On Forgiveness

Depending on where and when and how (and by whom) you were raised, the word

“forgiveness” might have a lot of different connotations for you.

For much of my life, “forgiveness” meant letting someone else tell me that they were wrong, with me signing off on it.

It wasn’t something I had to work for, or struggle with. It was self-congratulating, really -- by forgiving them, I reinforced my own inherent goodness, somehow.

It’s an incredibly flawed way at which to look at the world, but that was the headspace I was in. I viewed forgiving someone as a noble act, almost: you wrote off or dismissed some slight, so that the person who’d wronged you might better be able to get on with his or her own (in my head) miserable existence. Forgiveness never had anything to do with me, really, other than what it might do for me (or my ego). It certainly didn’t contain any sort of healing element or have any transformative magic inherent within it.

What I have learned since is that forgiveness, to truly take hold and transform us, takes real work. Forgiveness functions best when it’s not too user‑friendly. You should have to question an act of forgiveness, almost, maybe even feel a little pang while doing it, for it to really mean something.

This is the practice of forgiveness -- and part of that practice is doing it when it doesn’t feel good (or at least easy) for you.

There’s a great reward for all this hard work, however: When you get into the practice of forgiveness, and do it consistently and authentically, it becomes monumentally easier to forgive yourself.

When we forgive someone, and really mean it, we keep our heart open, as Ram Dass

reminds us:

“...Every time you close off something with judgment, it’s as if you take a bit of energy and you lock it away and make it unavailable to you...You’re holding a grudge — and so every time you think of that person your heart closes down. It’s as if you’ve got a little room with a guard at it that doesn’t allow you to flow freely...It’s an emotional “no” against the world — against the Universe — against the way the Universe is...and it costs more than it’s worth. Even though you are right, righteousness ultimately starves you to death.”

When we keep our heart open for others, we’re a heck of a lot more likely to keep it open for ourselves, too. But what does that practice of self-forgiveness look like? It can take many forms, but the main form that has worked for me is that of Letting Go.

It means letting go of regrets (we can’t change the past, and focusing on the past is keeping us from being present).

It means letting go of the idea that we must be (or even that we need to strive to be) perfect.

It means letting go of comparing ourselves to/gaining self-worth from comparing ourselves to others.

It means letting go of past “failures” (which were probably not failures to begin with, but

rather learning opportunities and or experiences that didn’t match our expectations) and giving ourselves permission to “fail” again moving forward (which will happen, if we’re really living, on a near-daily basis!).

It also means letting go of putting others before ourselves. When we put ourselves first --

meaning our self-health, not our ego -- we soon find that we are in a much better place to help

others with their struggles.

By default, anything we do to improve our lives will improve all the activities and interactions in our lives. Too often we focus on the little individual things (our careers, relationships, etc.) that comprise our day-to-day lives instead of the one thing all these things have in common: us. When we start forgiving ourselves, we begin to experience a lightness and a joy that imbues itself in everything

we do.

TIMOTHY CHARLES DAVIS is an English Professor from Nashville, TN. He has taught all manner of English

and Literature/Reading classes, as well as several Journalism/Media classes, and teaches creative writing (and general

creativity classes) via Flowering Lotus Meditation Center. His magazine, newspaper and Web credits include pieces

for Southern Living, the anthology Cornbread Nation: The Best of Southern Food Writing, Salon.com, Mother Jones, First We Feast, Saveur, Christian Science Monitor, Gastronomica and Oxford American. He is a Dharmacharya (ordained lay minister of Buddhism) through Heartwood Refuge and Academy in Hendersonville, NC, a multi-lineage lay ordination program lead by the Venerable Dr. Panavatti Karuna, and a member of the Zen Peacemakers Order, where he serves as a mentor/facilitator. © 2024 Timothy Charles Davis