Imagining Forgiveness

          I am typically not one to boast, but people have been encouraging me to post a little something about a recent award that Shantha Sri and I received for our CD, Feel Forgiveness Now. We were pleased to receive news that we had been included in the list of final nominees for the Just Plain Folks Music Awards in the Self-Help category. Then, we were absolutely delighted to hear that we had won 2^nd place. We learned that there were over 42,000 entries from around the world for the various categories and only about nine or ten were chosen as actual nominees in each category. The awards ceremony took place in late August in Nashville, Tennessee.

          It is quite meaningful that we were selected for this honor, particularly by “just plain folk” who have no vested interest in the commercial aspect or in marketing strategies, but just for the simple fact that they acknowledged a sense of enjoyment and healing from our work.

          To learn more about our series of guided visualization CDs, please press the icon above that says Guided Visualization CDs. It will take you go to the website for Energi Music (www.energimusic.com), where you will learn about some of Energi’s other endeavors. For instance, Shantha Sri has a Samma series with titles such as Right Mindfulness and Right Intention. I just received his new CD entitled Music for Yoga: Volume 1. It is absolutely beautiful! I highly recommend it! He uses Tibetan and Nepalese singing bowls in many of the pieces along with other traditional drone instruments and the tones and frequencies are specifically chosen for heart beat regulation and healing. We have collaborated on another CD as well. It is entitled Chakra Mountain and it is due to be released very soon.

 If you are interested in how imagery can help with cancer and other medical issues, take a look at this brief u-tube piece with Dr. Martin Rossman. http://www.you-tube.com/watch?v=PHPz1l_TaPY&feature=related

Check out the following websites for conferences and information as well:

 www.imageryinternational.org 

 www.stillpointfoundation.com 

www.healthjourneys.com 

www.nicbm.com

www.pacifica.edu

Sometimes people find themselves in the position of being the only available caretaker for a dying family member who has been the perpetrator of either emotional or physical abuse. Sonja was a woman who had given her entire life to the upbringing of her children and grandchildren and she was loved for her candidness and open-heartedness. She came from a time, culture, and religious background that shunned divorce, so she stayed married to a man who was a philanderer and who physically and emotionally abused her.

Sonja was employed at the same job as an administrative assistant for many years and she was finally able to retire in her elder years. She had kept herself busy all through the years caring for her offspring and with work, so that she only had to face her husband in the evenings as he sat on the sofa watching television. Typically, she would drive home from work, cook dinner for the two of them and they would watch television or she would go into the other room and do some sewing or knitting. Although she never did seek a divorce, she was looking forward to taking the time to travel to see her children and grandchildren and to engage in some art courses and hobbies away from home and perhaps volunteering at the local hospital. She now had the free time to plan her days as she desired and she hoped to spend as much time away from her husband as possible. As often occurs in life, just as she was transitioning into a hopeful phase, the unexpected happened. Her husband was diagnosed with a terminal disease.

Sonja was the only caretaker available to him, as her children and grandchildren lived in other states and countries. As her husband, Frank, was being discharged from the hospital, frail, incontinent, and unable to clothe or feed himself, the hospital staff and physician needed to secure that she would, indeed, be his caretaker, and they gave her directions for oxygen use, changing of diapers, and so forth. The hospital staff wheeled Frank to Sonja’s car and the rest was up to Sonja.

Frank was no longer abusive at this point of his life. Although he never formally apologized for this past actions, he did express gratitude for her support. As Sonja spent her days, tired and weak herself with age, attending to Frank’s care, she was unable to lift herself up from under a heavy veil of regret and resentment. She found herself snapping at Frank and feeling like she wanted to treat him the way that he had treated her all those years, now that he was vulnerable. This frightened Sonja, as she had spent her entire life as a devout Catholic, and she was ashamed at herself for having these feelings. She sought counsel with her local priest and with a mental health professional.

