I'm a personal coach, a change specialist, helping clients make changes
in their lives. Recently I had an "aha" experience as a result of
working with a client who thought she had to forgive. It set me on a
trail that led me to writing again about forgiveness.
The client, I'll call her Mary, was adamant that she had a forgiveness
problem. She didn't think she could move on in her life, go for the
changes she wanted, unless she could "forgive." And she needed to
forgive a lot of people, she said. She was very angry, and unable to
forgive the ones she thought were making her angry.
This was a great mountain for her to climb over, and though she'd worked on it, it wasn't getting better, it was getting worse.
I said I wasn't sure about the forgiveness part, that maybe we could
make some other changes and then maybe the forgiveness wouldn't be a
problem. I had an inkling, one of those hunches, that if we worked on
other changes the forgiveness issue would disappear. The reason I had
the inkling, I suppose, was a long, and growing, dissatisfaction with
the whole area of forgiveness as promoted by the church and others who
teach that forgiveness is an essential element in being happy and
emotionally together. Additionally, my experiences with other clients
had revealed a disappearance of the need to forgive when certain change
techniques were applied to resentment related memories.
I said I'd like to work with Mary on some of the feelings associated
with past experiences, the ones that were being a burr under her
emotional saddle blanket, and see if that made a difference. She
sounded doubtful, but was willing to give it a try.
I used, from the field of NLP (neuro-linguistic programming),
techniques that basically take the sting out of persistent unpleasant
feelings associated with experiences and memories. They work quite well
in breaking the instantaneous snap response between a memory and a
strong feeling.
After a couple of techniques had been applied to a few of Mary's anger
producing remembered experiences, she said the feeling changed. It
didn't really bother her to remember the experiences. She still didn't
like them, but they didn't harass her with unwanted feelings now.
Our time for the session was more than over, and another client was
waiting on the line for me. I didn't think any more about a possible
forgiveness connection until later, on a walk outdoors. It suddenly
came to me--the connection between what I'd been doing with clients and
their disappearing need to forgive.
I realized that it was the feelings of anger and resentment that had changed, that they were the key problem to be addressed, not some vague requirement for forgiveness.
Where does the notion that we have to forgive people come
from? Why is it such a troublesome issue for so many people? What are
its historical roots? And, does my new insight bring a solution that is
easy, simple, and accessible for everyone?
It's not what we've been taught it is.
Years ago I wrote an article about forgiveness that was published in the magazine Today's Christian Woman.
I said, essentially, that forgiveness is not what we've been taught,
some vague requirement that we force ourselves to do something
internally so that what happened to us doesn’t matter. But, that
forgiveness is a moving toward the other person with a willingness to
restore a destroyed connection. And that it's not a one-way street for
the forgiver, and it's not a making one's self vulnerable to someone
who has proved they are not trustworthy.
Historically, forgiveness has roots in Hebraic thought and in the
Bible's Old Testament. It probably has other roots as well from many
sources. But, in Western thought, I suspect the Bible and
interpretations of the forgiveness passages, and subsequent adaptations
by the organized church have been the largest influences on what we
commonly think forgiveness should be.
In the Old Testament, sins were to be paid for, period. Someone had to
pay. The Old Testament Law was an eye for an eye and tooth for a tooth
type of law. It was literally cause and effect. The Hebrew's religion
was based on payment for sin. But, it also contained a provision for
mercy and for forgiveness of sin, and forgiveness of debt. One did not
always have to pay, there was a way out. God could forgive, and the
individual could forgive, and the judge could forgive. The forgiveness
consisted of not having to pay. It was simply that. If forgiven, one's
debt was erased. The eye did not have to be put out, nor the tooth
knocked out. The money was not taken from the debtor.
If we apply the Old Testament concept of forgiveness, then it is also
simple, it consists of not exacting vengeance on the offender. It is
not being vindictive, not "getting even." This would not be difficult
to do. If we limited our ideas about forgiveness to simply not taking
vengeance on those who have done us wrong, then we could do it. We'd be
free to think what we think about them, and feel what we feel. We'd
just not go ahead and act on those feelings.
But, somewhere along the line, forgiveness came to mean something vague
and inexact. In fact, nobody really knows what the modern idea of
forgiveness is, just that you have to do it to be emotionally healthy
(what a great double bind) and you have to keep trying until you get
there--wherever there is.
