The 7 Lessons of Spiritual Growth, Part 1: Forgiving

Why is it necessary to forgive? How does forgiveness allow us to grow spiritually? For too long, I used to feel deep anger towards a couple of people who hurt me intensely when I was a little girl. And I remember frequently hearing words like: “Forgiveness sets you free,” “Forgiving is for your own good, not for those who hurt you.”

Although I sensed they were sensible, I couldn't grasp the true meaning in those phrases. Thankfully, I recently came across a book of wisdom titled “The Four Agreements” by Don Miguel Ruiz, and albeit it does not specifically deal with forgiveness, it implies it in one of the agreements: “Don't take anything personal.”

I know not taking anything personally sounds very difficult or even impossible and probably leads us to ask ourselves questions such as: How could I ever forgive a rapist, or a murderer? How could I not take personal offense in something as serious as sexual abuse?

One of the reasons I had those questions in mind is because, when I was a four-year old girl, I myself fell victim of sexual abuse by a family member, and I got permanently haunted by the thought that it was just too horrific to forgive. However, when I “accidentally” embarked on this wonderful path of spirituality in my search for physical health, I got to understand that key to not taking anything personally—and therefore, forgiving—is what Don Miguel Ruiz says in his book about not passing judgment on others, for we must remember that we are all in this world doing the best we can, with the tools we have. And while we all come to this world lacking instructions on how to live, some of us were blessed with the grace of intuition or had people in our lives who knew how to guide us with love, just to mention a couple of these tools. We must remember that some people are not as fortunate as others, for they haven't found the tools we have at our disposal and it's very likely that the same thing those people did upon you, someone else did upon them.

Furthermore, I believe we all deserve to get to a point in which we are no longer victims and, to get there, we should stop asking ourselves “Why did that happen to me?” instead of “How did this experience help me become the person I am today, and what did I learn from it?” If we manage to see how the experience or the wound that someone caused us changed us for the better, even if the event was so traumatic or painful, we will set us free from the resentment or hatred we hold against that person.

If you want to give forgiveness a try, my proposal is for you to change your focus: Instead of striving to forgive someone in particular, think about the benefits doing so would bring to your life; imagine how it would feel to be free of such a burden, and remember what you learned from the wound. This way, you'll find that forgiveness will come naturally, and that you'll no longer have to strive for it.

Staying angry with a person takes a lot of energy from us; I know from personal experience that getting stuck in anger is extrmely draining and it robs us of our personal enpowerment. Are you beginning to realize how forgiveness works to our benefit? Forgiveness is a way of preserving our energy—zeal that we can put to much better use.

Now, before we undertake the difficult task of forgiving someone else, I'm convinced we must first forgive ourselves. How could I offer to someone else something I haven't had for myself? To forgive ourselves, we just need to do the same thing we would do to forgive someone else, and in doing so, we live trough a transformative and extremely liberating experience. Remember not to be hard on yourself, not to criticize, and not to judge yourself because, at the time, you did the best you could with the tools you had at hand.

If you come to think about something you could have done better in the past, or remember about a time you hurt someone else, ask yourself the following: What did I learn from this experience?

When you find the answer to this question, I bet you'll understand that this experience was necessary for your own growth and that it brought you to where you are today, and by reconing this, allowing forgiveness to yourself will no longer be any hard for you.