Now, many of us hearing this story would ask why she stayed with him in the first place. We also might ask why Sonja was so uncomfortable with her own, legitimate, feelings, when she accepted the role of caretaker to her husband and previous abuser? If we explore this story from a systemic point of view, we can explore the different systems that impact Sonja’s experience, such as culture, socioeconomic status, religion, age, able-bodied-ness and so forth. Next, we must understand the nuances and entrapments of abuse. There is much literature to support that these types of relationships are extremely difficult to change and/or to leave without substantial psychological and social support.

Under different circumstances with a different kind of support system, she would have had the guidance and courage to leave a toxic and abusive situation, yet here she was, accepting her role, but overridden with strong feelings of anger and resentment for which she did not know how to address.

So Sonja was trapped, in a sense, but not by her situation. She was trapped by the ruminations of her own mind regarding her own memories. Should she forgive her husband? Should she forgive herself for treating herself so badly by staying in a toxic environment for so many years and for having angry and resentful thoughts and feelings? I would say that the answer is a resounding YES!

Sonja was fortunate enough to have some professional support that assisted her in coming to the realization that she is the only one who can heal herself. She was guided into accepting her anger as a normal part of her experience and then letting it dissolve and become a small and managed piece in the mosaic of all of the other aspects of herself.

 First she asked herself “Who am I, really? Is “abused wife” my identity, or am I so much more than that? What is my actual suffering about here? Is my issue “him” or is my issue how I am relating to my feelings? How can I shift the way that I am relating to my feelings? What is the larger scenario here?

Sonja realized that the first thing she needed to do was to take responsibility for her own life and her own actions. She had lived most of her life believing that she had no power or control over her abuse or her situation. She realized now that she had done the best that she could, given her knowledge, level of awareness at the time, and resources. Just as she would give to one of her children if they were suffering with self-criticism, she offered love and acceptance to herself. Once she began to practice offering unconditional love to herself and saying “I love you” as she would to a child, things began to shift for her. As she was able to experience forgiveness for that part of herself that should have protected the more vulnerable part, her heart opened in a way that she had never experienced before. This was not an easy process. It took some time. Sonja would “catch” herself in her negative ruminations, witness what was happening in her thoughts and emotions, softly give these experiences a label, such as “aversion,” and notice how that particular piece passed once it was mindfully noticed and accepted as a thought or emotion and not as her identity.

Sonja actually began to feel gratitude for her current life situation. Had it not been for her current circumstances, she may not have found this window of opportunity for changing her own relationship to herself. She began to experience her husband as a fellow human being who was suffering, not as the abusive brute she once saw him as. Her memories and rumination regarding past events could have strangled her own vitality. Instead, a certain grace was present in her day to day interactions with Frank and with herself and others.

As it turned out, Frank lived longer than his prognosis predicted, although he still needed 24 hour care. As Sonja found acceptance and healing of herself, it was much easier to go through this process with Frank and to help him regain and die with the dignity that he had long forgotten in his troubled youth.

Tags: care taking, forgiveness and abuse, heart centeredness, Relationships, self-forgiveness

As you reflect on any situations that come to mind from your life, take a moment to ask yourself the following questions:

v     Have I said something sarcastic to a friend or loved one recently?

v     What did I really want from our relationship in that moment?

v     What did I want the person to know about me? About my feelings or thoughts regarding something they said or did?

v     Did I want to express that I was disappointed about something or that I was feeling sad about something?

            With these considerations, can you imagine an alternative way that you might have behaved toward that person? How might you have behaved? What might you have said instead of the sarcastic comment? Write this out.

            You may want to keep certain reflections in a specially chosen box. Give this reflection a name. For instance, you can refer to this piece as “Sarcasm Check-In,” with the suggestion to yourself that the next time you feel the impulse toward a sarcastic remark toward a friend or loved one (or anyone, for that matter), remember this reflection and check in with yourself before reacting with a hurtful comment.

            Know that it is natural to have these different “shadow” voices within, so don’t judge yourself harshly. This reflective exercise and personal check in, is an example of treating yourself with a forgiving attitude. It is easy to see how, by extending an accepting yet forgiving attitude toward yourself by checking in with your innermost feelings, this attitude naturally begins to translate to your treatment of others as well. That is the beauty of how forgiveness works in the world.

