The Power of Forgiveness
Forgiveness:
1. takes time.
2. is empowering.
3. isn’t easy, yet it can lead to better relationships, a better life and a better world.
4. is good for the mind, spirit, soul and for the body.
Forgiving is one of the most difficult aspects and acts of human life. Many of the world’s religions teach us that forgiving is an important part of human life. In the absence of forgiveness, resentment can flourish and imprison people, limiting their ability to live to their fullest potential. The path to forgiveness can sometimes mean three steps forward and many more steps backwards. Yet, history has shown us that forgiveness can have lasting and positive ripple effects throughout the forgiver’s life, the lives of others and the world.
I’m not saying it is easy. In many cases it seems impossible, yet when forgiveness does show up it has a powerful effect on the forgiver and forgiven. Here are a few thoughts on forgiveness:
1. Forgiveness takes time:
Some of the world’s great leaders understand that leadership often means meeting people where they are, mistakes and all. To be human is to err and to forgive is divine. Negotiation often isn’t possible without some form of forgiveness, an acknowledgment of wrongs, transgressions, flaws and mistakes.
Forgiveness is a process, there isn’t any question of that, and sometimes it can take years to reconcile with someone and forgive them. Forgiveness is an act – a very powerful one. It is a conscious decision and is as much a verb as it is a noun. It requires consistent action, a daily decision to reflect and a continual attempt to free oneself from the constraints of anger, bitterness, resentment.
There will be days, months and years where WE have no intention to forgive. Even when we might try to forgive, it just won’t take. It could take years to forgive even when we know we want to forgive. That’s okay. Forgiveness is also about being kind to ourselves as much as it is about accepting the misdeeds, wrongs, and transgressions of others.
2. Forgiveness is empowering
We live in a world where nobody really anticipates forgiveness. The act of forgiveness doesn’t just cross bridges, it builds them. It’s hard work. There are degrees of forgiveness just as there are degrees to anything else. Life presents challenges, opportunities and decisions. Do I forgive and shine light and hope for human kind or do I allow resentment and darkness to take hold in what often appears to be a dark world? There may be situations in which someone's actions seem impossible to forgive. There are aggressors who are responsible for unimaginable evil, the deaths of millions of innocent people. How is forgiveness in such extreme cases even possible for the innocent? Some people, for some reason, do what many others understandably will not do.
Consider Ngirente Philippe who describes to The Forgiveness Project how he met and forgave his father’s killer from the Rwandan genocide:
“I looked and I saw Teresphore on his knees in front of me, crying and asking for my forgiveness. I forgave him immediately but wanted him to come to my home, so that as a family we could all forgive him together.”
Four months later, Teresphore visited his home, bringing banana wine and food.
“Again he started crying and repeatedly saying how sorry he was. Eventually I escorted him home. Then my wife and I embarked on the path of true reconciliation,” he said. “We wanted to do more than just forgive, but to actually live as neighbours and friends, side by side. We wanted to improve society, to respond to evil with goodness. So now his mother also comes to my home, and we share meals. We are all true friends.”
Another powerful example is provided to us by Graham Snyder who lost his son Dan Snyder in a car accident caused by his friend and teammate in September 2003. Both NHL Atlanta Thrashers stars were traveling in Dany Heatley’s Ferrari convertible. The winding road coupled with speed proved fatal when Heatley crashed his car and Snyder died. Graham Snyder, the father, asked a judge not to compound that loss by putting Heatley in jail. Heatley, who at that time was 24 years of age, had been charged with vehicular homicide in the death of Snyder, his Thrashers teammate and friend. Heatley pleaded guilty to lesser charges and was sentenced to three years' probation and fined $3,000.
Paul L. Howard Jr., the Fulton County district attorney, acknowledged that the reluctance of LuAnn and Graham Snyder, Dan Snyder's parents, to seek prison time for Heatley weighed heavily on his decision to drop the charge of felony vehicular homicide, thus significantly lessening Heatley’s sentence. The judge honoured the Snyder family request, sentencing Heatley to three years' probation after he plead guilty to charges in the death of teammate Dan Snyder.
