Forgiveness...A Lesson That Rang True.

So every once in a while I learn something useful in school....SHOCKING right!? Today in my Family Processes class I really feel like I learned some valuable things, so valuable that I wanted to share it with the few people who might actually read this.

Forgiveness is usually a difficult topic. We talk about it a lot in the LDS church and in life but does anyone really UNDERSTAND what it means to forgive. I know I didn't really ever understand, or ever comprehend what it meant. I could say a lot of things about Christ or bring in the gospel but I want to explain it in a different way, the way my professor explained it. Because generally when people explain it in a gospel perspective some imbecile brings up that Christ sat with our enemies so we have to as well....NOT TRUE.

Dr. Dyer started off the class with something called a "Thought Experiment" where he essentially asked, "What if someone close to you hurt you really badly, but they promised to never do it again, does full forgiveness require you to sit down at dinner with them (Or in some extent be sitting next to them for an extended period of time)?"

I immediately had something to say, because recently I had an experience that very closely fitted to HIS hypothetical situation. I have a damaged relationship with someone in my life who I should be close to. This person has hurt me and my family and so it has been a difficult process trying to forgive them. I want to move on in my life and forgive this person, but I have heard many definitions about forgiveness and it has always left me in a cloud questioning if I REALLY did forgive (Anyone else feel that way?).

Well, as the story goes I was invited to dinner by this person who has hurt me time and time again. I had talked to this person earlier and they pleaded with me on the phone explaining how they've made so many changes and how they are truly sorry. I felt in my heart that I had forgiven this person and I had done that through time, distance, and boundaries. This person explained to me if I TRULY believed in the atonement and had sincerely forgiven them that I would spend more time with them, go to this or that, etc...I knew I had forgiven them, but I still felt like I didn't need to be around them to truly forgive them, until they pulled that fast one on me about the atonement and questioning my faith (Which I now understand was wrong of them to do but at the time it was very confusing, going back to the cloudiness of WHAT REALLY IS FORGIVING SOMEONE?).

So what did I do???? I felt guilty, and felt that if I had really forgiven them I could go to dinner with them, move on from the situation and start fresh. So there I was, sitting at dinner across from the person who really hurt me (Just like the teacher's hypothetical situation, except it was all TOO real for me). It was going fine but all the sudden that person changed into the same person they had always been. Maybe they HAVE made some changes in their life (that's wonderful!) but the way they were treating ME was the SAME. I explained to this person that I wasn't at dinner to discuss these things, I wanted to start a new relationship and move on from the past. This person seemed to have ear plugs in and kept attacking me with topics I had no interest in discussing and things that didn't even directly involve me. The way this person treated the guest he had brought also disturbed me and brought up past emotions. What was happening wasn't OK and so I got up and left. I just left. It was probably one of the most liberating, life defining moments in my 19 years of life.

Here's what I learned at that dinner. Forgiving someone doesn't mean you have to spend time with them. Sometimes, forgiving is easiest when you put distance in between you and the person who hurt you...especially if every time you get near them they hurt you again. Some relationships are just TOXIC and IT IS OK to set up boundaries. For me and this person I can only truly forgive them when I am at a distance. So as you can imagine it was VERY validating to go to class today and learn the following.....

Forgiveness is NOT...
*Forgetting (Our bodies are wired to remember pain, that's essentially a good thing! We are never going to truly forget anything unless we lost our brain, and thinking about NOT thinking about something only ingrains it in us further...So unless you get amnesia or literally lose your brain you are never going to completely lose the memories of hurt you once felt, YOU just aren't wired like that)
*Trust (Just because you forgave someone DOES not mean you have to give them full trust. Trust is something you earn and if you break someone's trust then you better believe you have to earn it back through time)
*No longer feeling the pain or grieving (Just like I said earlier, our bodies aren't wired to forget pain. That doesn't mean we can't move on and think about happy things, but if old feelings come up and you feel hurt all over again, that's OK. You can still be completely forgiving)
*Pretending unacceptable behavior is acceptable. (If someone hurt you,  you don't have to say "It's all right" "It wasn't that bad"....admit they hurt you and that it better never happen again!)
*No consequences (If someone is forgiven they might expect that they don't need to go through certain consequences for example, boundaries being set, but even if someone is forgiven there still needs to be some consequences...not like you punishing them or revenging but just like in Newton's law with every action their is a reaction)
*Reconciliation (Sometimes if you forgive someone they might expect for your relationship to be all happy again and to go back to exactly the way it was! This isn't true, relationships are always changing and if someone hurt you really badly they can't expect things to go back to the same place.)

So after learning about everything that forgiveness is not...you might be wondering OK so that was helpful but what's left???? How can I forgive someone then...

Forgiveness is understanding that their was harm done. It's acknowledging that you are hurt and are feeling pain. It's having full knowledge that the transgressor is responsible for the injury. It is voluntarily giving up the attitude of "since you hurt me, you owe me". It is a canceled debt. Forgiveness is giving up the perceived right to get even. It is working through the pain and not avoiding it.

It's pretty simple right? To forgive someone doesn't mean you have to put yourself in emotionally harmful situations time and time again. It is working through your own heart and soul and removing yourself from the negative emotions directly related to the transgressor.

So to answer my teachers HYPOTHETICAL question....NO, you don't have to sit through dinner, or even be within a 1000 miles of the person who hurt you to truly mean you forgave them. So that is why that moment when I walked away from that dinner and went to class today was defining for me, because it helped me understand that I have forgiven this person all along and that I never have to compromise my emotional well being again to PROVE that I have forgiven them.