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Yesterday at the Quaker Meeting when the messages centered on forgiveness I found myself standing to say this.
The experience I have had with forgiveness has been so satisfying. I have been able to look past the pain and actually come to appreciate the people who hurt me. I was able to see them for what they could bring to my life rather than what they took from it despite the failure between us. The people I am talking about are my parents. They really made some profound mistakes. I have a sister who ran away and a brother who joined a cult.
Despite this I know that the life my parents provided for us was significantly better than the lives they had themselves. My mother was an orphan. She didn’t have a lot of anything in life yet she provided for her family much more than she ever had.
I have talked about psychotherapy in here before so you know that I have found in it, success, especially using the Socratic method of asking questions to find insight. I understand that what happened between us is over, and from that I was able to create a new way of being with my parents. A new life. It was a greatly reduced one, but it was possible to relate to them in a new way that included understanding what they were able to contribute and that I could enjoy them. It was much less than I wanted, but it was a happy success to be able to forgive my mother and father and to make new experiences that included appreciating them despite the failures between us.
I feel lucky to have had this experience since ironically my mother taught me to hold grudges and to categorize those people that hurt us as bad. It is not like that. We all are the same, all capable of making serious mistakes in life, and all capable of doing great good. It was not quick or easy to come to this forgiveness, but in the long run it was profound in changing the quality of my life.
My Own Personal Sky 
Jane, so many people are frightened at even the prospect of ‘forgiveness’, in my experience, as somehow that would weaken them or make them more vulnerable to hurt. I am wondering if you have any thoughts on that point that you could share.
Turns out that forgiveness for me was not a moment of epiphany as you might expect. Instead it was a gradual experience that I barely recognized as such at the time. Really. It just happened as I reconsidered the circumstances. I have done so much psychotherapy I could not tell you at what point I realized I’d forgiven my parents, but it is the right name I give to the relationship we ended up with. The primary thing that happened was that I took a deep look at the experiences that hurt me and considered what part I had to play in any of them. Realizing that I can control my own interpretation was useful, as was deciding to reduce my expectations. So when it was apparent that expecting my folks to care much about my life had proven to be frustrating and a repetitive pattern of hurt, I reconsidered whether it was a good idea to keep doing that. I looked at the things that they were good at doing and that I could take advantage of setting aside my own wishes. It made a world of difference in the end in that I redefined what I expected from them and how I sought it. It all adds up to forgiveness. Not holding a grudge for what happened, but instead finding a new way to move forward happily. I am so grateful for the experience because it opened up the chance to really be with my parents at the end of their lives in a new much more mature way, not still relating to them as if I was a kid. It was empowering. Thanks so much for stopping in to comment on my blog. Your suggestion to expound on this topic is a very good one.
Thank you for the expansion, Jane! One of many things I am deriving from what you wrote is that you examined – even if it took time, even if the awareness caught up with you along the way – to what extent your stance was ‘working’ for you. You clearly decided that withholding forgiveness was NOT working. But there are golden nuggets wrapped up in there. That you did that examination/analysis is in itself potentially empowering for anyone reading your story – listen up, people! – in that it implies a choice. Whereas I believe that masses of us humans would argue until they’re blue in the face, that they cannot and should not forgive. Forgive please my over-use of this metaphor, but by keeping forgiveness on the personal growth radar, so to speak, it was almost inevitable you’d develop genuine forgiving ‘muscles’, and that you’d be able to use those with other humans besides your parents. Epiphanies can sure be sweet but they tend to be few and far between anyway. Thanks again!
Thanks, Lorenzo
Jane