"Forgiveness in our hearts has helped us move on," Graham Snyder said. "We forgive because Dany has shown remorse to our family." Judge Rowland Barnes acknowledged the father's support for Heatley, though he noted, "I don't know that I could do this if I were you."
"The mistake I made that night was driving too fast," Heatley said at his sentencing. "This mistake will stay with me the rest of my life.” Heatley pleaded guilty to second-degree vehicular homicide, driving too fast for conditions, failure to maintain a lane and speeding .
Dan Snyder's brother, Jake, also said he didn't want Heatley to go to jail or lose his hockey career. "I know he never intended for this to happen," he said. "I don't want to see my friend go to prison. I know Dan would feel the same way."
Those are just two examples of the countless and often unrecorded acts of forgiveness that are almost impossible to fathom, grasp and understand. For some reason these people choose to face those who inflicted pain on them and to forgive their transgressors. Clearly their decisions to forgive come from a super human, higher power, strength and love for all people.
3. Forgiveness isn’t easy, it's hard yet it can lead to better relationships, a better life and a better world
A discussion about Forgiveness would be incomplete, empty, without an inclusion of Nelson Mandela.
As was noted in Seton Hall University diplomacy research of Nelson Mandela, “It is forgiveness towards his nation’s wrongdoers that he used as a weapon against the oppressive apartheid regime, which enabled transformation of relationships, positive change and peace in his beloved country, South Africa.”
Imprisoned for 27 years he surfaced from imprisonment to become the first ever black president of South Africa in 1994—thus leading many of the very same people who had imprisoned him for nearly thirty years. He addressed his nation when Apartheid ended in 1995: “Reconciliation does not mean forgetting or trying to bury the pain of conflict, but…reconciliation means working together to correct the legacy of past injustice. Today we no longer vow mutual destruction, but solemnly acknowledge our interdependence as free and equal citizens of our common motherland. Today we reaffirm our solemn constitutional contract to live together on the basis of equality and mutual respect.”
It would’ve been a far different outcome and world—if Nelson Mandela had initiated change in South Africa via bitterness and bloodshed. He chose the high road and led his people from decades of darkness into the light, creating an example of leadership the world had never before witnessed. His ability to forgive and reconcile paved the way for an entire nation to heal its wounds. Mandela said, “forgiveness liberates the soul, it removes fear. That’s why it’s such a powerful weapon.”
4. Forgiveness is good for the mind, spirit, soul and for the body
History bears witness and provides us with evidence of the restorative power of forgiveness and its ability to transform nations and the entire world, and so does science. Scientists are researching the effects of forgiveness on the body. Anyone can assume that forgiveness does great things, but the degree to which a simple act of forgiveness benefits the human body is remarkable.
Anger and resentment fostered by maintaining grudges has a domino effect with the human body, according to Johns Hopkins Medicine: Hurt and disappointment create a physical burden that changes heart rate, blood pressure and negatively impacts the immune response. These physiological changes prompted by chronic anger generate greater risk of a variety of conditions, including heart disease, diabetes and depression. Recall that Nelson Mandela once said, “Resentment is like drinking poison and then hoping it will kill your enemies.”
The flip side of that is that studies have discovered that forgiveness can lead to tremendous health improvements, including lower cholesterol levels, better sleep, less pain, a reduction in blood pressure, lower risk of heart attack and less anxiety, depression and stress.
Healthcare professionals and spiritual advisors often tell us that the key to living a good life is continually focusing on what you have control over and understanding that very little is within our influence. As Mohandis Gandhi said, “If you want to change the world, start with yourself,” while Marcus Aurelius wrote that power over the mind is real strength.
Forgiveness is hard work… painfully difficult. We often fail at it but we don’t give up because we have been created to forgive – it is why Ngirente Philippe, the Synder Family, Nelson Mandela and the many people like them have risen above their own pain and the hand of their wrong doer(s). Forgiveness is where we can confront the wrongdoer, the agent of our Pain and ultimately take the power away from the Pain that is inflicted upon us.