Tags: forgiveness practices, Relationships

Needless to say, you will face challenges that strain your tranquility. A few small steps can help you weather these storms.

• Watch and accept the activity as it emerges into your field of awareness, and do so without judgment.

• Name it.

• Take a deep breath.

• Allow the activity to naturally pass from your field of awareness, just as quickly as it emerged.

• Notice what else enters your field of awareness.

           In her work with people who are literally in the last stages of life, Kathleen Dowling Singh has observed that self-forgiveness is important in creating an essential level of peace in those who are dying. As people look back over their lives they gradually come to recognize that they will no longer have the time or ability to change things. Things must stand as they are. The illusion of control is abandoned. The dreams of making amends slip away. And the next thing that emerges is forgiveness of themselves. Singh speaks of it with great respect, when she says that, in these people who find self-forgiveness,

 “a new capacity for compassion arises, for others and for our self, as well as a growing clarity, deepened experience of pure existence, and an increased capacity to intuit the truth.”

            Others who work in hospice care have observed the same, remarkable healing process in those who are faced with the end of their lives. It may be that the intensity of the final weeks of dying accelerates the process of forgiveness.

Brain/cognitive studies and spirituality studies are beginning to cross over into investigating forgiveness. This is a positive movement. A researcher in Italy, Dr. Pietro Pietrini, at the University of Pisa Medical School, is studying the neural basis of forgiveness. Berry & Worthington are attempting to explore forgiveness as a trait and are finding that those with higher levels of baseline cortisol in their blood are less forgiving than those with lower levels of cortisol. The good news is that this can change.

Given that positive connections have been found between forgiveness and psychological and physical health and that evidence shows that forgiveness intervention can reduce depression and anger, it is crucial that we continue to investigate how emotions and negative narratives impact forgiveness. In the study I conducted regarding forgiveness and divorce, anger and depression stood out to be the most powerfully related variables to lack of self-forgiveness and forgiveness of the ex-spouse.

For those who doubt the power of forgiveness, the added benefit of using technology is intriguing. Just look at the work that is being done at The HeartMath Institute and you will see some pretty solid evidence. It is conceivable that researchers could be able to monitor people through the process of divorce and view the changing biochemistry of emotions at various points in time in regard to forgiveness.

For those interested in finding out more about integrating psychology and technology, an interesting website to visit is drdanstaso.blogspot.com.

In relation to forgiveness in the context of divorce, evidence suggests that it is important to address wounds of divorce while they are fresh. It is clear that depression and anger can linger on into the later stages of divorce and life in general. The findings from my study on forgiveness and divorce suggest that depression negatively affects our ability to forgive both ourselves and others.

State anger, or the kind of anger that is temporary and related to the situation, negatively affects our ability to forgive others for the period of time that we are focused on negative appraisals of the situation and person. The most harmful of all is trait anger, though, or the kind of anger that turns inward and becomes deeply ingrained into our sense of self and expectations of the world. This kind of anger can become part of our personality and it is particularly detrimental in relation to the capacity for self-forgiveness.

The time just after divorce can provide a window of opportunity for exploring alternative thought/feeling patterns and reinforcing them so that they become part of a new understanding of your life. A new frame on life can allow the story of your past to rest within you, yet invite a fresh chapter that both includes and transcends the past.

Learning and practicing mindfulness and forgiveness helps in gaining a sense of internal locus of control and a mature pathway for dealing with anger, and this improves our emotional and physical health and the lives of those we touch.

Take some moments to notice the patterns of your breathing and to notice, without judgment or attachment, painful or joyful experiences that trickle through you. This is the beginning of what it means to be mindful. Mindfulness naturally nurtures compassion. Out of compassion comes an easier road to forgiveness of self and others. There are particular forgiveness or compassion-building practices that you can engage in, if you so choose.

