That F-word Forgiveness

Forgiveness has been on my mind lately. Also, thoughts about overcoming fear and moving towards peace.

Of these three, it is forgiveness that I am drawn to. So, it being a New Year and all, this is the word I am choosing for this year.

A New Year holds so much possibility. You are about to start a new chapter in your book of life – a blank slate to be filled with whatever you want. And right on queue, that built-in renewal prompt kicks in and compels us to make New Year’s resolutions, dream about the year ahead, set our intentions and goals, or simply fine-tune what we already have.

A Word for Guidance

I like the idea of some of the members of my coaching group. They are choosing a word to guide them through the next twelve months. The idea is that you pick a word that makes you feel expanded. A word that excites you, encourages you, inspires you.

Some words that have been shared are PLENTY, MIRACLE, and CONNECTION.

I chose FORGIVENESS.

This is not one of my favourite words.

It gets a bad press and it is a word that comes with so much baggage.

Colin Tipping of Radical Forgiveness fame and others have written piles of books on forgiveness and here I am wanting to blog about it in under a thousand words.

Forgiveness makes me think that someone wants something from me. Something I’m not keen to give. After all, if they need my forgiveness, they must have done something to upset me right? Otherwise, what is the point of me forgiving them? I am not sure I want to let them off the hook that easily. It is asking a bit much, is it not?

This is the kind of thinking that gives forgiveness a bad name. All that baggage I mentioned earlier.

You’re on the hook and they go free!

There is another side to forgiveness; a side that does not come to us so easily. And that is that the baggage we attach to the word, is baggage we carry around with us. Like a burden we carry on our backs, it zaps our energy. If we carry that upset and its fallout with us; whether it is anger, resentment, anxiety, worry, or hostility, it is ultimate us who pay the price.

And as more upsets happen in our life, that burden gets heavier and heavier, weighing us down in ways we probably don’t recognise or even connect to: Depression, anger issues, weight, high blood pressure and who knows what other aches and pains and diseases.

So this is why we want to forgive. Not to let the other person off the hook, but to free ourselves from that burden. Those unresolved emotions and issues eat at the heart of us, not the person we have the issue with. They go free. It is you who develop the scowl, the high blood pressure, the ulcer, the sleepless nights…

That does not mean true forgiveness is easy. That is why the likes of Colin Tipping can write and teach so much about forgiveness. It is the way to greater well-being, the way to peace and the way back to your Self.

It starts with seeing things differently.

Yes. Forgiveness is my word for this year.