The Speed of Forgiveness

The idea for this blog entry came to me because, on television,  I saw a woman who hugged her daughter’s killer in a court room and asked the judge for leniency in his sentencing.  I was so moved by her choices.  I'm pretty good at forgiving, but sometimes I don't forgive in a timely fashion. Too often I wait and make sure that I am good and ready to forgive. I wait until I’ve already gone through feelings of anger and frustration and then the idea of forgiveness comes to light. I doubt that this delay in getting to forgiveness is really what our mentors had in mind when they taught us about forgiveness.

On the other hand, I can be really quick to accept an apology, but I still want to hang onto the negative feeling for a while. My kind wife, Julie, has always taught our family and her others who ask that when you ask for forgiveness, it is also your responsibility to change the feeling of the situation back to a positive feeling. I agree with her, and I believe there has to be a complete shift of mind, body and spirit. You can express verbally the apology, then you need to express physically a change in your feelings, and finally you have to avoid judging the person or revisiting the negative experience.

How many times do we hear the “I’m sorry” and accept it, but there is no shift in the energy? Consider this. A smile or a hug is always a great outward physical sign that your apology is accepted completely. I understand that some people do not want to admit fault, let alone ask for forgiveness. Completely going though the steps of forgiveness must result in a shift in your emotional and physical state.  If not, negativity boomerangs back into your relationship.  Remember, the goal is a change in you and making yourself more balanced again.

I have sincerely apologized and changed the tone of the interaction positively more times than I could possibly count, and let me admit to you that if you hurt someone or are hurt yourself by someone else’s actions, the sooner you can change the situation the easier it is to shift the feelings completely. So how fast can you go through the steps of forgiveness and yield a positive feeling? No matter how good you are at it now, I bet you can get better. Let’s race to forgiveness together! This is a competition worth winning.