Tag: Cruelty

Forgiving With Integrity

Telling another that they need to forgive is wasted breath.

I commented once in these posts that to tell another person that they need to forgive is to stand in judgement upon them. In effect, that statement says, “I know what’s best for you. Listen to my wisdom. It’s not just that you’re hurting yourself by failing to forgive. You’re also failing to live up to my standards.”

Quite aside from being judgmental, telling another that they must forgive is also pretty useless. “You need to” is essentially a criticism of the way in which someone is handling difficult and likely justified feelings. In essence, the command to forgive says to a wounded person, “Yeah, they were wrong, but if you haven’t forgiven them, then you are wronger”. (Excuse the atrocious grammar! That is an actual statement once made to me by a person whose existence in my life is probably best forgotten.)

Providing such advice, especially when unsolicited, to an adult who is enduring the difficult experience of unforgiveness is simply futile; nothing but wasted breath. The implied criticism merely engages another’s automatic defense system, resulting in irritation and anger–exactly the opposite of what one intends.

Rarely, though, the answer to that officious command is a deeply drawn breath and the words, “Yes, I know that. I even want to forgive. But how?!”

I’ve spent long years working out that puzzle for myself, and the answer that I’ve finally landed upon is this: To forgive, one must also retain personal integrity by speaking both truth and justice.

Even when I don’t believe that I can forgive, or am ready to do so, or even really want to forgive–I say it, anyway. But I also say the rest. I speak with conviction the part that those who so blithely recommend forgiveness seem to carefully ignore: the element that vindicates my feelings; that validates my anger so that I can, at last, release it. I speak the essence that pats me comfortingly on the back and reassures me that I did not deserve this; I state with certainty the words that acknowledge my pain.

When the wounds that I’ve been dealt rerun themselves on the movie screen of my mind, I have finally learned to say, “I forgive you. I do not exonerate you. What you did was vile, wrong, cruel abusive, hurtful, and you bear completely the shame of your behavior. I do not absolve you. You owe a debt, not to me, but to the Universe, and you must work out your own absolution. You must decide and perform your own penance. But I do forgive you.”

This statement allows me (as I have read and heard, over and over again) to forgive the person without excusing what they did. It permits me to forgive without belittling the anguish of my experience. It states that my anger is justified, my pain real, and that I will not blindly lie down like a doormat beneath the feet of my oppressor. It returns to me my personal power: the power stolen from me by another’s terrible words or actions.

I forgive YOU. I forgive the soul, the spirit, the divine spark within you. But I do not exonerate you. I cannot, in fact, acquit you, for you are to blame. Nor can I absolve you. Only a Higher Power can do so. You must achieve that absolution by both acknowledging the wrong you did and working in some manner to resolve the debt you now owe.

Speaking these words with conviction franks the letter of my exercise in forgiveness, while in no way providing amnesty for those who have wronged me. It reasserts my rights while allowing me to extend both mercy and justice to the individual who has harmed me.

It is, in fact, so complete a statement, such a perfect means of clearing the logjam of old bitterness and futile anger, that it astonishes me to realize that it took me nearly 70 years to find the technique; that none of those who prated at me about the need to forgive were able to provide me with this simple key to genuine forgiveness.

Having stumbled upon this, my personal truth and cure, I am at last empowered with the ability to forgive. “I forgive YOU. I do not exonerate you. You are, no matter what your circumstances or reasons, to blame. I do not absolve you. You’ll have to work out your own penance. But I do, absolutely and completely, forgive you.”

Somewhere, somehow, I suspect, even hope, that someone is speaking this exact statement to and about me. I am far indeed from sainthood, and the number of wounds I have dealt others—remembered or forgotten, realized or unrealized—is, I’m sure, legion.

I hope they will forgive me. But they need never either exonerate or absolve me. I accept my blame, and I will work to absolve my offenses.

If this essay struck a note with you, you might also appreciate “Anger and Loss”, which was published April 3, 2018. You may find it in the Archives.