Forgiveness has become a hackneyed term.
Preachers insist on the need for their parishioners to forgive everyone
who has ever wronged them. Some will say one needs to forgive and
forget, which is even more difficult. It's supposed to not matter any
more what they did to you. It's like washing the slate clean, or using
a psychic leaf blower on one's memories. Not only internally violent,
but probably impossible too. The result is more likely a denying of
one's own perceptions.
Psychologists and counselors say the "You've got to forgive" mantra
too. All sorts of dire consequences of "not forgiving" are mentioned in
order to do two things, I suppose. 1. Motivate the non-forgiving to try
harder, and 2. Absolve the counselor from any responsibility for
failure with the client, because "They refused to forgive."
Forgiveness is an "in" term. It has the place of prominence
"communication" used to have. For some time it was essential to "keep
the lines of communication open." Nobody knew what that meant, but it
sounded good. And "communication" was the solution of choice for
everything from marriage problems to generational conflicts, to voter
dissatisfaction. Now, it's "forgiveness."
Insistence on forgiveness as a prerequisite to "recovery" is based on a false premise.
The premise behind the requirement for forgiveness on the part of the victim is based on the presupposition that what
the victim thinks about the offender is the problem. It requires that
the victim do violence to the truth as they know it in order to be free
of the anguish the memory of the abuse creates for them. It requires
internal betrayal of the self in order to free themselves of pain.
My question, which I think I've found the answer to, is: What if the
current presupposition is all wrong, and this isn't about forgiveness
at all? What if the real issue/presupposition is that the problem is
how the victim feels about what happened, and about the perpetrator(s)?
If I'm right, then it's a different ballgame. I can help you change how
you feel about something and not do violence to your own internal
honesty with yourself in the process. It's fast, and relatively easy.
Further, if I help the client change the feeling response to a memory
of an experience so that it does not carry the fire power it once had,
I can go on from that and help the client use the now neutralized
experience as a resource for their present and future. It's not some
vague, forgiveness-as-mystical-panacea thing, but concrete resources
and benefits from a once demoralizing and hindering experience. To me,
that's a great improvement over the forgiveness-is-essential model.
How it happens, how to fix it.
The problem is how the "unforgiver" remembers the
experience. They have an instantaneous snap from the memory to an
unpleasant kinesthetic experience. They experience "synesthesia,"
literally hear/feel or see/feel or feel/feel when they remember. They
can't not do it. It just happens whenever they remember it. If I change
how they remember the experience, by a little tricky maneuver, the
intensity of the feeling response will be modified.
Improve Your Past.
Most people think you can’t do anything about your past. But you can.
That’s because your past isn’t as much about what happened as it is
about how you feel about what happened.
I teach my clients a couple of simple, quick techniques they can use to
change the way they feel about irritating and moderately unpleasant
experiences.
Experience is coded in our brains along sensory lines, that is:
auditorily, visually, kinesthetically, gustatorily, and olifactorily.
And because our brains are exquisitely precise in how we store
information, often all we need to do to change the way we feel about an
unpleasant experience is to create slightly different alternative
imagined sensory experiences.
Because it’s easiest to create alternative imagined experiences
visually and auditorily, I generally work with these to change how
someone feels about a past experience.
Typically what happens with an unpleasant past event is that one
experiences a recurring unpleasant feeling, that they would prefer not
to have, when they remember the event. You can use a technique from my
NLP toolbox to change the way you feel about such events to a more
neutral, "that's something that happened," feeling.
Caution: Don’t attempt to use the following techniques on traumatic or
phobic unpleasant memories. The reason I issue this caution is that you
need to work with someone who is an expert using change techniques on
those types of experiences, someone qualified and with a good track
record for respectful, safe, and comfortable work.
Auditory Technique:
1. Mentally play the audio tape that you hear in your head when you remember the incident.
2. Play the tape again, but this time slow it down and hear the words v e r y s l o w l y.
3. Play the tape again, this time speed it up so that you hear the words very fast in a high squeaky voice.
4. Play it again, this time in a Donald Duck voice.
5. Play it again, this time with a circus music background.
6. Play it again, this time in a Mae West or other sultry voice.
7. Play it again, this time in a Goofy voice.
Usually replaying the tape five or six times in succession in
distortion mode will be all you need to change the way you feel when
you remember the incident.