My favorite practice is metta, or lovingkindness meditation. For further information and training in metta practice, a couple of pioneers in bringing this ancient practice into current hearts are Jack Kornfield and Sharon Salzberg. Lovingkindness meditation involves centering in the heart and envisioning loving intention for yourself, for significant others, and expanding loving intention even to strangers and to those for whom it is difficult to do so. You focus your attention to expand this feeling of lovingkindness to the entire world, to existence itself. It is an extremely powerful practice. I highly recommend it.

The importance of engaging in these types of practices cannot be stressed enough. The divorce rate in the United States continues to remain at high levels. More violence is committed in domestic cases than in any other. Hate and revenge continue to destroy lives. In light of this, it is important for us to continue to explore how forgiveness affects divorce and to consciously engage in practices that both include and transcend our prior histories.

Again, forgiveness is not condoning, nor does it mean that you enter back into an abusive or toxic situation or that you even have contact with another. It is a gesture of impartial beneficence. In moving the direction of your attention to this impartial beneficent stance, you will walk differently in the world, with more confidence and integrity, and it will greatly improve your life and the lives of others.

Tags: divorce, Forgiveness, metta lovingkindness

The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven.
John Milton, Paradise Lost

          In The Power of Now, visionary Eckhart Tolle talks about building a cradle of compassion in your heart. He says there is no other time than the present moment, no better time than right now. If we desire to make forgiveness a part of our lives, we can only benefit from building and nurturing such a cradle in our hearts.
          The question is, how do we create a place of compassion within us that has such tangible solidity that we might come to think of it as a cradle?An infant’s very first home is the cradle. This is where we first experience separation from our mothers and begin to find within ourselves the building blocks of self-soothing we’ll need to weather the pains and disappointments of life.
          Much of the work of forgiveness involves building the skills and the restructuring of feelings, thoughts, behavior and the related neuronal structures in a virtual re-parenting of yourself, so let’s use the metaphor of building a cradle in which to hold your newfound compassion.
          We often feel a profound compassion for those who have lost their homes in fires, floods, earthquakes, war, or loss of a job. Many people go through extreme efforts to donate their time and money for foundations such as Habitat for Humanity to make sure that at least some suffering people can experience life with a roof over their heads and basic needs met.
          Each time you are faced with a situation that challenges your capacity for compassion is an opportunity to build and polish this cradle that you are building for yourself. Think of building this cradle out of pieces of fine quality materials that are put together in such a way that the cradle is beautiful and sturdy, like a fine ship floating upon the vast water of the ever changing sea, just like the sea of emotions, words, and actions that we observe in ourselves and others as each hour goes by in a day.

            For a direct example of using symbols in nature to work with anger and forgiveness, I offer an approach that my friend, Pete, has shared. It started with an idea he had one day years ago and it has turned into a visualization he will often use to assist him in letting go of attachments to negative ruminations about wrongdoings.

            One day many years ago, Pete could not stop ruminating about a man at his work place who had metaphorically stabbed him in the back and who subsequently was given a promotion that Pete had deserved. As he ruminated about this individual and all of his wrongdoings, he started remembering unkind or manipulative things that others had done to him as well. Pretty soon he was filled with anger and it was getting in the way of his functioning.

            Pete grew tired of his own repetitive reactions and the way he felt when consumed by anger and resentment. He lived near the ocean and he decided to “take a walk to the sea and do some thinking.” As he walked, he thought “You know what I should do? Get a whole bunch of rocks, write the person’s name on each rock and visualize the person, what they had said, and then let it drop in the water and go to the bottom, one rock at a time.”

            As he proceeded to do this, to write a person’s name on each rock, visualize the person and what they had said, and to let each rock drop in the water and go to the bottom, he would say to himself “I don’t need that memory anymore. Goodbye!” He would watch the rock float to the bottom and say “No need to try to float that rock again. It already sunk to the bottom. It’s gone! Nothing is going to make that rock float again. I sunk that rock!”

            He has surprised himself by realizing that even now, years later, he will imagine doing that small ritual and that “it has become a guided visualization of healing” for him. In addition, whenever the memory of one of those people resurfaces, he sees that person’s rock sinking to the bottom and says again “It’s gone! Nothing is going to make that rock float again. I sunk that rock!”