The True Spirit of the Season

§   This year, my tradition of personally-created holiday cards was exceptionally difficult, as I tried to create something pertinent to the difficult reality of a Pandemic Christmas.  But I happily share that card now, not just with close friends and family, but with everyone who chooses to enjoy this blog. §

I’ve made my own Christmas cards for nearly three decades now, each year selecting a special photograph, graphic, or theme as my holiday greeting to family and friends.  And each year, as I do so, I remind myself that the true spirit of the season—genuine loving kindness—should continue not just until the last greeting card is tossed out with the wrapping paper, but throughout the year, and beyond. 

Whatever holiday you celebrate–Soyaluna, Diwali, Hanukkah, Christmas, Kwanzaa, Solstice, The Return of the Wandering Goddess, or the thousand others of which I know nothing–may it be blessed.

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The Many Faces of Hate

§  To wear the mask of a stranger is to see merely unimportant specks on the rim of the mask’s limited vision.  §

While a young woman, I had a coworker—let’s call her Angela–who endured troubling memories of her paternal grandmother. At the time I knew Angela, I’d just begun re-establishing a close relationship with my own paternal grandmother; years of family squabbles had kept us apart. So I was shocked to hear of the treatment this likeable woman had received from her grandmother.

Angela explained that Grandmother absolutely despised Angela’s mother—had hated her from the very day Mom and Dad began dating. It’s been 40-odd years since our conversation, but I still recall the troubled expression on Angela’s face as she told me that her mother and father tried countless times to heal the sorry situation. Sadly, nothing had ever worked.

But Grandmother’s hatred extended to, when they arrived, the children of the marriage. She never put aside her contempt for her daughter-in-law for the sake of her grandchildren, who were, after all, her son’s children. No, in ways both overt and subtle, Grandmother made certain that those youngsters knew that they did not measure up to her other grandchildren.  Her favored offspring were not “contaminated” by a birth relationship to the despised daughter-in-law.

Angela recounted Grandmother’s worst insult, which centered on the kids’ school photos. One wall of Grandmother’s house displayed her grandchildren’s school pictures.  But the photos of Angela and her siblings were not flaunted among the rest. Instead, they were hung in the bathroom, facing the toilet.

Hearing the ache and indignation in Angela’s voice as she described this stinging memory, I felt heartsick on her behalf. To be the victim of such spite and cruelty from a person who should have loved her unconditionally—well, it stunned me.

The memory of that conversation has never left me. Many times after our discussion I daydreamed, inventing scenarios to bring resolution and revenge to my coworker’s bitter experience: Of all the Grandmother’s children, only the marriage of  her son and despised daughter-in-law thrived. The marriages of all her other children failed, and bitter divorces meant that she was separated from her favorite grandchildren.   Or:  Mean Grandmother lived out her final days quite alone and helpless in a substandard nursing home, visited by no one except the despised daughter-in-law.  Or, best of all:   Those other, favored grandkids all grew up to be ungrateful little wastrels who scammed Grandmother for money, became drug addicts and alcoholics, and were jailed for multiple crimes. Meanwhile, Angela and her siblings lived quietly successful, happy lives, but obviously never bothered with the Mean Grandmother who had treated them so badly.

That’s not the way life works, of course. Mean Grandmother probably wound down her life warmly surrounded by the love and attention of the children, in-laws and grandkids she preferred, smugly self-satisfied with her contemptible treatment of her reviled daughter-in-law and unloved grandchildren.

Hatred can wear so many faces! It can be disguised as the face of a grandparent or an in-law; someone who should be both loving and beloved, but is instead malevolent. It can wear the face of an abusive spouse or parent, or even a job supervisor.  It can focus on skin color, or ethnic origin. It can manifest as religious or even generational intolerance. It can be masked in passive aggression, calling itself teasing when it is in fact intentional torment and insults.

Or it can wear the face of a total stranger.

This last really struck me, and is the reason I recalled my former coworker’s sad little tale, as I sat one recent morning watching a video examining the causes and motives behind the many mass shootings of recent times. Unlike the malicious Grandmother, these cases so often involve total strangers who go on a rampage, wounding and murdering innocents with whom they have absolutely no connection. Is it easier, I wondered, to do so? To harm those with whom a person has absolutely no relationship? To wear the mask of a stranger, and see, not other human beings with lives and loves of their own, but merely unimportant specks on the rim of the mask’s limited vision? Is exterminating unknown strangers guilt-free?

