Forgiveness, Revisited

In this episode, Jerry revisits and reflects on the concept of forgiveness, exploring its complexities and the importance of personal growth. He discusses the limitations of unilateral forgiveness and emphasizes that true forgiveness is a process that requires understanding and personal investment. Jerry also highlights the significance of letting go of past hurts and the need for meaningful change in relationships.

Transcript

Jerry (00:01.26)
Hey, good morning, good afternoon, good evening. This is Jerry with Showing Up. It's been a while. It's so nice to be with you again and be with me again and be here together again. am kickstarting this podcast, revitalizing it as a number of changes are happening, which I will reveal in time regarding some exciting projects to come.

But for right now, what I thought would be truly interesting, given the fact that I have a new website that I have removed my blog from because people wanted to see stuff, hear stuff, not so much read stuff. And I, what I've done is where I used to have my blog on my new website is now a whole bunch of music, songlists.

to listen to depending upon what mood you're in and what you need. You can check out my website at www .thesandsoftime .net. Thesandsoftime .net. And if you go to the media page, you'll see exactly what I'm talking about. But it had several years of things that I'd written about on my old website and the suggestion was made to me, don't just re -import them. Some of the things you wrote might've been more...

timely or important or good than other things you wrote. So I was able to retrieve them and go through them. And what I'm going to selectively do is pull ones out that seemed important at the time, read them and see if I still think the same way. Do you ever do that? Do you ever take a look at how you felt even just a couple of years ago before so many things happening? I mean,

consider everything is happening in the world right now. This is a, an article I wrote for the blog, January 13th, 2021. We were not even past our first year into COVID yet. Our world had been upended and so many things were different. So I thought I would take a look and share with you what I was writing and talking about.

Jerry (02:27.062)
with regards to the concept of forgiveness. Forgiveness is a good one. And I also stumbled upon another article that I didn't write from the Washington Post. It's a story by Susan Shapiro called Eight Times It Might Be Healthier Not to Forgive. So we'll take a look at that together and see what we've got.

For the curious, yes, my work continues doing boot camps about essential relational skills with my cowork partner from Salt Lake City, Christy Gaysford, and I are doing that in the month of September, October, November in New York City, Western Massachusetts and Salt Lake City. And I'm doing a boot camp at Sarah Lawrence College in February of 2025. So exciting things are happening as far as I'm concerned.

Your life is going well if you have lot of choices and directions to put your energy, so I'm grateful. I also stumbled upon my notes for the first episode of Showing Up. Just the intro. And I don't even remember if I used this, but I'll use it now. Showing up is not waking up. The coffee, the sweet morning, the moments when we have ourselves to ourselves.

Showing up is what we try to do the rest of the day when the others come in, even others we love. When the world comes in, we try to show up as grownups the best we can. It's easy to get stupid, isn't it? Look around. Thank you for joining me. It's time for something new. Well, okay, it's still time for something new.

Having said that, here's what I wrote.

Jerry (04:19.842)
I've been thinking a lot about the concept of forgiveness. Maybe this is spurred by the holiday season and so many clients encounters with their families of origin at holiday gatherings. A number of clients have told me about family members they haven't seen or forgiven in two, five, or 17 years. Forgiveness

is rich soil for us all. There's no shortage of offenses committed upon us, past and present. I've been thinking about the limitations of forgiveness when I glanced in passing at a CNN headline in the opinion section that asked, quote, Should we forgive Bill Cosby? Wow. Wow.

I was mortified that anyone would think it was important whether I should forgive quote unquote Bill Cosby. I've never had any interactions with him beyond listening to his first comedy album and enjoying it a lot as a kid. This is a popular thread in our culture these days.

that we should consider forgiving people and or their actions. And it seems deeply wrong -headed to me. Why? Because forgiveness as a community is fairly meaningless when there's no personal investment, no apology from the offending party, and no understanding between both parties. It's akin to saying gesundheit after someone sneezes.

