Archived News of the Week

Forgiveness

Last week, I attended a fabulous seminar (my fourth year in a row) at the Omni in Broomfield. Boulderfest is 4 days long and offers, I would guess, 25 medical speakers with various specialties: Medical doctors, naturopaths, chiropractors, Ph.D's in nutrition and one Ph.D psychologist who is head of the Stanford Forgiveness Project.

First of all, and this made perfect sense to me for some reason: We need to realize, as the Buddhists do, that to be human is to suffer. Period, end of sentence. How can we possibly see the intense suffering that goes on in the world and be shocked and surprised when suffering happens to us? Nice people's gorgeous children are abducted in Aruba, someone's mother/father/child was killed in the London subway bombing, a cute little girl was abducted by a pedophile for 5 months etc, ad nauseum. Luskin's contention is that if we expect to get out of this life with no suffering, we are very naive; confronting suffering, difficulty and unkindness is everywhere.

Alrighty then. I now realize that I am not alone, everyone suffers, I should expect it, yadda yadda. Now what? If I have something to forgive - and we all do - then how do I do it?

First of all, after you realize that if you expect to NOT suffer, you are living on another planet, Luskin suggests practicing different stories around the event that caused your suffering. Get a story that doesn't hurt someone or yourself. Yes, the painful event happened, but you don't have to be the pawn of your shrieking ego who wants to yell at you constantly about the SOB 1) that ran into your car 2) that stole your retirement fund 3) that cut in front of you in the line at Safeway 4) fill in your own blank. He told the story of a woman in one of his groups who shared a very painful story while sobbing uncontrollably and when he asked her when this event occurred, fully expecting her to say "last week" she said "It will be 20 years next month." Luskin implied that there is, of course, a time to grieve, but then, in due time, it's time to get over it, through forgiveness.

Secondly, practice being THANKFUL - for example, that you can plop great gobs of wonderful organic food in your cart at Whole Foods when 35,000 children are starving every day in other parts of the world. Don't be guilty that you have so much, be thankful that you have so much. Luskin suggests that we are all gratitude-impaired.

Practice being GRATEFUL - for all the very mundane and simple things, like the fact that your car starts in the morning, that your flowers are growing in your yard, that your children call you on the telephone, that your parents are kind and understanding, that you have wonderful friends that care about you. Say THANK YOU a lot. This is one of the most healing phrases in the entire English language - it actually changes the nervous system. On the other hand, when we say to ourselves "It wasn't fair what you did, or I've been betrayed by you or you lied to me" our bodies respond, we become agitated and stresssed, and all the nasty hormones that age and kill us come pouring out into our bodies. It is healthy to be grateful and thankful.

Speak gently, hopefully and positively. Be gracious and kind. The way you "language" (new verb, I guess, created by the presenter, Fred Luskin. . .) your life is the way your life unfolds.

Be peaceful. Luskin contends that you really can't be HAPPY and RIGHT at the same time. So, practice giving up being right. It's not important. Luskin suggests that you practice all of this in short bursts, but do start somewhere. For example, practice peace for 45 seconds, then extend it for longer and longer periods of time.

Other aspects of unforgiveness and stress lie in the nasty realm of things that we cannot control, no matter how hard we try. (Oh, no!) In fact, it seems that the really important things in our life - the things we really want - are out of our control and most of us stumble around ineptly for an entire lifetime(s) trying to control the uncontrollable: For example, we can't force people to love us, or to be honest with us, or to be kind to us. If we can just accept that there are some things that can't be controlled, it is a huge step towards forgiveness. And peace. And happiness.

Reinhold Niebuhr, an American Protestant theologian composed a prayer that has become famous in the 12-step movement: "God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference." This is forgiveness in a nutshell.

In case you are interested, Luskin's book is called Forgive for Good and it's in paperback.

Going along with the things that we cannot control, is a book called The Five Things We Cannot Change,. . . and the Happiness We Find by Embracing Them by David Richo. These five things are:

1. Everything changes and ends
2. Things do not always go according to plan
3. Life is not always fair
4. Pain is part of life
5. People are not loving and loyal all of the time

Tattoo them on the inside of your left arm, pray and hope for the best.

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