Forgiveness- Experiencing Freedom

I’ve been hurt. I’ve been broken. I’ve been belittled. I’ve been cheated on. I’ve been manipulated. I’ve been emotionally abused. I know what it’s like to be taken advantage of. I know what it feels like to be disappointed. I know what it’s like to hold a grudge. 

I have many stories of resentment, but I also know what it’s like to forgive. Here’s one of those stories. 

I was a very active kid. A diagnosis of ADD would have certainly been true had I been tested. School was very difficult for me early on. I couldn’t focus or sit still. My parents were concerned about me and got me involved with different sports such as soccer, baseball, swimming lessons, wrestling, and Taekwondo, hoping I’d come to control myself. All these activities I quit after a few years doing them. My parents still jokingly remind me of a time I was playing in a baseball game and standing in the outfield bored out of my mind waiting for a ball to get hit to me. I would toss my glove up in the air and catch it as a way to distract from my boredom. I just couldn’t stand still in one place. One time I got so bored I remember picking some grass on the field and decided to put it on my head like I had green hair. At least it gave me something to do!

There is one sport that kept me attentive though: basketball. It was a high-paced game that involved strategy, endurance, speed, quickness, strength, flexibility and teamwork. Since I was a young boy I had been highly involved with basketball. I was a slasher and got the majority of my points driving to the basket and off fast breaks. My dad involved me with a team of kids my age, and we grew up together as really close friends. We won over 80% of our games and earned first place in many tournaments. My dad used to display the championship trophies in his classroom, and I loved going in there to look at them. My dad would take us to high school games to watch the older players. Watching the athletes dominate their competition, we were inspired for our own future. We often talked about how cool it would be to warm up to the band playing and hear our names called during the starting lineups. We had a goal that we would win the state championship when we were seniors.

When we got into middle school we were excited to represent our school. When it came time for team selections, however, two of our players were brought up to varsity. The rest of us stayed on the JV. This was very difficult to accept at first. We were so successful together, and we believed our team should’ve stayed together. The separation of teammates initially brought anger and jealousy amongst many of us JV players. Nevertheless, we accepted our roles and played the game that we loved. By having two of our teammates go up to varsity it gave the rest of us incentive to step up our game. I focused solely on basketball that year and got better and better. At the end of the season I won team MVP honors. The following year we would all be together again and win many games. 

When freshman year came along, we once again focused on our future goal of winning a state championship. My freshman year we were all placed on the C-squad, and we won many games. That year I won MVP honors again, and I began to envision myself playing college ball. 

During our sophomore year we were once again split up. It was a repeat, as two of our teammates were brought up to varsity and the rest of us were placed on JV. The anger of the split fired me up once again, and I worked my butt off to improve my game. I won team MVP for the third time in four years. I held on to the hope that during my junior and senior years I was going to be on varsity, and I intended to continue my improvement and be the leader on my team. I went to many camps that summer and practiced my offensive moves and defense every day. My friends would come over to my house to play games like 21, hot-shot, bump, 2-on-2 and 3-on-3. I constantly sought out competition from other players. Junior year came and more of us were called up to varsity. I received very little playing time, and was given the option of swinging to the JV for three quarters so I could get playing time. I accepted, and helped lead a younger group to a winning record. When senior year came I was expecting to be a starter. After the teams were announced the coach called me into his office. He told me I was the 7^th man in the rotation, and he said he only played six players consistently, yet he still expected me to be cheering on the bench. Hearing this shattered me, but I knew I could prove him wrong. During practices I competed with the starting guards. I made sure the coaches saw that not only was I a better player but I was a fierce competitor. Nevertheless, when the first game of the season came, I played only four minutes. After another game of limited play, I decided I no longer wanted to be part of a team that didn’t respect me as a basketball player. I told the coaches I was done and turned in my uniform. 

I went on to play intramural college ball, though it wasn’t the same passion I had in high school. It took me a long time to get over the resentment I held towards my high school coach and the players that took my place. The thoughts of betrayal made me extremely bitter, and I was angry for many years. Like before, this anger drove me to respond, and I put my focus on the development of my younger brother, who had watched me play during my middle school and high school years. He became my crutch of the hurt I experienced in high school. He became a tremendous player and he was very successful in high school, leading his team to the playoffs, making the All-Area and All-League teams. He was offered several sports scholarship from various colleges in the Pacific Northwest. I basked in his glory, yet ten years after my heartbreak I still held a grudge.

After my brother’s basketball season was over I knew that I could no longer hold on to this resentment. In a way, this resentment had positive effects on my brother’s personal growth. It led me to passionately work with him on his game and gave him an opportunity to develop as a skilled player. Twelve years his senior, he had to constantly compete and improve his game against me. Within me, however, this resentment was unhealthy, unproductive, and kept me bound to the past. Finally, I decided to let it go and forgive my coach and those two players. The relief I felt was incredible. I finally felt free from a ten-year burden. 

