F is For Forgiveness

As part of the Blogging A to Z Challenge this month, I’m going to post about things I love or that are important to me.

Pear tree, Texas
Photo Credit: Doree Weller

Forgiveness is important to me. When I was younger, I had a hard time forgiving myself for anything. I blew up the tiniest mistake in my head and made it into a really big deal. I thought I had to be perfect, and I’m not sure why. When I couldn’t be (and since perfection is impossible, that was often), I felt bad about myself. I always just figured everyone felt this way.

I held other people to unrealistic standards too. I remember that one person said something that set me off, and I figured that meant they didn’t care about me. If people didn’t say the right thing at the right time, then I thought they didn’t care. It took me years to realize that not caring and not being able to read my mind are two different things.

I don’t really believe in forgive and forget, not about what I do or about what others do to me. I think that forgetting is unrealistic and dangerous. Willfully forgetting says that I should give up part of me, and I think that all experiences, both good and bad, are important parts of me.

People say that you should “forget,” but what they really mean is that once you forgive, you should let go of what hurt you. I can let go, and still remember. Remembering doesn’t mean that I’m sitting around listening to The Cure, endlessly rehashing what happened. It just means that I’ve learned something from the experience. Or that I’m trying to learn.

I really believe that forgiveness is a gift we give ourselves. To forgive means to let go of the hurt and pain. It means we’re flawed and imperfect, and that’s okay. It means realizing that other people are just as flawed and imperfect as we are. I’ve done and said things in my life that I wish I could take back, and I’ve been forgiven for them. Doing bad things doesn’t make me a bad person, and most of the time when I’ve done bad things, it was because I was hurting in some way myself. Holding onto grudges wouldn’t do me any good, and it wouldn’t do anyone else any good either.

It’s taken a long time for me to learn to forgive myself or others. Some days I have to re-learn it all over again. But it’s always worth the effort.

Feel Good Friday

TGI Friday, right?  Start your morning off right and take a look at these articles.

A Texas police officer responded to a call about an “aggressive” pit bull, and instead of jumping to conclusions, he saw that the dog was friendly, and got it to a shelter, where it was then reunited with its owner.  The story isn’t over.  That same police officer was called again about the same dog.  This time though, the owner didn’t want him back, so the officer decided that he was meant to adopt the dog, and he did.

 Green graffiti.  This is a how to tutorial (and has some cool pictures) about how to graffiti up your home or fence using moss.

Inspirational stories of forgiveness.  These are 10 very brief stories (1 paragraph each) about people who chose to forgive in the worst of situations.

Pittsburgh police detective adopts boys after getting them out of an abusive foster home.  This is a nice video, about 2 minutes long telling the story of how he met and adopted the boys.

A teenager invents a device to help injured vets.  The device assists physical therapists with exercising the vets and speeding their recovery.

Go forth and be kind today.

Trust Issues

Pecan Street Festival, Austin TX
Photo Credit: Doree Weller

It seems like everyone these days has trust issues, if Facebook is any indication.  I see all kinds of posts going around about how people have had their trust broken, about how loved ones are stabbing them in the back, and I think, “Does everyone have trust issues?”

I guess everyone has someone in their lives who have hurt them.  You can’t get through life without it.  The issue is how it affects you.  Do you let those who’ve hurt you color your relationships with everyone, or do you learn the lesson and move on from it?

I’ve had people break my trust, and at the time, it hurt.  I thought I would never recover from it.  Eventually, time and distance lessen pain, and I did move on from what happened.  It didn’t resolve overnight, and when I was able to take a step back from the pain, I found lessons in what happened.  I could have chosen to learn that people aren’t trustworthy, but I didn’t learn that.  What I learned is that people are human, and sometimes hurt you.  Sometimes it’s intentional, and when it is, it’s usually about something going on with them.  Sometimes it’s unintentional.  They’re hurt.  Or depressed.  Or in pain.  Or scared.  And they lash out.  There are some genuinely rotten people out there, but that’s not most of the people I meet.  Most of the people I meet just have their own stuff going on.  But I digress.

So in my case, the person was all of the above: hurt, depressed, in pain, and scared.  This person lashed out at me and hurt me.  A lot.  In order to protect myself, I had to distance myself from this person, which really hurt me because it was someone I was very close to.  All of the above is not an excuse to hurt others, and I wasn’t going to stand in the way and be hurt over and over again.  I completely cut myself off from this person for about 6 months.  I ignored text messages, phone calls, Facebook messages, and emails.  I took that time to heal myself, and in that time, I decided that I wanted to continue a relationship with this person.  I went back to the relationship, knowing 100% who they were and choosing to accept it.  Acceptance doesn’t make it okay when others hurt you, but acceptance does mean that you’ll be okay, no matter what happens.

To my surprise, when I refused to get angry, our relationship actually improved.  The person got a little healthier and I was a lot healthier.  I didn’t keep opening those old wounds.

My situation isn’t everyone’s situation.  But I do think that forgiveness works in every situation.  I forgave, and it healed me inside.  Sometimes forgiveness has to be done at a distance.  Sometimes when you forgive, you can’t resume the relationship.  It’s important not to continue a relationship with someone who hurts you over and over.  You can’t forgive an ongoing wound; it would be nearly impossible and completely exhausting.

Forgiveness is a gift you give yourself.  It’s really just a choice to let go of pain and bitterness.  Many people say that trust issues are their way of protecting themselves from getting hurt again, but I disagree.  Most people with “trust issues” don’t feel good about those issues.  Their lack of trust in others doesn’t make them feel safer or more secure.  Having trust issues means that the person must constantly be on the defensive, must worry about and analyze the intentions of others.  That doesn’t sound like a solution to me; it sounds like a whole new set of problems.

Even though I’ve been hurt in the past (the above is just one example), I don’t assume people are going to hurt me.  I assume that they’ll do the best they can with what they’ve got.  Sometimes, the best they can do in that moment is awful.  Sometimes they’re mean or unpredictable or just not present.  But that’s not about me; that’s about them.  And I could choose to judge them for it, or I can try to understand that whatever is going on in their heads is why they are that way.  And I can understand that nothing I could do or say to them would be worse than them having to live inside their own heads, and I can be grateful that I don’t have to spend time there.

I never give  anything I can’t afford to: money, time, love, energy.  So when I give it away, if I don’t get paid back, I let it go.  Because I didn’t give away something too expensive.  That allows me, when someone breaks my trust, to let it go and know that at that moment, the person I gave to felt that they needed whatever it was more than I did.  I can wish them well and walk away.