Often we hear the words, “I can never forgive them for what they did to me.” or “I still remember how horrible they made me feel. I can never forgive them.” So the question is can we forgive or learn how to forgive? Can meditation and mindfulness help us to learn the skill of forgiving? And why is it difficult to forgive?
We are wired by nature to get angry and fight someone who hurts you or your ego. This has been from pre-agricultural times when we moved together in the jungles with our tribesmen. An attack on our ego, our personality or even our physical self was dealt with immediately and failure to deal with it made you look weak in front of the tribe and that meant not getting due respect, and finding it hard to even find a mate! This was an attack on one’s own survival instinct. That is why when someone hurts us or says something to make us feel bad or humiliates or insults us we hold that grudge because we feel that need to retaliate and set things right and get back what we have lost – our dignity or ego or whatever.
But once you have a clear understanding about what forgiveness is and how you can help yourself by forgiving, you can move on with life and focus on more important things.
Forgiveness is not about excusing the person who caused you harm or trivialising what they did. It doesn’t absolve them from the act.
It is not about you not hurting anymore from that action. You may still feel hurt when you think about it.
It is not about an apology. An apology only allows the person who did you wrong to free themselves of the guilt of hurting you.
It is not about resuming the relationship. You don’t have to get back into the same relationship with that person like before.
It is not about forgetting the offence. You cannot and need not forget that event or the act that caused you distress.
Forgiveness is about you. It is about letting go. It is making the space in your mind which can be used for doing other important things. It is about accepting and acknowledging how you feel about it and let it go so that you can move on. Not forgiving is like saying – I want to hold on to this hurt and let it occupy a large space in my mind and thoughts and let it affect my working and my life.
Meditation and mindfulness helps you in getting clarity about these things, it allows you to see your own flaws and dark spots and in that way makes you recognise the other individual as having flaws and being imperfect just as you are and thus making it easy to let go and move on.
Click on the audio link below for a short guided meditation.
Bell The Mind 