Forgiveness to be meaningful is actually a deep personal process. Personally, the process of forgiveness should be initiated by a request for forgiveness. Once received, the person at the receiving end can find oneself reviewing whatever the incident was in the first place, resulting in an upsurge of angry, vengeful feelings and desires. We confront ugly things often.

Jerry (06:33.506)
by responding in a viscerally angry way. Revenge would feel delightful, we think. Ask Bill Cosby's 15 Accusers. As we work through the process on a personal level, we come to understand ourselves better and respect our own stories. The request for forgiveness, isn't enough.

The person requesting it has to show that they understand the awfulness of their actions and have a sense of the hurt it has caused others. The absence of this is what makes so many celebrity mea culpa's meaningless. Quote, I'm sorry if anyone took offense at my actions, unquote. That simply can be read or understood as a gripe and protest about the fact that people are so sensitive these days.

People also commonly confuse an understanding of possible causes for the behavior as being equivalent to an explanation, quote unquote, that merits forgiveness. Charles Manson may have had a difficult childhood, but it doesn't mean anyone other than his therapist or immediate family members should forgive his actions when he hasn't even asked for that.

I'm familiar with the argument that failure to forgive keeps us somehow spiritually imprisoned. The suggestion to unilaterally recognize the soul of the other person, the damage within them, and the commonality of our own souls and damage is not a bad one. But the suggestion of this constitutes forgiveness.

doesn't seem valid to me. As a concept or practice, unilateral unsolicited forgiveness isn't anything I'd advocate for anyone whom I worked with. Let me say that again. As a concept or practice, unilateral unsolicited quote forgiveness unquote isn't anything I'd advocate for with anyone I worked with.

Jerry (08:57.25)
How then does anyone ever get free from past hurts?

A letting go is in order. Probably no better example exists in our times of someone who decides to let go and move on than Nelson Mandela. After 27 years of imprisonment for advocating revolutionary change in the racist apartheid system of South Africa, he emerged a free man. Having told his followers that quote, resentment is like drinking poison.

hoping it will kill your enemies." He seemed to intuitively understand that the best way forward for him was to unclench and let go of the whole miserable enterprise that tried to crush him. This wasn't forgiveness. This was good sense and enlightened self -interest. He's also said to have remarked,

that if he walked out of that prison with bitterness in his heart towards his jailers, he would remain in prison there forever. Once again, he focused on himself and his own healing. Other people had their own healing work to do, which they might never get to. The same is true for us with our relatives, the family members who so hurt us.

misunderstood us, mischaracterized our motivations, insulted us, spread untruths about us. It is not necessary to forgive them when they aren't even asking for that. It's a good idea, though, for us to move on from those family shackles, to walk into the sunlight ourselves without bitterness. Nelson Mandela said it far better than anyone else I've read, quote,

Jerry (10:54.858)
If you are carrying the burden of hate, anger, pain, bitterness over what someone has done to you, I ask you, what are you gaining from this state? What are the benefits? What are the losses? What are the missed opportunities you've experienced from this state of living? Have compassion for yourself and put that burden down and feel the lightness of being and see the difference.

Jerry (11:26.583)
Well...

I like it. It's nice to not be surprised and understand that that's something that actually has continued to inform my work. And when I find people doing what we call a kind of spiritual bypass of just saying, I forgive so -and -so who hasn't asked for forgiveness. When what they really mean is I need to and want to move on from this episode of my life.

I still do work this way. And I think sometimes we like to say we are forgiving because of, what's the phrase? Virtue signaling, right? Isn't that the phrase? That it makes us look and sound like the better person, but it's not, if that's meaningful for you, okay. It's not for me.

Here's this article eight times. I might be healthier not to forgive She notes something similar what I was saying. This is again Appeared in the Washington Post. What is the date? I? Can't see the date on it. I'm sorry. It's called eight times. It might be healthier not to forgive. It's by Susan Shapiro She observes there's a forgiveness industry of books coaches TED Talks and other people promoting

radical exoneration. Yet after a decade researching the concept of forgiving for a book on the topic, I found that pardoning people too quickly can often be harmful and self -destructive, especially when it comes to trauma. Here's a list of situations in which it's better not to forgive and forget.

