24/11/2020
Accepting Unforgiveness
I’ve always tired to be nice, polite and tolerant of people, I’m a typical people pleaser, so its easy for me to ‘forgive’, to keep the peace and get along with most people. I really just wanted to be included and I assumed this was how it’s done.
In the past this trait caused me to befriend the wrong people. Rather than being choosy about who I let close, I invited in anyone willing to show me attention, affection and acceptance. Even after they had treated me with appalling betrayals, I was willing to give another chance, believing I was growing and learning about forgiveness.
It’s not just friends that teach us about forgiveness, its colleagues, family and lovers too. Recently I have been learning the difference between friendliness and true forgiveness. The world would like us to believe that we must remain in relationship with those we have forgiven in order to prove we have let go of the grudge. But people are often nice to the face of those they hate, so how is being ‘Nice’ to them any evidence of our forgiving heart? I’m pretty good at nice, but I’m learning its not the same thing as true forgiveness.
I heard Jordan Peterson say something like “Don’t pretend you are a better person than you are. If you have even 5% unforgiveness left in you and you pretend its not there, it will come out in other ways and may destroy everything.”
This got me thinking, because what happens when we allow someone back into our lives, claim to forgive and try to forget their past betrayals, only to realise they continue in the same vein? What happens when more betrayals build on top of the 5% of unforgiveness we may have hiding in our hearts from the last source of pain? Jesus said to forgive 70 times 7, but I don’t believe he was encouraging us to keep putting ourselves back in the path of someone who hasn’t learned the lesson from their last betrayal, or even their last hundred betrayals. I think he was talking about how often we all fail, feel remorse and need forgiveness and must give the same grace to others that we accept for ourselves. That is more about self-awareness, and growth, because we ALL mess up over and over, and our remorse must reach its utmost before we really make the changes and cease the behaviour.
In just the past year or so, a few of those I had ‘forgiven’ and let back in, became untrustworthy yet again. And those old beliefs that I must rise above, tolerate and ‘forgive’ came rising from within me. But when I took a good look in my heart I realised I was still hurt, still angry at past events even though I had continued in relationship with them, and so their recent betrayals just lit the fuse of an explosion of unforgiveness! It wasn’t pretty.
On top of that, people who I trusted for many years also turned on me, and it would have been easy to pretend all was forgiven and go back to people pleasing them, but instead I withdrew just a little, I stayed polite, but I chose not to be as invested as I had always been. I didn’t want to be included. I wanted an damned apology! I wanted to protect my fragile heart and I wanted proof that they were trustworthy again before letting down my guard.
Then came a huge epiphany!
It is often necessary to accept our unforgiveness and take the time to heal, in order to truly forgive.
Now this will be tricky, and can’t be rushed, especially with those who haven’t even apologised, and/or continued to betray me. I knew I needed a significant amount of time to truly forgive. I needed to heal that last 5% and that means I need time without more betrayals adding to the pile.
Some may believe that I am unchristian and unloving by removing myself from the contact of those who need my forgiveness. But I know the truth, I know I have tried to treat them well despite the pain in my heart. I recognise they need my true forgiveness, not merely a polite relationship. I believe, thanks to the forgiveness I have received from my Saviour, that true forgiveness is possible and I am looking forward to experiencing its freedom when I get there. But in the mean time, I’m removing that overcompensating smile plastered across my face that makes everyone more comfortable with their mistreatment of me and I’m focusing on the process of entirely overcoming any deeper levels of unforgiveness, so that when I say and act like I have forgiven someone, I will feel and know it’s TRUTH!
07/03/2019
Shifting The Blame
I’m pretty lucky to have found a select group of people who defy our current untrustworthy culture. The people I trust in this world are far from perfect, none of us are. The reason this group are trusted is because they own their own shit. They have the courage to have the hard conversations, to admit when they’ve let their emotions get the better of them, to recognise when they deserve the consequences for those times they refused to listen to their conscience, and to face someone to address issues without resorting to abuse, gossip or slander.
These people give me so much hope! Though sadly, they are few and far between.
Our culture is so warped, it has become too scared to admit its faults (possibly for fear of a liability suit) that we’ve lost the art of conflict resolution. Its far more common to make excuses or ignore personal faults and magnify these same faults in others, than to seek resolution to conflicts with a little honesty, humility and compassion.
The masses of legal action pointing fingers at human errors has gotten way out of hand, and had some serious consequences on they way we resolve societal problems. It’s almost as if we find our flawed humanity as far too big an inconvenience that we no longer accept it as part of reality. We are now shocked beyond words when we suffer at the hands of someones mistake, and allow that shock to catapult our emotions into condemnation and worse. The rage increases when they refuse to own up, surely denial adds to the injustice, and yet saying sorry now admits liability, so we just don’t hear it.
But there is something profound about a genuine apology, it can resolve so much tension. Maybe we would hear more apologies if society just remembered how to accept one, without always demanding compensation. There is no denying that we all mess up royally from time to time, and people get hurt, yet there’s something wonderful about being able to admit your flaws without fear of ridicule and rejection.
It has only been in the last half of my life that I got to experience the value of these things. Once I understood the grace of Christ, I knew I could be honest with myself and with Him. This gave me the courage to be honest with others as well.
It was just over 18 years ago when I hit the bottom of my shame pit. My behaviour had gotten so out of hand, I was the worst version of myself and the shame of it almost killed me. I clearly remember sitting down with a friend and confessing it all. I’m not sure why I felt I could open up and tell this guy my innermost skeletons, but I still did it. I expected shock, horror and a lot of guilt trips, but instead he barely battered an eyelash, he listened, he understood and strangely enough he still saw my value. That man showed me what its like to not have to hide my flaws out of fear of rejection, instead I felt loved like I never had before. See, people often ‘love’ our best selves, yet hold our worst self against us, like a trophy of our worthlessness. A trophy that gives them permission to berate and belittle and condemn. Not this guy. He saw my absolute worst and ended up marrying me anyway! (Go figure)
I’m not sure how we can undo the damage this blame culture is having on our relationships and our lives. We have become bound up by so much red tape that no one knows who is accountable for what anymore. The lines of accountability are so blurred that we no longer know which way is up!
So once again I fall at the feet of Our Saviour and plead with Him to help us learn how to love each other at our worst and not be so offended by human faults, and to bring back the beauty of self-awareness. Then we may no longer have to hide our sins, no longer have to pretend we aren’t scared and broken and capable of hurting people. Can we see ourselves through God’s eyes and claim our limitless worth and face our demons, for we all have both. None are innocent, yet all are loved.
Inner Angels & Enemies 