On forgiveness

Yesterday marked exactly ten months since everything changed. To say that a lot has happened since then is kind of an understatement. When I wrote On courage, muchness, and a whimsical wishlist of future moments, I decided that it would be the last time I looked back. Things are different now - I’m different, and I’m not sure there’s much point or benefit in continuing to dissect what happened. I don’t want to expend energy on what has been, I want to focus on what’s to come. I have, though, been talking to my friend Erica (having a therapist as a best friend = free therapy for life) quite a lot about moving on, healing and forgiveness.

Recently I’ve been having quite a bit of a wobble - mostly because things are really happening. There’s the anxiety and worry about lockdown/the virus/my job in travel disappearing practically overnight, but also the Decree Nisi is imminent, and the house is sold - we’ll be moving out soon. I explained that, such is my anxiety around packing up and moving out that I’ve been harbouring fantasies of taking a match to the home I once loved and walking off into the sunset slo-mo Hollywood-style towards the camera while it burns to the ground behind me (literally only in my head, don’t worry Mum). This house is a vessel for all the pain and heartache and happy times experienced by my family for the last nine or so years, all smooshing together and making it a very confusing and uncomfortable place to be. The brilliant Sasha from Frank and Feel talks about capacity (n) the maximum amount something can contain - the amount something can produce. I’m up to capacity on my feelings. Something has to give. The thought of wrapping the tears and memories in brown paper, loading them on a van and taking them with me to my next home was filling my brain and creating such a dark cloud, it was starting to keep me awake at night. But how, then, to leave them behind and move on without all the baggage?

Chatting to Erica, it became clear that what I need most is to forgive. My first thought was ‘I can’t forgive the unforgivable’, but forgiveness isn’t about excusing or even accepting bad behaviour. Forgiveness doesn’t mean friendship - it’s not even that much about the person who ‘wronged’ you. It’s much more about healing and moving on, preventing whatever happened from continuing to occupy your thoughts and your time. It’s closure, if you like. Furthermore, according to Erica, ‘ it’s about apologising to yourself for all the bullshit you made yourself believe… while you’re holding a grudge, you’re holding that person in your mind and heart. To forgive is to let go. No more holding’.

Erica told me about this mad-sounding thing called ho’oponopono - she uses it a lot in therapy sessions and challenged me to give it a go. It’s an ancient Hawaiian healing technique that allows people to break free of negative thoughts and emotions. Erica said that you can practice ho’oponopono on yourself, or focus on someone else. I chose to do both. I probably didn’t do it right, so don’t blame the teacher, blame the terrible pupil.

Okay it’s a bit woo (sorry Erica, I love you), but basically you start with a fresh piece of paper. The first heading is ‘I’m sorry’. And you basically list all the reasons you’re sorry (this is another one of those brain dump techniques where you don’t think about it too much - just write whatever comes into your head). Next is ‘thank you’, where you thank the person (or indeed yourself) for all the things you’re grateful for. The next one, ‘I love you’, clanged around in my head for a while, but I get that you don’t actually have to love the person, just clear the bad energy from your feelings for them, I guess. Finally, ‘I forgive you’.

As tends to happen with these things, my answers weren’t at all what I expected. I found myself writing that I was sorry that I wasn’t ‘enough’, that I wasn’t braver and stronger and more vocal in my desire for our marriage to be over at certain points in the past. I was sorry for the pain it caused our children, and for clinging on when I should have let go. I said thank you for our two wonderful, funny, kind, intelligent sons - how can you regret a marriage when you get two bloody fabulous humans as the end result? - but mostly I said thank you for setting me free, for helping me to realise what I didn’t want, so I could find out what I did, and reach out and grab it. Yeah and then there’s the love bit. I struggled with this, but hate and bitterness and regret will eventually tear you apart. Then, ‘I forgive you’, because honestly? Bitterness takes up too much headspace, time and energy, and because this whole thing brought me to where I am now - happy, fulfilled and much, muchier.

So, did it work? Well I didn’t think I felt any different, but then woke up this morning, having slept all night, with an overwhelming feeling of calm. A cliché, I know, but I feel like a weight had been lifted from my shoulders. I can still walk into the future slo-mo and sassy (can I still have the flames, though, please?), but now all I leave behind is a bit of my past, with pretty neutral feelings about all of it. Forgiveness doesn’t have to mean excusing or accepting bad behaviour, or even that the forgiveness is deserved. I read somewhere that forgiving is not forgetting, it’s remembering without anger. Ultimately, forgiveness is freedom. And don’t we all want a bit of that right now?

Find out more about Erica, Sam and Lifeheal here