Forgiveness is the Doorway to Freedom

“Life is an adventure in forgiveness.” Journalist and author Norman Cousins 

Everybody has their own story of hurt, and everybody at one point or another has had to deal with feelings of anger and resentment. These bitter feelings always lead to one thing: bondage. This prison holds us to the past traumatic experience(s) we want to forget and move on from. Yet these prison bars are hard to break through.

Forgiveness is essential to experience a life of freedom, love, and peace. In order to forgive you must go beyond the ego which seeks justice and revenge. You must go deeper within yourself, below the layers of the ego, to the part of yourself that calls for freedom, the part that is connected to love and spirit. Once you have found this place of inner being you have already initiated the healing process and are on your way to freedom. As Christian author Lewis B. Smedes says, “To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover that the prisoner was you.”

How to Forgive Someone Who Has Hurt You

The healing process takes time, but there are a few things you can do to speed up the process of recovery. 

      1.) Give up on hope of a better past. This was a profound statement when I first came across it. How easy it is to relive our past hurtful experiences and imagine a rewrite of the ending. This irrational imagery creates a false hope that leads nowhere. Accept the reality of the hurtful event and move on.

          2.) Be present. After suffering through a 4-month depression, the one thing that helped me forgive was being present. By focusing on the here and NOW you center your mind on what is, not a story that has already happened that you are recreating in your head. Be here now in the present.

      3.) Choose to be kind over being right. You were served an injustice, horrible and undeserved. It wasn’t right and it wasn’t kind. But as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. declared to the injustices of the system, “Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.” Don’t reproduce that which hurt you. Instead, spread kindness.

4      4.) Stop playing the victim. Stop looking for occasions to be offended- that’s easy. It’s also very wounding. There is no justice in further wounding yourself. In fact, you only further open the wound. Transcend the victim mentality, and instead focus on what will make you stronger.

5    5.) Send love to those who have hurt you. Did somebody do something that irritated you? Send them love. Did somebody really hurt your spirits? Send them love. Reach beyond the ego and access that part of yourself that is connected to all things and all people.

      6.) Forgive them not for their sake but yours. Initially, we may think forgiveness is letting the abuser off. It’s quite the contrary. Instead, you are allowing yourself to let go of all those hurtful feelings you’ve held onto.

      7.) Acknowledge that we are all humans doing the best we can with our present awareness and resources we’re given. All of us have developed a certain level of awareness and given a certain number of resources to be used at any given time. We are human. Acknowledge that the person who has hurt you may have been given a lower level awareness and fewer resources. They acted upon what they have been given.

      8.) Utilize this time as a growing experience. All experiences in life, good or bad, can grow us. Seek the opportunity to grow from your hurt. Hurt oftentimes breeds the greatest growth experiences.

      9.) Be like water. As Bruce Lee once said, “Empty your mind, be formless. Shapeless, like water.” Don’t attach to one past moment or you’ll drown in the incessant waves. Ride with the ever-changing waves.

      10.) Remember: time always heals. For me it took ten years, an unnecessarily long time. But time finally led to my healing. You may reopen that wound over and over, but eventually there will come a day when you will finally be able to move on and embrace life again.  

If you feel in bondage from a past hurt or experience, forgiveness may be your doorway to freedom. Grow this center, and experience a liberty like you’ve never experienced before.

Forgiveness Quotes:

I can have peace of mind only when I forgive rather than judge.

Gerald Jampolsky

There is no love without forgiveness, and there is no forgiveness without love.

Bryant McGill

The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.

Mahatma Gandhi

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

The heart of a mother is a deep abyss at the bottom of which you will always find forgiveness.

Honore de Balzac

Forgiveness is not always easy. At times, it feels more painful than the wound we suffered, to forgive the one that inflicted it. And yet, there is no peace without forgiveness.

Marianne Williamson

Forgiveness says you are given another chance to make a new beginning.

Desmond Tutu

When you forgive, you in no way change the past- but you sure do change the future.

Bernard Meltzer

Never forget the three powerful resources you always have available to you: love, prayer, and forgiveness.

H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

It’s one of the greatest gifts you can give yourself, to forgive. Forgive everybody.

Maya Angelou

To err is human; to forgive, divine.

Alexander Pope

We think that forgiveness is weakness, but it’s absolutely not; it takes a very strong person to forgive.

T.D. Jakes

To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover that the prisoner was you.
Lewis B. Smedes

Forgiveness is the fragrance that the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it.

Mark Twain

Life is an adventure in forgiveness.

Norman Cousins