There was a prompt this morning in my Oprah’s “The Life You Want” calendar. Yes, I am the person who still keeps a paper calendar, two actually. I’m happy you could meet me. Check that off your bucket list. You’re welcome. Anyway, in the planner there was a question that I thought was intriguing, “How do I know when I’ve truly forgiven someone? How do I feel?” I found myself wondering how do I feel? And how do I know?
I have been thinking about the idea of forgiving and forgetting for a few months now. It started with a Brandi Carlile song in which she says that it’s harder to forgive than to forget. I got stuck on that idea and wondering if it’s true. I consider myself a forgiving person, so how do I know that I’ve forgiven someone, and do we ever really forget?
I come from a family that keeps score. And I mean a detailed accounting of everything you’ve ever done wrong. And not just that you were wrong but how you were wrong and exactly how wrong you were. There are family members who would be happy to recite your lifetime of egregious behavior and all the tragic results…usually none…only tragic to the scorekeeper. It’s Irish Alzheimer’s, you forget everything except the grudges. Do I even need to say that my grandmother was born in Ireland? Probably not.
The question Oprah asked before the knowing if you’ve truly forgiven someone, was “Is it possible to forgive and forget?” I don’t know. I believe we are capable of forgiveness. I also believe we are capable of convincing ourselves that we’ve forgiven something or someone when we haven’t. When it’s easier to believe we’re done with all that. We say we’ve forgiven, but have we?
Forgive means, “an intentional decision to let go of resentment and anger or cancel a debt.” Now to forget means, “fail to remember, neglect to do, bring, or mention something, put something out of one’s mind.” It seems like forgiving is something you have to do. You have to try to forgive and work at it. But you can’t try to forget because then you are remembering in order to forget, and how could that possibly work? It’s confusing. To forget I must willfully ignore something but how can I forget when I am remembering in order to willfully ignore it. Maybe we can’t forget.
Forgiveness is deliberate. You make a decision to forgive, to release whatever feelings you have so they are no longer prominent in your life…or a main focus of your thoughts and feelings. Forget has many synonyms including disregard, ignore, neglect, overlook, slight…just to name a few. Passing over something without giving it due attention or willfully ignoring also describes forgetting. Those don’t seem so helpful. Forgiving takes extra attention and forgetting takes willful ignoring.
I’m not sure forgetting should be our goal. Ignoring, disregarding, neglecting, those are not activities we need to strengthen. It’s similar to repressing or denying our feelings. Trying not to feel because it’s less painful or to forget because it’s easier than dealing with your feelings or the person who hurt you. In general, repressing and denying are not the best practices for us. Those are the things we do that keep us stuck in patterns and habits we wish we would break free from.
I know we can forgive. I don’t think we forget. We can’t erase our minds. Our memories are a part of us. All the events of our lives have shaped who we have become…and are becoming. Maybe forgetting isn’t in our best interest. If we forget, aren’t we at risk of repeating the same mistakes again and again?
I think that the the actual memory of who or what did something bad to us is not the issue. It’s the meaning we attach to that memory, or the repetitive thought of that memory, that’s the problem. We give all of our experiences in our life meaning…we connect them to the story that we tell ourselves…it’s the story of us that we currently believe. That story makes it impossible for us to forgive, let go, and move forward in our lives. We’re stuck spinning the same story over and over again…until, maybe someday, we can do something new. Make a different choice.
About ten years ago I had a very close friendship end, and I didn’t know why. I tried to find out by calling, texting, emailing, and finally a handwritten letter. None of which got a response from my former friend. I was left to make my own meaning out of that experience because I couldn’t get any information from the source. I have not forgotten that time in my life. When I look back on it there’s still a twinge of pain and sadness because of the end of the relationship. Have I forgiven her? Yes. Have I forgiven myself? Yes. I blamed myself for a long time, even though there no specific reason why I was to blame. After ten years I still don’t know what happened. That incident is no longer prominent in the story of my life. I have been able to file it away in a permanent “I don’t know” place and let it be. I have forgiven but I still remember…although much less often.
Now I can’t stop a thought from popping into my head. Thoughts come and go all day every day. I can’t stop a thought from arising, but I can stop myself from running wild with it. I can stop fixating on that thought and running down the rabbit hole of “you did me wrong” again…for the 4,000th time. I control my responses…always. Even when it all seems crazy, I have some shaky ass kind of control. I control the story line and I control me. I can run with the “I suck as a person” theme without any evidence to back that up or I can stop the thought in its tracks. I can relax, acknowledge the memory, feel whatever I feel, and then let it go. A thought never has to become a major motion picture in my head. I can just let it go. I can affirm to myself that I felt sad, hurt, betrayed, disappointed, traumatized…whatever all the feelings were. I can still feel those feelings, but I’m not stuck in their grip. I control me. Emotions do not control me. I control them.
Our feelings change all the time. Sometimes it’s moment by moment. I am safe to feel all my feelings. Feelings are not a problem. Feelings are energy. Clinging to feelings or perceived wrongs is a problem. Keeping score does not help us here. Who wants to win the contest of the “most wrongs done to you?” My grandmother would have wanted to win and now my mom is up for the award. But why? How does that serve us? What does keeping score really do for us? Does it make us more compassionate or kind? Does it make us more flexible and loving? A big NO to both of those. Keeping score makes us rigid, unable to bend or to trust.
My problems arise when I make my feelings solid. When I don’t allow them to flow freely but instead, I hang on to them. I solidify my wounds and make them who I am…the most victimized person around, according to me. We might even have a false sense of righteousness…I’m better than you because you hurt me so. You done me wrong, as we say in the south, and now I will tell you all about it. Every moment of my pain described for you in excruciating detail. I have a firm grip on my pain and I’m not ever letting go. And if I can’t let it go, I’ll make sure you can’t either.
Let’s be real…forgiveness is hard. It’s hard to let go of something or someone who caused us pain. It’s hard not to retaliate. It’s hard to go high when they go low. Forgiveness does not just happen. Forgiveness is a choice. It’s a choice to move forward. A choice to live and move and breathe. It’s a choice for freedom. Our own freedom and perhaps for the person who hurt us as well. It’s a choice to honestly assess what we lost. It’s a choice to let it go. When I choose freedom for myself, I choose it for you too. That’s the gift of forgiveness.
Forgiveness is not earned. It’s a gift. Maybe if I had to earn forgiveness it’d be easier for me to forgive myself and easier to forgive someone else. Maybe then forgiving would make more sense, or be easier, because I earned it…you earned it. I deserve it. Really no one deserves forgiveness, do they? We give a tremendous gift when we forgive someone who has hurt us, or we forgive ourselves. We let ourselves off the hook for something wrong or hurtful that we did. And we let other people off the hook as well. We make a choice to leave the past in the past, where it belongs.
So, let’s be real…I’m choosing forgiveness…vulnerability and forgiveness…because forgiving is a vulnerable place to be. I choose to not to forget. What I remember instructs me. I will decide who I want to be. I make the choices, and I choose not to allow bitterness and resentment to define me…to become me. I am so much more. I am not stuck unless I choose it. I am fluid and changing all the time. To be alive is to be in a constant state of change.
We learn by loving and by forgiving. I’m not going to forget. I learn by remembering. We learn by remembering. Let’s remember that love always wins. So always choose love.
Kai Raines 