"...it is that wounded, branded, un-forgetting part of us that eventually makes forgiveness an act of compassion rather than one of simple forgetting. To forgive is to assume a larger identity than the person who was first hurt, to mature and bring to fruition an identity that can put its arm, not only around the afflicted one within but also around the memories seared within us by the original blow and through a kind of psychological virtuosity, extend our understanding to one who first delivered it. Forgiveness is a skill, a way of preserving clarity, sanity and generosity in an individual life, a beautiful way of shaping the mind to a future we want for ourselves; an admittance that if forgiveness comes through understanding, and if understanding is just a matter of time and application then we might as well begin forgiving right at the beginning of any drama rather than put ourselves through the full cycle of festering, incapacitation, reluctant healing and eventual blessing.
To forgive is to put oneself in a larger gravitational field of experience than the one that first seemed to hurt us. We reimagine ourselves in the light of our maturity and we reimagine the past in the light of our new identity, we allow ourselves to be gifted by a story larger than the story that first hurt us and left us bereft." ~David Whyte, from Brainpickings
Forgiveness remains a thorn in my side, though one that I'm scarcely aware of until someone asks me outright if I've forgiven my husband. My answer usually is something like "it's complicated."
But though I've never said to my husband the words "I forgive you" (I suspect I'd choke on them), reading David Whyte's description of forgiveness, I think perhaps I have.
Whyte's description of forgiveness is beautiful, isn't it? I love the notion of a more mature me, a "larger" me, putting an arm around the injured me and my painful memories and, in essence, saying "it's okay. You will get past this." And then this larger me also figuratively saying to my husband, the betrayer, "I will get past this. You hurt me but my capacity for healing is greater than the injury."
And that's the truth. My capacity for healing, which I couldn't imagine when betrayal first body-slammed me, is bigger than the injury. I can see that now, looking back from this distant shore. Yours is too.
"Forgiveness is a skill," Whyte reminds us. Forgiveness, he's saying, doesn't just happen. It requires our participation, our attention. It requires that we want more for ourselves than to sit in our bitterness, that we are willing to "shape our mind to a future we want for ourselves."
Shape our mind to a future.
Easier said than done, isn't it?
The future can feel terrifying when we're in the muck of betrayal. It hurts to think about because we no longer trust it.
Thing is, we're putting our trust in the wrong place. It isn't the future we're trusting, it's ourselves. It isn't the betrayer we're trusting, it's ourselves. And it's trust in our ability to shape our future into one that includes forgiveness for ourselves. We "reimagine ourselves," as Whyte says. It's such a beautiful promise, it holds such possibility. To reimagine ourselves not as the weeping, aching, pitiful mess in a heap on the bathroom floor that we are right now but as someone who knows the larger story. The larger story includes our resurrection. It includes transcending the pain. Not denying it or forgetting it but incorporating it into a bigger story that includes healing from that pain. To be gifted by a story larger than the story that hurt us.
I say it all the time, don't I? Our stories can heal us. Or they can hurt us.
Forgiveness, even accidental forgiveness like I seem to have stumbled on, gives us the larger story. I can see now that I have extended that comforting arm around myself, the weeping agonizing injured me who can't possibly imagine that she will arrive at the place I am now. I have extended that comforting arm around my husband who couldn't imagine that he could forgive himself, nor that I might forgive him.
I have incorporated that first story into larger one that includes – wow! – forgiveness.
