Take a minute for yourself right now. Think about what it means to forgive?
Many people I see in marriage counseling define forgiveness as forgetting what has happened between them and their partner; trying to put that experience behind them. The Oxford English Dictionary defines forgiveness as ‘to grant free pardon and to give up all claim on account of an offense or debt’. I want to offer a thought about the next level of forgiveness, a way to heal even more.
When we first meet a new person, they have a blank slate — no strikes against them though we have some caution. As we begin to trust them, that natural hesitation begins to lessen for most people. We learn to share our secrets, our experiences and our worries. We have yet to see them present a reason for our walls to remain so high and so we let those people venture inside of our walls.
After being hurt, we tend to put that wall back up to protect ourselves. With the traditional definition of forgiveness, we only go as far as to meet our partner half-way. We approach our imaginary wall and meet the other person there without letting them back on the inside. We remain cautious of them and keep ourselves at a distance. But is that truly forgiveness, in its fullest sense? To complete our forgiving process, we must eventually allow the other person to try again — to come back inside of the walls we had previously built. After all, the notion that worrying protects us or lessens the harm when something goes wrong can be flawed. I invite you to consider this definition of forgiveness and to identify people in your life that you would be willing to try this with. In couples therapy, this is often a big step we have to take to reunite and to heal from the pain.
By Alex Michaud. Counseling Denver for a Better Life.