Or does it all—murdering strangers or murdering the spirit of those who should be loved ones—come with consequence?

I have no answers. I only know that I clicked off that video, and sat, remembering Angela’s long-lasting emotional wounds. Then I sighed and selected some financial work I needed to do on my computer. But as I tapped the mouse, I noticed in surprise that my face was wet, and that tears had splashed onto my keyboard.

I had not even realized that I was crying.

My Kindness Journal

I’ve recently begun keeping what I term a “Kindness Journal”. This isn’t a list of kind or thoughtful things I do for others (although, as a caretaker personality, that list would certainly fill a page or two).  No, this is a journal about kind things I do for myself.

Finding fault with myself has been almost an hourly pastime since I was an adolescent. Sometimes this is a helpful trait, sparking new levels of maturity. You weren’t as supportive as you could have been, the Critic in My Mind tells me.  You should not have said that. You should have done this; not have done that.  Was that really necessary? Did you actually listen to your own tone of voice? You were thoughtless and you need to apologize.

When I’m in a rational frame of mind, these self-criticisms are benign and constructive. Questioning my motives and behavior drives me to at least try to improve myself.

The Constructive Critic also reminds me that we most dislike in others the same behaviors that we despise in ourselves. Although I would challenge that concept on the basis of its being a generality, I accept that it’s often true.  The Constructive Critic has become adept at confronting me when I am irritated or furious over something that another person has said or done. Am I actually upset, I ask myself, only because I make similar remarks? Behave in the same manner?  Isn’t that really why I’m angry?  Again, when it comes to moments like these, the Constructive Critic is a genuinely helpful personality quirk.  Uncomfortable, but helpful.

But for me (and I suppose for a lot of people), the Constructive Critic all too often descends into a cruel and vicious faultfinder; a tyrant who sits in judgment from a high throne of hypercritical conviction. Speaking in the voices of actual detractors and censors from my past, the narrator which I term the Nazi Critic descends into bullying and cruelty. You were always plain; now you’re just plain ugly, the Nazi Critic declaims. Stupid bitch; why did you do that? No wonder no one ever loved you—I mean, who could?!

It’s hard to turn off the Nazi Critic in its evil mode of psychological warfare. My emotions spiral downward with each fresh self-administered slap on the ego.  I think of this as the emotional equivalent of a medieval penitent scourging herself across the shoulders with a cat o’ nine tails. Just as the clawed whip tore into flesh, so the Nazi Critic’s malicious words rip apart my self-worth and confidence, strewing them like the dead across the battlefield of my own soul.  The results of this clash soon become physically visible upon my face, in my bearing.

And so to combat the occasional incursions of the Nazi Critic, I’ve begun my Kindness Journal. Each evening I list a few things (sometimes very few) that I’ve done to simply be nice to myself.  Often it’s something physical: a good, long walk, or a relaxing bath with lavender salts instead of a hurried shower.  Occasionally it’s doing something that I find truly difficult, but rewarding, such as saying “No” to a request that I really don’t want to fulfill, all the while reminding myself that it’s better to refuse a request than to agree and nourish resentment.  Sometimes kindness to myself means that I must state plainly but calmly that I disagree with another’s viewpoint—something which I find difficult and scary.  Rarely, it’s standing up for myself, as in those instances when I have to remind someone that they owe me money and I expect repayment.  Those and many other things are now entries in my Kindness Journal.

I realize now that I have spent years of my life when I was at my lowest ebb, hoping and wishing that someone, anyone, would be kind to me, all the while believing the brutal words of the Nazi Critic—my own mind, twisted and tormented, telling me in the voices of cruel people from my past that I am worthless and ugly and useless and uneducated, undeserving of anyone’s attention or affection or courtesy or kindness.

So it is time, at last, to be kind to myself, gentle with myself, courteous toward myself.

It isn’t always easy. But perhaps by writing a few words every day in my Kindness Journal, I can lay the Nazi Critic to rest at last.