To forgive others when they have harmed us is a brave thing to do. It releases anger and resentment, opens our hearts, and heals relationships.
But what about asking for forgiveness when we have hurt others? What’s involved? Asking for forgiveness implies acknowledging that I did something wrong and am sorry for it. But it also implies that I will do my best not to do it again. If we don’t make a sincere effort to not do it again, nothing changes.
This is hugely important in the minefield of our relationships where the smallest word or action can cause so much disharmony. But it can be tricky.
Our partner, for example. There we are, living together in close proximity, an environment that can be fraught with problems, where the smallest thing can blow up out of all proportion. It’s so easy to get annoyed, and before you know it there’s shouting and harsh words. Then we spend the rest of day knotted up with guilt and can’t wait to rush home and ask him to forgive us.
Sounds good – but is it? Apologizing, asking for forgiveness, is fantastic. But our neurotic guilt, along with our craving for his approval, distort everything. Guilt necessarily over-exaggerates our role in the fight, and compelled by our neediness and our fear of rejection, we beg for forgiveness.
If it’s like this, it’s not coming from the best place within us. There’s just this huge relief that he hasn’t rejected me and a feeling that he’s let me off the hook.
But this is not enough. So often we assume that a person’s forgiveness fixes the problem, but it doesn’t. The person’s forgiveness heals them, not us! What truly heals us is accountability for our own actions, a genuine regret that I’ve harmed the other person and a sincere wish not to do it again. Forgiveness is just a bonus.
What if they don’t forgive? What then? In just the same way that a person’s forgiveness benefits them, a person’s inability to forgive harms them. It doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with us. As painful as it is, as long as we sincerely regret what we’ve done, we must accept this, learn from our mistakes, love the person for who they are, and move forward.
Another painful scenario is in relation to our parents, let’s say, who have passed away. As we get older we naturally mature and start to regret the things we did when we were younger: our unkindness, or even our rejection of them. And now that they’ve passed away we can’t ask them to forgive us. This can be unbearable.
But here, too, we must remember that if we do sincerely regret the suffering we caused them and promise to not do it again to others, then we have healed ourselves. There is no benefit in becoming depressed and thinking that because our parents aren’t there to forgive us that somehow the business is unfinished. (Anyway, according to Buddha, we will definitely meet them again, so all is not lost!)
What if the person we upset is extra sensitive and perceives harm where there isn’t any? What should we do then? Our first instinct is to feel it’s not fair, that we didn’t do anything wrong. That might be so, but knowing that that’s just the way they are, it’s far better to kindly apologize and ask for forgiveness rather than feeling resentful.
So, however we look at it, giving forgiveness and asking for it is brave and noble, healing our own hearts and the hearts of others.