has never been what forgiveness is.

Forgive, it's a verb. Here's the definition. 

• Stop feeling angry or resentful toward someone for an offense, flaw, or a mistake. 
• Cancel a debt.
  
  What that second one is if someone owes you something, you cancel it.
  I think it's very interesting that those two definitions are so similar. 

When you look at the definition, it is to stop feeling angry or resentful toward someone. 

It's not telling the person anything. 

It's not sitting down with the other person. 

It's not talking to the other person. 

It has nothing to do with that. 

The only thing forgiveness requires is that you stop feeling angry or resentful toward someone.

Question number one: When do you need to forgive someone?
People wonder, "Should I forgive this person? Do I need to forgive this person?"

My answer to that question is “You only need to forgive someone when you need to stop feeling angry or resentful. You only want to forgive someone when you want to stop feeling angry or resentful.”

Most people do not forgive other people because they want to feel angry and resentful.

I want you to think about what anger and resentment feels like. When you don't forgive someone, that's what you get to feel.

Here's where the confusion comes in. A lot of people think that when they feel angry or resentful toward someone that that other person somehow experiences it. It's not true. That other person does not experience your emotions. That other person only experiences their interpretation of your behavior. Another person cannot experience your emotions. They do not experience your anger or your resentment. They only experience their interpretation of your behavior. ....

The only thing required of you to forgive someone is to change how you feel, to stop feeling angry and resentful. That's all that's required for forgiveness.

Most of us don't forgive other people because we think that somehow our emotion, being angry and resentful is somehow punishing them.

That is never the case. The only thing anger and resentment does is punish ourselves. We are the only ones that feel it. The other person does not experience our emotions. They only experience their interpretation of our actions.

If you feel like somehow you not forgiving someone is somehow serving you and hurting them, you have it absolutely backward. You are not serving yourself and you most certainly are hurting yourself because the emotions of anger and resentment are painful.

There are better emotions to be feeling. But if you're going to ask me the question, "Should I or do I want to forgive someone?" the answer is “Only if you want to change the way you feel” because the definition of forgiveness is changing the way you feel.

What's the definition of forgiveness? Changing the way you feel. That's it.

If you say, "Yes, I would like to change the way I feel. I don't want to feel anger and resentment." My next question would be:

Why do you feel anger?

Why do you feel resentment?

Now, there is only one answer to this question and it is not the one you're thinking. You're going to want to tell me what that person did to you. You're going to want to tell me what happened. You're going to want to tell me why they did it. You're going to want to tell me that whole story. I'm not going to let you and you're going to get mad. ....

Why do you feel anger?

Why do you feel resentment?

It is not because of what they did.

The reason you feel anything is because of how you think. Your thoughts create your feelings.

...We have our circumstance, which is whatever that person did and that can't touch our emotional life without us having a thought about it.

Notice that in between the circumstances and our feelings are our thoughts.

You know what's great about your thoughts? .....They protect your feelings from your circumstances. ...

The circumstances of my life cannot touch my feelings because they're protected by my thoughts. My thoughts determine how I feel.

Here's what most of us do. Most of us make it worse. Most of us take our circumstances and think horrible thoughts that create horrible feelings instead of taking circumstances and thinking thoughts that are protective.

Why do you feel mad?

Why do you feel resentment?

Why do you feel hurt?

Because of your thoughts about what they did. That is the only reason.

Question one was: When do you want or need to forgive someone? The answer was whenever you want to change how you feel, when you want to stop feeling anger and resentment.

The next question is: Why do you feel anger and resentment? The answer is because of the way you think.

How do you forgive? You forgive, how do you stop feeling resentful and anger? You change your thoughts because your thoughts are the cause of it.

You do not have to have a conversation with that person. That person does not need to apologize to you. That person doesn't have to change. That person doesn't have to explain themselves. That person doesn't have to do anything for you to feel better, for you to forgive.

When you forgive someone, you don't make them feel good, you make you feel good. When you don't forgive someone, you're not making them feel bad, you're making you feel bad. ...How do you forgive? You change the way you're thinking and therefore change the way you're feeling.

Here's how we do it. The first thing is you have to figure out why you feel angry and resentful. The answer is because of the way you're thinking. What is the thought you're having that is causing you to feel angry and resentful? Then you change that thought so you feel something different. That is forgiveness, my friends.

Can you forgive yourself? Can you stop feeling angry and resentful towards yourself? ...

Remember all it means is you're not willing to feel angry or resentful. It doesn't mean you don't apologize and it doesn't mean you don't keep apologizing. It doesn't mean you don't tell them that you'll never do it again. You just drop the resentment. You drop the regret. You drop the guilt because it does not serve any purpose.

..... Remember all it means is you're not willing to feel angry or resentful. It doesn't mean you don't say to someone, "That's not okay. Don't do that." It doesn't mean that you don't put up boundaries. It doesn't mean that you don't ask someone not to be in your life. All it means is you give up being angry and resentful. That's the gift you give yourself. It is not your job to punish people.

When I work with clients in person I love to illustrate the effects of unforgiveness in this way:
Imagine a backpack and several large stones about 2 lbs each.  Imagine that each stone represents something or someone you have decided not to forgive. Load each one into the backpack.  Now, put it on your shoulders.  How does that feel? 

Now, go ahead and have a great day carrying all that unforgiveness on your shoulders. 

Do you think you can be at your highest potential? 

What if some of the extra weight you carry around is unforgiveness for you?

Are you ready to set it down?  Are you ready to feel other emotions besides anger and resentment?

This is one of the topics I cover in Shifting Inside Out.  

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Thank you for honoring your commitment to yourself and to your future,
Peggy

P.S. Please let me know if you have any questions.  You are too valuable to stay in confusion.  Your future is waiting for you and I can help you build it in 2020! 

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