Forgiveness and Inquiry

By Zoé Newman

Zoé Newman, MFT, is a psychotherapist in North Berkeley, and a Certified Facilitator of The Work of Byron Katie.  Find this longtime OPEN EXCHANGE lister under Counseling & Therapy.

Forgiveness is like a flower.  Our choice to forgive, our willingness to forgive, is like planting the seed.  We'll look below at one way of watering that seed -- and of loosening the hard-packed soil and the weeds (the thoughts) that would choke the seed, to allow space for forgiveness to emerge.  Like a flower, however, forgiveness can't be forced, its blossoming will come in its own time.

 Forgiveness is not saying an act was okay.  Forgiveness is about our relation to the person.  It means we don't reduce that person to their offense, as if that's "who they are," the person who did this to me.   It allows us to see their essential goodness and vulnerability even and despite what they did.   It doesn't mean we don't set boundaries and limits, or even that we go back to how things were.  Forgiveness is about not closing down our heart.

The dictionary defines forgiveness as  "to cease to hold resentment against; to give up claim to requital for."  And it defines resentment as "indignant displeasure at something regarded as a wrong, insult, or injury."  Forgiveness is not holding their action against them any more, no longer requiring them to pay for what they've done, relinquishing the sense that they "owe you." It's a dropping of our case against them.  Our inner D.A. – at least I know mine – can be really good at lining up all the proofs of how they wronged us, building an extremely damaging picture (and downplaying any evidence that doesn't fit its case!).

In the end, it's that story about what happened, more than the event that's now past, that continues to fuel our anger and resentment, like the closing arguments of the D.A. fanning the emotions of our inner jury --  the motive we attribute to them, the meanings and significances and interpretations:  "This means they are bad, they don't love me, they wronged me."   The story we tell ourselves about the "wrong, insult, injury" that they did. 

And then we see them through the bars of the story we've imprisoned them in.  Only we're the ones who are imprisoned in our story of them, chances are they're living their life onward.  Forgiveness is our letting ourselves free.

I invite you to check it out:   How does it feel inside, when you're feeling resentment, anger, hurt, victimized?   When you think the thought, "They did X to me"?  (They lied, they betrayed, they broke their promise, they discounted me, whatever it was for you)?  How does it feel in your body, and in your heart? ...   Now take a deep breath.  Let go of the thought.  Feel your breath.  Think of someone you love, or who loves you.  Think of the sky, or visualize your favorite flower.    How do you feel, now, without that thought?

When we suffer from an injury, whether physical or emotional, what often happens is we tense, tighten and contract around the pain, and much of our suffering then stems from this compounded layer of contraction.  One way of looking at forgiveness is the letting go of the compounded layer of suffering woven of our contraction around the original past injury, the meanings and significances we've attached  -- again, not a denying or condoning the action, -- but a dissolving of our story around it. 

One approach to loosening the soil, to allow the space for forgiveness, is to bring inquiry to these thoughts and stories, the lens through which we are seeing what we think happened – perhaps opening to see from a different, wider, deeper perspective....  The way that I'd like to share with you here is using an Inquiry process known as The Work of Byron Katie, which has brought reconciliation and healing to individuals across the world, including places like San Quentin, Gaza and Rwanda.

The Work is four questions and a turnaround.   Its starting place is with our anger, sadness, or confusion, our judgments, our story.  Write down your judgments about whomever you're angry at.  It could be your partner, or your child, or your boss – or the person who cut you off in traffic this morning, or your critical 2^nd grade teacher. 

To illustrate working with these questions, I'll share what I wrote about an incident from years ago.  I was planning a project with someone I'll call John.  At the last minute he got an invitation for something else and he went off to do that.  It was too late to make other arrangements and I had to scrap the project.  I felt totally left in the lurch, hurt, and angry.  Here's one judgment that I wrote down: "He should have followed through."

The first question is: Is it true?  My answer was, Yes! 

The second question:  Can I absolutely know it's true?  I wanted to say yes again, but could I really know it was true, that in the long run it would have been best for him, or even for me?  I found my answer this time to be (albeit a little reluctantly), No.

The third question: How do I react when I believe this thought?  I was angry, judgmental, self-righteous, contemptuous; I felt victimized; my body was tight, hard and my jaw rigid.  With the thought, he was now someone who'd betrayed me, and no longer a friend.

The fourth question is:  Who would I be without this thought?  Without the thought – and it took a little while before I could get there – I was accepting of the fact that things had turned out as they had.  I could be open to the possibility that it had been really important to John to pursue the other opportunity, and, remembering back, I was able to recognize that it hadn't been an easy or light decision for him.  I could also acknowledge that it wouldn't have been very enjoyable continuing on the project together if he was really wanting to be somewhere else.  I was free from the anger, and felt at peace.

The last step is to Turn the thought around:  turning it to the opposite, or to the other, or to the self; and to find examples of how the new statement could possibly be as true or truer.  The turnarounds I found were:  "John shouldn't have followed through."  It's possible it was truly important for him to do what he did; I can find times when I've needed to not do something that I had previously committed to.  Turning it around to the other, I got, "I should have follow through [my commitments to John, and others]."  I can find times where I've fallen through on my commitments, even in small things like not showing up at the time I said I would.  I also hadn't followed through with my friendship, when I had shut down to John after he backed out.  The last turnaround, to the self, yielded "I should have follow through [my commitments to myself]."  That one really hit home:  how many times have I not followed through on a plan, or broken a commitment to myself to exercise regularly, or to practice more generosity?  Can I  begin to follow through on my commitments to others, and to myself?  And if not, or if I find it challenging at times, how can I not forgive others who also sometimes have difficulty? 

What I've found in doing this inquiry is how my wound holds the potential for gift inside it, like the pearl in the oyster, a gift of self-healing.  You may be familiar with the injunction "First cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye."  Generally it seems to us the other way around – the beam in their eye, only a mote in ours.  But their "beam" can serve as a laser-light magnifying mirror to my "mote" so I can see to bring about in myself the change I saw needed in them.  Using the insight we find in this way, we can become the change we value, become the person we want to be, and grow more deeply into our own wholeness. 

And forgiveness flows naturally, as we soften and relax, dissolving the stories that turned their actions into "a wrong, insult, or injury;" and as we find ourselves fellow journeyers in our human struggles and confusion, our growing and our aspirations, our wanting to be loved and to love.

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