By: Dr. Lynnette Simm
Forgiving someone you used to love, who is gone now, is not as hard as one would think, and that’s because forgiveness is all about you releasing the pain, judgment and expectation of justice or revenge.
Cliché but truth: Forgiveness is more for the victim than the abuser!
The process to resolve the hurt and pain caused by someone is 100% up to you. We have no control of what other people do, but we have ALL the control on how we react. Yes, I understand that the pain caused by a traumatic experience is involuntary; the wave of pain and emotions can just hit us without warning. But once you have recovered from the initial shock and recognize you will survive, that is when YOUR healing is within YOUR control.
Before I started my personal journey of forgiveness and healing, I needed to be shown that not forgiving was actually hurting me. I had to recognize that I was becoming angry, passive aggressive, bitter and my negativity was spilling over to loved ones. Once I started focusing on the repercussions of un-forgiveness, it was then that I was able to start taking steps toward a full recovery through forgiveness. My feelings about the traumatic event were still valid, and I would continue to remember the event. I then started working on reasons why I did not want to be angry any longer. I looked into how this anger and bitterness affected my relationships with those I loved and with the offender. I had to take stock into how my relationship with the transgressor would or would not continue.
Did I want or need a relationship with them?
Whether you decide to maintain a relationship with the culprit or not will influence your path to forgiveness. For example, my relationship with my father was something that I wanted to keep, and he was a person I wanted in my life. Therefore, I had to work with him and talk to him in order to continue a relationship with him. I had to be honest, and I had to be clear with my boundaries.
Should you choose to not continue a relationship with that person, then you need to be able to set clear boundaries. Even after a divorce, parents have to stay in relationship when there are children involved. In this situation, you don’t have to have a personal relationship, but there has to be some kind of relationship in order to help and support your children. Parents need to support their children with relationships, and your ex-spouse is going to be one of those relationships. So clear boundaries are very important when it comes to forgiveness. Boundaries allow each person to understand what is going to be acceptable and what is not.
Once you recognize that forgiveness is recovery for you, and within your control, the steps to forgiveness are possible. A good, first step is simply saying you forgive the person. You can do this quietly to yourself, or you can do this in your mind. But every day you take one tiny step and say you forgive them. Initially when you say this, it will feel false and may even be sickening to you. The statement doesn’t mean forgiveness has been achieved. However, our minds are exceptionally powerful, and as we continue to say that we forgive that person we let in the positive possibility of forgiveness. Each time you make the statement of forgiveness, your heart beings to heal, even if it’s just a little bit.
Another step toward forgiving someone is to see things from their side. Examining the perpetrator’s perspective is not about rationalizing or justifying the injury but rather to reflect on the person and better understand the circumstances that made it possible to be a person who could hurt another person. For example, when it comes to my father I had to look into his life, see where he was hurt and how that had affected him in such a way that allowed him to come to a place where he hurt others.
Yes, another cliché, but it’s very, very true: Hurt people hurt.
And once we recognize that person was hurt enough, bad enough that they themselves then become the perpetrator of hurt, then you understand where that comes from. It also opens your eyes to the fact that you as a victim have a high risk of becoming a perpetrator yourself for the exact same reason.
Without professional-, pastoral- and self-counseling tools to address your pain and anger, your injuries will negatively influence your emotions and behavior resulting in you hurting others. It may not be the same hurt, however; pain is pain. There is no degree of severity when it comes to the victim. Their heart is just as devastated as the next person because it is personal; it happened to them. So as we are victims of hurt, we then can see our perpetrators as victims of hurt and come to the realization that hurt people hurt. This is a significant revelation that helps stop the cycle of hurt.
My understanding of my father and those who have hurt me throughout my life are then met with this concept of compassion. I understand where you have been because I have been there, and I am empathetic of how your injuries devastated you. Therefore, now I have compassion toward that person who hurt me. Once compassion starts then slowly and gradually, mercy and grace can help restore you. It’s not to say that there should not be justice, for even in Scripture it talks about how there should be judgment, justice and repayment, and in our country, throughout the world, there are such values as well.
Do you seek retribution or do you seek justice? If those are not met with what you believe they deserve then that can be considered another wound to you again. But this is not the perpetrator’s fault that the system, whatever that system may be, could have failed you. And from there you would have to start yet another process of forgiving so that you can heal from the system letting you down.
All of this can sound very complicated, but it really begins with one simple step taken by you. Know that you are in control of what you want to do with your life. You have the power to take control. Ask yourself:
Do I take that small step toward forgiveness or not?
Do I seek out resources to help me heal or not?
Do I work toward a compassionate and merciful heart of Grace or not?
Do I want to continue to be a hard person like the perpetrator and possibly hurt others?
Do I want to be a healed, happy and peaceful person who can move forward with clear boundaries and expectations in my life?
Reader, regardless if that person is with you, married or divorced, or if that you have a close relationship or you haven’t spoken in years, YOU are in control of YOUR emotions and YOUR life. You are in control of how you want to react and who you want to become.
I can only tell you that when I chose to take the step toward forgiveness that my life changed and that the lives of those around me changed for the better. Peace, joy, forgiveness, hope and love flourished.
Dr. Lynnette Simm, who earned degrees in psychology and education, has been an educator for nearly twenty years. She has worked in corporate training, taught from preschool to graduate school, written curriculum for all age groups, worked on college accreditation, and served as the general education coordinator at a private college. She has taught in public schools, community college, and private universities. Dr. Simm also worked on behalf of teachers as she created and facilitated professional development seminars. She has been a professional contributor and freelance editor for several books and is the author of And The Day Came, an inspirational memoir published in 2016.