Mending & Connecting with Forgiveness & Apology

Are you still interested in further deepening your understanding of forgiveness and how to do it? In the past weeks we have explored some common misunderstandings around forgiveness and looked at why it is important and in our own best interest to forgive.

Last week, we talked about exercising our forgiveness muscles with 'All Day Forgiveness’ with the small hurts and annoyances. I had a great opportunity to practice forgiveness today. I received a ‘hurry up’ toot (or should I say blast) at the lights this morning. Fortunately, I remembered it was in my own best interest to apologise and forgive and I played the "I am sorry, I forgive you", thought track and smiled.  No built up annoyance, or disturbed peace of mind. Yay. :)

In this blog we will continue to deepen our understanding of forgiveness and also look at apologising to others.  Next blogs we will look more deeply into what may be under our hurt, particularly with those we are closest too and forgiveness of ourselves too.
Beware of bypassing feelings - We can't heal until we feel!
As we have discussed, we all have a tendency to bypass negative emotions.  This is not helpful and certainly not what we are doing when we are forgiving.  We cannot heal until we feel; we need to feel the hurt to be able to forgive. 
Forgiveness is not about ………..

• Pretending it did not happen. It is not about ignoring our feelings of hurt, anger or resentment  
• Forgetting, in the sense of letting go, and not learning anything from it.
• Rerunning the ‘hurt and blame’ soundtrack in our minds 

Forgiveness is about ………………

• Getting in touch with the truth of
  • Our 'hurt or angry feelings  
  • Who, it is that hurt us, and would be helpful to forgive

Let's not tackle the big hurts yet, we will come to them over the next couple of blogs. I find it useful to keep exercising those forgiveness and apology muscles on the small things, in preparation for the bigger ones, including forgiving those I am closest to and myself.  
As I have said many times, something that helps me avoid this bypassing of feelings is to ….

1. A – Allow the feeling.  Feel the ‘ouch’
2. B – Breathe – take 3 breaths
3. C – Connect with wisdom (let go of the harmful, storyline)
4. D – Do – let it go ‘I forgive you’

When the woman tooted at me in the traffic I was annoyed - I felt the irritation, breathed and fortunately remembered to think "I am sorry, I forgive you" and smile.

I have found it so helpful to understand that under my anger and hurt at being tooted at was - you don't respect me! When I feel this lack of respect (or it could be lack of appreciation, love or being listened to, supported or approved of) my habitual reaction can be to disconnect from that person with blame and criticise back  - "stupid impatient woman, I am doing nothing wrong, how dare she!' outrage. This of course is never helpful and creates more separation and hurt. 

What is more helpful, is to understand this, and that all of the separation we feel would be healed if we did not disconnect and instead remain connected and forgive. We can also do the same, unhelpful 'disconnection thing', to ourselves. We can be that hard, critical unforgiving task master instead of a kind encouraging friend to ourselves too.  
Practicing with the ‘All day Forgiveness’ helps remind me not to disconnect, with others or myself, to be kind and to apologise and forgive.      
 
Forgiveness opens the heart, to find connection again. It is a way of releasing the hurt and bringing love, happiness and connection back into life. 

Forgiveness does not mean......

• We necessarily need to be friends with this person,
• Or even have that person know that we have forgiven them, or apologised to them. 
• That we allow ourselves to be hurt again. So when the tricky teenager is criticising, It may be helpful to practice kindness to others, and ourselves with the  ‘please be kind’ reminder, to prevent that disconnection. And to, then forgive.  

Things that may help us with forgiveness

• Realizing it is in our own self-interest to forgive
• Remembering, I don't want to disconnect, but instead I want to realise the truth of connection 
• Remembering we all make mistakes, its how we learn. As Albert Einstein says "A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new"
• And of course, my all time favourite reminder from Malcolm X - "Don't be in such a hurry to condemn a person because he does not do what you do, or think as you think.  There was a time you didn't know what you know now." (Things like - hurting others is never helpful, forgiveness is how we heal, happy people are not interested in hurting others)

Understanding this helps us to have compassion for others and their mistakes and compassion for our mistakes and ourselves too. We are all doing our best with what we know at the time.
 
Thich Nhat Hanh says – “When another person makes you suffer it is because they suffer deeply within himself or herself.  And his or her suffering is spilling over.  He or she does not need punishment; he or she needs help – that is the message he or she is sending by hurting you.  So have compassion for them.  That is the human response to someone who is hurting and therefore needing to hurt others.”
Happy people do not hurt others. Unhappy people hurt others and themselves.  I know, when I am happy I am not interested in hurting others, but when I am unhappy and needy I can lash out, at others.  We are all the same, in this regard – so we need to remember to have compassion for ourselves and for others. We are all doing our best, with what we know at the time.

Apologizing to others
If we can humble ourselves and apologise to others, when we have done something we are not happy about, we are more likely to be able to humble ourselves to be able to forgive.

A lot of our inability to forgive comes from pride or judgment – 'how dare you do that to me'. As could have been me, with the toot. Maybe I did take too long at the green arrow or maybe she had some where to be urgently. I don't know! But, what I do know is me getting upset with blame and criticism is never going to help. Instead apologising and forgiving is much better for my peace of mind. Again we can start by, apologising for the small hurts and practice this with everyday misdeeds. 
If we feel it is appropriate and helpful we can apologise face to face to people.  

• Sometimes forming this connection in person can be beneficial, but sometimes it is not. However when this is not possible or appropriate, is still  very helpful to apologise in our own minds. 
• Sometimes an apology might cause the other person stress, or be seen as a 'goody too shoes' act.  We need to work out what is the best thing to do for the other person, understanding that what is best for them will be what is best for us too. We can then rest in this kind intention, no matter what happens 

A word of warning regarding, ' I'm sorry'. As a teenager, I can remember developing a very unhelpful 'I'm sorry' habit that extended to just about everything, including existing! I am sure it was very annoying for everyone. Being aware of this unhelpful tendency and apologising appropriately has helped a lot. Another thing that may be useful, is something I read recently. The suggestion was to thank the other person instead of (or as well as) apologising to them. So in the situation where I might be late for an appointment, instead of "I'm so sorry, I am late", I could try "Thank you for your patience and for waiting for me." You may find this interesting to think about or try in some situations. 

There are lots of reasons it is in our self- interest to forgive and to apologise too. We need to be aware and bring the strength of logic and compassion to help us remember to do so. Maybe you are fired up to keep going with forgiving the small everyday things and also to be mindful of appropriate apologising. Maybe also you would like to join me with the January, Buy Used and Repair. Remember to do your best to do so with kindness and compassion for all (including you).  .  
Love Maree xx ​