Forgiveness is integral to my Buddhist practice because in order to end my own suffering, I must let go of the pain that I carry in the form of resentment toward others. As much with Buddhist teachings, they sound so simple, but oh, the practice is rough.
By Michelleanne Bradley
I have been working a lot on forgiveness practice.
When I say I am working on it, I do not mean sitting on the pillow and gently going through some chants and exercises that I read in some teachings. What I do mean is that there is an internal street fight—there is a lot of swearing, there can be sweating, raging, screaming and crying.
Sometimes there is a glimpse of setting it all down, but inevitably the “but what if…” starts again and we are back at the next round. I get trapped in my body, that is a part of my stuff. In the battle of fight, flight or freeze, in times of trauma I am consistently in freeze.
About 20 years ago, I was going through an ugly divorce, and I started training for a marathon. The process of forcing myself to get up and go train was amazing at getting the emotions and fear and all of the bits out of my body. I would swear and cry and sweat it all out and then go home and start all over again. I think that is what I am looking for in the releasing resentment part of this practice.
Forgiveness is much harder to get to these days.
For me, forgiveness practice gets stuck on self-forgiveness. I was raised Catholic, and as much as I would like to say that I am super far from that, there is a TON of resentment there. Recently, I was with some family members at a dinner, and they were discussing a priest who had just been removed from their post or whatever it is called. They were commenting on what could have happened when I suggested that it could be related to sexual abuse in the church. They just blew it off, and went on like they hadn’t heard a thing I said.
Isn’t that how it goes? We don’t talk about the stuff that is uncomfortable.
I struggle with that part too, why do we not talk about the stuff that is uncomfortable? Why keep all of the things inside? It does not have to be sex abuse, it can be depression, it can be discrimination of any kind—really, pick a topic.
The more we suppress difficult conversations, the more resentment is built. I have talked with enough people that I know it is not just me, but here we continue to go on pretending that we don’t see the giant stack of issues right in front of our faces.
I struggle when I stay silent, I struggle when I speak out, and it all seems to sit in my gut like a cannonball.
Forgiveness is integral to my Buddhist practice because in order to end my own suffering, I must let go of the pain that I carry in the form of resentment toward others. As much with Buddhist teachings, they sound so simple, but oh, the practice is rough. In recovery, forgiveness is a part of reconnecting with a part of me that was lost while holding resentments.
Again, sounds simple.
I wear a bracelet that says, “I love you keep going” and for me that is representative of the double whammy of forgiveness and releasing resentments. I do not need to rebuild a relationship with someone who has hurt me or someone for whom I harbored resentment, which I think is one of the nuances implied through some of the practice of forgiveness.
We forgive someone to recognize that they are more than this action.
So, to see the bigger picture, they are forgiven and relationship is restored without consequence. That is the part that does not work for me, and where the bracelet comes in, because for me, there is a double meaning here as well. We can mean, “I love you! Keep going!” in the sense of cheering for someone to succeed. The flip side, “I love you! Keep going!” I don’t know where you are going but you are not staying here. A boundary is set; you are no longer welcome.
Have you seen people struggle with boundaries being set and not allowed back into a relationship?
When I see some people (and used to be me, although I really try hard not to be there anymore, but I slip too) give chance after chance to people who just turn around and do the same thing over and over and over again, I am reminded of Charlie Brown with Lucy and the football.
Resentments build, and we can practice forgiveness and release of those resentments with boundaries, and those are hard too.
I think that part of standing in our boundaries while simultaneously releasing resentments is the reminder that we make the choices of what to bring into our lives.
This is what the practice is looking like for me lately—incremental forgiveness practice, examining resentments, and seeing what I am ready to put down, where am I comfortable in my own skin enough to have the difficult conversations?
What does all of this look like for you? Let’s start a dialog about this…how can we help each other with making the next steps?
Photo: Pixabay
Editor: Dana Gornall
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