Jerry (13:18.69)
One, if prejudice is involved. And she offers the example of hearing a homophobic story, the mother relayed, and the person made the decision to move away and waited years to come out to her, only reconnecting after she accepted him fully after hearing homophobic prejudice. So that was not involving forgiveness.

You never have to put yourself in a place where you're unfairly persecuted for who you are, said the psychiatrist. Two, when you aren't ready, terrible time to offer forgiveness. Three, when sorry isn't sufficient, most victims of mass persecutions can't forgive their oppressors.

Jerry (14:16.224)
Yeah, Emmanuel Mandel, Holocaust survivor living in Maryland, noted to me that the Nazis who slaughtered his relatives weren't the ones who apologized for killing six million Jews. The reparations Germany offered, however, greatly helped his family.

and he appreciated that. Four, if there's no regret or repairs.

They talk about injustices suffered by Bosnian Muslims and traumatic war experiences. Five, when conditions aren't met.

Jerry (14:59.924)
Yeah, after a drunk driver killed Gary Weinstein's wife and two sons, he asked the court to take away the man's driver's license forever. And he waited until the judge agreed before he publicly forgave the driver.

In her book, A Good Apology, Boston psychologist Molly Howes says, effectively apologizing must acknowledge the offense, explain what happened, express remorse and offer reparations. And you can ask for specific compensations or hold off till they're satisfied. Six, if personal safety is compromised. Seven, when forgiving could endanger others.

Jerry (15:45.546)
and eight before you have all the information.

These are solidly good points. The impulse, the emotional impulse to forgive speaks to kind of a higher self, higher self in us that we would love to role model, set as a tone, set as a tone for our relationships with others. You know, be the change you want to see in the world.

I'm not saying that any of that is a bad idea. And in fact, I do think that role modeling health and showing people who are unhealthy, even those close to you, what health looks like through good boundaries and standing up for yourself with warm regard. That's the way to go. That is much more important than saying, forgive you. And again,

Forgiveness like anything meaningful is a process of change, not a moment. It's not a, I forgive you moment. It's more seeing the change has happened with the person who did the offense. And that takes a while. So I would say the next time you're thinking about just saying it, take a minute.

there's that acronym that many therapists have up on their wall. It says W A I T wait, and it stands for why am I talking? Why am I talking? The person who did the offense should be talking. If I'm speaking more than they are, if I'm providing more emotional positivity than they are,

Jerry (17:44.242)
something's screwy here and I'm going to stop and I'm going to be quiet and I'm allowed to think about all of this including being able to say let me get back to you I'm processing this this is a lot for me to process let me get back to you I'll be the one to approach you about this when I've got something figured out that

feels right and healthy for me and is right to say. It's so much more meaningful to me than I forgive you. So that's kind of my thought for the day. That's sort of the beginning of bringing back these old blogs and seeing if the ideas still hold up. Wow, Bill Cosby. How many more contemporary versions of Bill Cosby have we had since then? And how many more?

Hundreds and thousands of people out there need to be forgiven and how about the ones who just do bad things and feel no shame and no remorse and how about those who hide behind the internet and anonymity to Hurt others all the time just to laugh about it. We've got some really hurting times happening and it is incumbent upon us to be the best version of ourselves

But that doesn't mean just walking around saying, I forgive this and I forgive that. Anyway, thanks for hanging in there with me. I'll be back. I will be having guests from time to time and I'll certainly be having my every four year, wonderfully goofy election show with all the sound effects that I can find the downloads from with the big board and all the experts we spoke to. If you want to check back about the last election on the archives here, please do.

I hope all my correspondents in the field will come back to enlighten us as election day approaches. That will be a huge goofy one, but we'll have some other podcasts between now and then. take the best care of yourself and be the best version of yourself you can be. See you next time.