A confession: I am still mad at the guy who called me fat in the sixth grade. If I sit and think about it for long enough, I can get really worked up about my date’s behavior at an ill-fated homecoming dance that happened five years ago. And even though it was one of the politest break-up conversations in the history of mankind, I still feel wronged by a relationship that didn’t go how I thought it would (spoiler alert: we did not, in fact, get married).
Recently I recognized that this tendency to hold grudges, while oddly satisfying (sometimes it feels so good, so human, to revel in resentment), is inhibiting. It requires a lot of mental energy to stay frustrated with someone for years on end. And, like the scar tissue in my back, resentment calcifies with time, becoming progressively more difficult to break down. If you want to loosen up those knots, you have to dig deep.
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This realization was an important first step, but then I stumbled upon an even more sobering one. I need to forgive these people, I thought. Wait… But how do you forgive someone? Especially if it’s gotten easy, comfortable even, to not forgive them?
It felt silly, but I actually typed “how to forgive someone” into Bing and attacked my question the way any self-respecting, “intellectual” liberal arts college student would—I researched it and took notes.
And the internet didn’t let me down.
I compiled a forgiveness process based on the articles I read. It’s unsettling to challenge your own thoughts, but as I write my way through these five steps with each person I need to forgive, I feel lighter and more in tune with my place in the universe. Below is the first round of forgiveness I undertook with my new found method.
The situation: After struggling to think of a meaningful, actually useful Valentine’s Day gift for a high school boyfriend, one of my friends saved me by suggesting I give him a wallet and fill it with cute memorabilia like photos and a note.This was a brilliant idea, I thought, because my boyfriend didn’t even have a wallet. So I took it one step further and made him a duct tape wallet; I watched some YouTube tutorials and then spent several hours learning how to cut and manipulate duct tape, an unwieldy medium at best. When I gave him the finished product, complete with a photo, drawing, and letter tucked in the pockets, he thanked me, of course.
And then nothing happened, which was the problem. He didn’t use the wallet.
Not only did he never carry it, but a couple of months later we went to get ice cream and he pulled out another wallet.
Instead of calling him out or at least asking about the one I made, I just simmered inside, hurt and affronted at the same time. I know that it’s petty, but even though this happened years ago, I’m still pissed about the wallet.
The steps:
- Commit
If you buy in to these two mantras, your path to forgiveness will be much easier. First, forgiving someone does not necessarily condone what happened; it’s a way of understanding it.This idea becomes more important in situations where the offense is serious—stealing, vandalism, cheating, etc.—because forgiving someone does not mean you are implying that their actions were ethical or “right”; it is instead changing how you view them. Second, you cannot love without being vulnerable. Grudges create barriers that will impede your quest to trust in new relationships. So my longstanding aggravation about the wallet incident does not exist in a vacuum. As long as I’m unhappy about it (and other similar “screw-ups”), I will not be able to give fully to someone else.
2. Recognition
You must let go of your “right” to get even. This is a challenge for me, but I realized that the reason that the wallet situation seems so important is because I thought I deserved something—his appreciation—and I didn’t receive it. Logically speaking, he probably should have used the wallet. But looking back, focusing on what I perceive as “unjust” only leaves me unhappy; furthermore, conceiving of gift-giving in terms of what the recipient “owes” the giver afterward is downright toxic. Also, it’s cliché but true: the past already happened. You cannot change the events, but you can change how you interpret them.
3. Empathy
Remember: we are all humans, struggling to make our way through the joys and pitfalls of life. We make mistakes. Ask yourself: was the person (the so-called “offender”) having a difficult time in their life? Even better, are you even in a position to know everything in their life that contributed to their actions? The answer to that question should be “No.” This line of thought may seem like an imagination game, but if you can think of hypothetical reasons for why the other person acted the way that they did, you are on your way to empathy. For instance, what if my boyfriend lost the wallet I gave him? Or, what if the duct tape aesthetic wasn’t his vibe but he was too polite to tell me? Questions like these don’t justify him; they’re just a way of admitting that there’s almost always more going on than you can know. The empathy question that truly humbles me is this one: Have you ever made the same mistake?
My mother once gave me a stylish tennis skirt from a popular athletic company. However, because I was in my anti-brand name phase and somehow failed to register how excited she was about its cute cut and color, I made her return it. It’s embarrassing to even think about, let alone write it where others can read it. But it’s healthy to remember that I am guilty of ungratefulness far worse than that of my boyfriend because it reminds me that a) the intentions of the giver do not guarantee the reaction of the recipient and b) many people, including him, have handled awkward gift situations better than I did.
4. Learn
You can be a victim of what happened, or you can study it. Examine your anger. What, specifically, is bothering you? What is the root cause? Then, look for the benefits of the experience. How did it make you a better person? Conversely, what does it demonstrate about your weaknesses? And finally, what can you do to improve the situation? How will forgiveness benefit you?
My bitterness about the wallet stems from how I’ve been focused on what “should” have happened; that bitterness also exemplifies how I tend to internalize disappointment rather than talking about it. Forgiveness offers a way out of discontent and is conducive to introspection. Crafting with duct tape will probably never be my passion, but I now appreciate its role in my search for peace with the past.
