A relationship is created and maintained by the very act of harm that stands between you and the other party.
Once you have been able to forgive, the final step is to either renew or release the relationship you have with the one who has harmed you. Indeed, even if you never speak to the person again, even if you never see them again, even if they are dead, they live on in ways that affect your life profoundly. To finish the forgive¬ness journey and create the wholeness and peace you crave, you must choose whether to renew or release the relation¬ship. After this final step in the Fourfold Path, you wipe the slate clean of all that caused a breach in the past. No more debts are owed. No more resentments fester. Only when you renew or release the relationship can you have a future unfet¬tered by the past
As with all four steps on the Fourfold Path, sometimes you move quickly in one phase and slowly in another. Sometimes you straddle two places at once or you just need more time before moving through the process.
We don’t complete this last step—or any step in the Fourfold Path—from our heads, but rather from our hearts. And it can take time to know what’s truly in our hearts.
•The preference is always to renew unless there is a question of safety.
There are times when renewing is not possible. Renewing the relationship might harm you further, or you do not know who harmed you, or the person has died and is not someone you carry in your heart. These are all times when the only option is releasing the relationship, and this too is essential for the completion of your healing journey.
When we choose to release a relationship, that person walks off with a piece of our hearts and a piece of our history. The choice is not one to be made lightly or in the heat of the moment
Renewing our relationships is how we harvest the fruits that forgiveness has planted. Renewal is not an act of resto¬ration
We make a new relationship. It is possible to build a new relationship regardless of the realities of the old relationship
Renewing relationships is how we turn our curses into blessings and continue to grow through our forgiving. It is how we make restitution for what was taken and set right what was made wrong.
• Ask for what you need from the perpetrator in order to renew or release the relationship. You may need an apology, an explanation, a tangible object, or to never see that person again.
In order to renew or release the relationship, we must make meaning of our experiences. This is how we continue to move away from our identity as victims. When we are hurt, we most often need the truth of why we were hurt—why a person we trusted lied to us, or a spouse was unfaithful, or a stranger saw fit to accost us. Often it is this truth-telling that gives us the momentum we need to complete the final step in the Fourfold Path.
We may also claim restitution or recompense for what was taken or lost. If your neighbor steals from you, you would want to have the item returned before you renew your rela¬tionship as neighbors.
Ask yourself what you need to renew or release a relationship, and then, if you can, ask it of the person who harmed you. Your decision to renew or release may very well hinge on whether you get what you need. You may need that pe¬son to listen to your story and hear the hurt you have experienced. You may need to know the perpetrator is remorseful before you renew the relationship, and be assured that it won’t happen again. If the person is not sorry for what they have done, you may decide it is best to release the relationship.
If it is not possible to speak directly to the person who harmed you and ask of them what you need, ask it of others. Ask for empathy. Ask for belief. Ask for understanding or the space to tell your story, and name your hurt until you are done. When you ask for what you need to heal, you are no longer a victim without any say in your fate. And ultimately, whether you get what you need totally or even partially, this does not determine whether you can renew the relationship.
• Look at your part in any conflict.
A very important but difficult piece of renewing relation¬ships is accepting responsibility for our part in any conflict. If we have a relationship in need of repair, we must rememberthat the wrong is not usually all on one side, and we are more easily able to restore relations when we look at our contribution to a conflict
• When you renew a relationship, it is stronger for what you have been through, but it is always different.
Renewing a relationship is not restoring a relationship. We do not go back to where we were before the hurt happened and pretend it never happened. We create a new relationship out of our suffering, one that is often stronger for what we have experienced together. Our renewed relationships are often deeper because we have faced the truth, recognized our shared humanity, and now tell a new story of a relationship transformed.
• By renewing or releasing a relationship you free yourself from victimhood and trauma. When we practice this last step of the Fourfold Path, we keep anger, resentment, hatred, and despair from ever having the last word