After we tell our stories and name our hurts, the next step is to grant forgiveness. Sometimes this choice happens quickly and sometimes it happens slowly, but inevitably it is how we move forward along the Fourfold Path. We choose for¬giveness because it is how we find freedom and keep from remaining trapped in an endless loop of telling our stories and naming our hurts. It is how we move from victim to hero. A victim is in a position of weakness and subject to the whims of others. Heroes are people who determine their own fate and their own future . A victim has nothing to give and no choices to make
•Forgiveness is a choice.
Forgiveness has allowed me to keep my heart open and soft. I chose to forgive because I knew that if I did not, the unforgiving would have kept me closed and hardened inside.
The guarantee in life is that we will suffer. What is not guaranteed is how we will respond, whether we will let this suffering embitter us or ennoble us. This is our choice. How do we allow our suffering to ennoble us? We make meaning out of it and make it matter.
Forgiving is the only thing that can transform the aching wounds and the searing pain of loss
• We grow through forgiving.
So it is that you and I must struggle through our anger, grief, and sadness, and push against the pain and suffering on our way to forgiving. When we don’t forgive, there is a part of us that doesn’t grow as it should
His Holiness the Dalai Lama has a meditation he calls “Giving and Taking.” He visualizes sending his enemies his positive emotions, such as happiness, affection, and love, and he visualizes receiving their negative emotions—what he calls their poisons: hatred, fear, and cruelty. He takes care not to blame or judge their actions
When we unleash the power of unconditional love, we create an environment for positive change. There is still a world of possibility
Forgiveness gives me the capacity to contribute something of value—to create a positive outcome to a ter¬rible tragedy
We are able to forgive because we are able to recognize our shared humanity. We are able to recognize that we are all fragile, vulnerable, flawed human beings capable of thoughtlessness and cruelty
If we look at any perpetrator, we can discover a story that tells us something about what led up to that person causing harm. It doesn’t justify the per¬son’s actions; it does provide some context
• Forgiving is how we move from victim to hero in our story.
I learned that I had an expectation that my forgiveness would magically turn him into a nice guy, a different guy, a better guy. And with this expectation I was making myself a victim to him all over again. The magic didn’t happen to him. The magic happened to me. I felt lighter. The world seemed a more hopeful place. I learned not to take things so personally, and I learned that I was the only one responsible for what kind of father I turned out to be to my children. I wasted decades of my life reliving the victimization I endured as a child
When I forgave my father, it all melted away. I was free. Forgiveness didn’t save him or let him off the hook. It saved me.
• We know we are healing when we are able to tell a new story.
Your story is no longer just about the facts of what happened, or about the pain and hurt you suffered. It is a story that recognizes the story of the one who hurt you, however misguided that person was. It is a story that recognizes our shared humanity
You are not the victim but the victor.