R E A L I T Y : F O R G I V E N E S S I S A B O U T E M PAT H E T I C A L LY UNDERSTANDING THOSE WHO HAVE WRONGED YOU .
“ Yep ! She ’ s a bad person ... but I ’ ll forgive her .” How often have you heard this kind of comment slipped into conversations , or dialogues within your mind ? The truth is that sometimes forgiveness can be used as a form of self-righteous justification . “ I ’ m a good person , so I forgive bad people .”
In reality , people aren ’ t so black and white as we want to make them out to be . All wrongdoing is a product of pain . Remember that . Cheating spouses feel pain . Abusive fathers feel pain . Perverted rapists feel pain . Pain is what stimulates all the unkindness in the world , and everything bad that has happened to you is a result of other people trying to ease their pain in very misguided ways .
Once we look beyond the outer shell of a person ’ s behaviour and into the depths of why they do what they do , we can see their pain . We can learn to empathise with them , or at least , understand why they are the way they are . Only then can we truly forgive .
MYTH 4 - FORGIVENESS IS ABOUT UNDERSTANDING WHAT HAPPENED FIRST .
REALITY : FORGIVENESS IS ABOUT UNDERSTANDING THAT PAIN DRIVES PEOPLE TO BEHAVE ILLOGICALLY .
You might not always be able to understand why someone did what they did . But you don ’ t need to . You can spend your life thinking and thinking and reliving what happened , trying to piece together a fragmented puzzle , but the truth is simple . Pain drives people to behave illogically . Pain drives people to take dangerous risks , pain drives people to self-sabotage their lives , pain drives people to kill themselves . You don ’ t need to understand to forgive . Just understand that the nature of pain is unpredictable .
MYTH 5 - FORGIVENESS MEANS CURING PEOPLE OF THEIR PAIN .
REALITY : FORGIVENESS MEANS FORGIVING WHAT A PERSON HAS DONE TO YOU . IT IS NOT YOUR PLACE TO GIVE ANOTHER PERSON THEIR PEACE – ONLY THEY CAN FIND IT .
You might have been asked throughout your life , “ Do you forgive me ?” perhaps by a friend , colleague , child , lover or family member . In response you might have said , “ Yes , I forgive you ” assuming that this would make everything better ... until the situation repeated itself again , and again .