Visual Technique:
1. Remember the visual image you have as a representation of the incident.
2. Notice if the picture is close to you or at a distance, whether it
is in color or black and white, if there is movement or if it's a still
picture, whether there is sound or not, if it has a frame around it,
what it's shape is, whether it's clear or foggy, whether you are
viewing it from inside the picture, or outside, etc.
3. Change the above elements, one at a time, noticing, with each
change, if it affects the way you feel. If your picture is in color,
change it to black and white. If there is movement, make it a still
shot. If it is close to you, zoom it to a distance away from you. If
it's clear make it foggy or smudgy, etc. If any change feels less
comfortable for you, change that element back to what it was originally.
People vary as to which elements make the feeling shift for them, but
typically sending a picture into the distance changes the feeling
component to a less intense feeling, as does dulling color or making
things less clear. But you need to adjust the particular elements that
shift it for you.
4. Another visual distortion you may want to try, in addition, is to
change some part of the picture content. A client of mine had a
persistent troubling visual memory of being wronged by three people. We
used the above techniques, and though they helped, she still had a
residue of unpleasant feeling when she remembered the situation. So,
innovating, I asked her if she could change the most dominant figure by
placing a pig's head on the person. She said she could, and that it
made a big difference. Then I asked her to make the less dominant
troublemakers smaller pigs, and have them all say, "Oink, oink, oink."
She began to laugh, saying that really worked for her.
5. You can also send the picture into the distance until it is a small dot, then have the dot pop and disappear.
Try these techniques on the moderately unpleasant and irritating
memories you experience, and notice how they become rather unimportant
and neutral in the way you feel about them afterward.
Gather resources from the past experience.
Unpleasant experiences from the past usually contain useful information
that can be applied in the present and future. It is much easier to
harvest that information after the intensity of the feelings associated
with them is lessened or changed for the better.
Looking back at the experience from a more comfortable present
perspective, what was needed that you did not have at the time? What
could you have had in the way of experience or support or knowledge
that would have caused a more satisfying outcome? Go back and imagine
that those needed elements were there, and re-experience the improved
event. Then notice how your life would be different if that had been
the way it happened.
Apply those resources in the present.
Then go to the present and notice where you can apply the learnings
from the experience itself and by adding abilities or other elements
you needed then.
Notice any actions you can take now to enhance and apply these new learnings.
Put those resources in your future.
Imagine three different possible situations in your future where your
new learnings and skills from this exercise could be put to good use.
Imagine yourself having those resources/abilities and experience in
your imagination putting them to use in specific situations.
Determine what further action, if any, is needed now or in the future regarding the past experience or people involved.
Do you need to take any specific actions now or in the future to clear
up any unfinished business from the original experience or its results?
Are there people you want to contact? Requests you want to make?
Actions to take?
If any action is needed, take the first action step.
It is also helpful to work with a personal coach trained in NLP
technology, someone to walk the client through the steps, to decide
what technique to use, to follow-up and test to see if it has worked
well enough or if more or different is needed, and to make sure
resources have been harvested and applied well.
My observation has been that clients experience relief and emotional
freedom via these techniques. They are often amazed at the sudden
lifting of long standing emotional burdens. One client told me that she
had not realized how much of her daily life had been affected by the
feelings associated with a betrayal by former friends. She said during
the week following our brief changework she was struck repeatedly by
how good she felt, and how free she felt. She said it just wasn't a
problem anymore, but previously it had colored all her days in a somber
hue.
I'm wondering if what we have labeled "forgiveness" is actually more an
integration of experience that sometimes happens spontaneously over
time, as one integrates experience with one's value systems and beliefs
in a way that is ecological and not damaging to the self. But, when
attempts at integration are forced, or coerced, as in the contemporary
effort to pressure people to "forgive," violence is done to the
internal processes of the individual, and to the self.
Sometimes a person feels discouraged/down/in the suburbs of Depressoland because something or several somethings are missing in their lives. They have needs that aren't being met. They've been on the outside of the candy store wistfully looking in the window, or hurrying past trying not to look at what's missing.
