“Forgiveness is not about pouring pink paint over our anger and pretending it does not exist.” – Beverley Pugh

I remember a special woman I worked with in Australia. She came in looking heartbroken and sad. When I asked her what help she was seeking, she said in a quiet, sad voice – “I can’t pray. I am so angry. I’ve lost my ability to relax and even my ability to pray.” I will always remember her and her journey. Her partner had an affair with her best friend of many years. Heartbreaking.  She not only lost the man she loved, she lost her best friend.

She was very angry at both of them. Her feelings of betrayal were sky high. She asked her partner to leave, and said goodbye to her best friend. She was so angry so couldn’t sleep or relax. She felt like a caged tiger.

We have all felt aspects of anger, rage, betrayal, disappointment. These emotions can eat away at us. If they stay inside of us for a long time, they and we become toxic – toxic to our physical and emotional health. Forgiveness is an essential gift that we need to practice, but first comes the anger. We all need to fully feel and express our emotions before we move into ways of experiencing forgiveness. Some of us move too quickly into trying to find forgiveness. We don’t allow ourselves to feel the completeness of our anger and sadness first. Others of us feel that we will never be able to forgive, so why bother.

Forgiveness does not mean we condone the other’s behaviour or our own behaviour. It does not mean we make excuses or absolve them or ourselves of taking responsibility for our choice.

This Australian woman, over time, wrote both of them letters of anger and then later letters of forgiveness. She did this for herself. She wanted peace within herself. Her goal was to live in the present moment rather than reliving the past over and over. Her final decision, which felt best for her, was to separate from both of them and move forward into a new life.

Compassion is a key pathway to forgiveness. How do we get to compassion? Here is one way: if, for example, the theme is betrayal of someone else, ask yourself if you have ever engaged in betrayal in some way – maybe not like they did, but some other way. Write down 3 memories. Then remember how you felt, and let your heart open to yourself. We are actually letting our heart open to the true human part of ourselves. Our heart opens to how we humans make mistakes.

There are no excuses for the choices we make. Accountability and responsibility are necessary aspects of everything that happens. Within the framework of responsibility, we allow ourselves to open our hearts to the human part of ourselves that struggles. This is where compassion lives. Forgiveness is about finding that place of compassion.

Forgiveness is a process of the heart, not the head. It is not a mental process.

Forgiveness is not about staying in an unhealthy situation. It is about cleaning out part of us that is dark and troubled.

Forgiveness is an aspect of human spirit, based on our humanness. It is the greatest gift we can give ourselves.