Does Forgiveness Always Help Us Cope With Depression?
Aug 9th, 2008 by zania
Why Forgiveness Can Be A Shallow Concept
I remember reading somewhere that each time you forgive, or contemplate forgiveness, you begin to see how profoundly you have been colouring and therefore affecting all of your relationships. Thus, the saying goes, ‘you can heal yourself by forgiving’.
Therefore, a teleological response would be. “If we can forgive, then we are well on the way to coping better with our depression.” After all (and apart of course from the chemical aspects of depression), isn’t part of our depressed state of mind about feeling we are ‘not worthy’ in some way?
And wouldn’t it be nice to find something which works in healing ourselves?
I touched upon this in my post about anger and depression, but today I was going through some old notes on my pc (collected from where I really do not know) and I found this:
1. Forgiveness is the essential key to healing.
2. The opposite of forgiveness is judgment.
3. Judgement always creates separation and guilt.
4. When you have judged, you have moved out of alignment with what is true.
I also found this old quote:
“If we build up resentments, bitterness and anger, our hearts suffer, we attract the same negative qualities in people and also situations.
It is a step by step process and not easy steps to take. You can gain strength through the action of forgiveness, open your heart to others and feel inner calm and peace. Free, at last.”
Hmmm…
Forgiveness is an emotion which plays a huge part in our development as human beings. Of course it is. And it can be hard to forgive and we do judge. But is it really as simple as that? Does being unable to forgive in all circumstances really harm us emotionally?
I know there have been times when I have struggled to forgive others for their hurtful acts, but I can usually manage this. Do I feel happier for it? More ‘at peace with myself’? Not really, just philosophical I guess. S*** happens. We move on…
However, in times I could never entirely forgive, I have to say that, yes, I have judged, but in doing so, I have accepted that I am not at fault for the action undertaken or the hurt caused.
So yes, I have judged, but in doing so, I have not had to forgive myself. There is no need. I do not feel bad about this, or feel that I am harming myself emotionally. It just is…
Because forgiving oneself is, in my opinion, the hardest forgiveness of all.
We make enough mistakes every day. We can cause hurt to others just by opening our mouths (or not opening them when we should). So we have to apologise and try our best to make amends. And yes, we can beat ourselves up over this and harm ourselves emotionally (and when we are depressed this is too darn easy to do…).
And sometimes it is hard to forgive ourselves then. But most of the time (and when we are in the right frame of mind) we do.
But sometimes, some things are just too hard or too horrible to forgive.
So why should we beat ourselves up for not forgiving in these circumstances?
Isn’t it right sometimes not to forgive?
And isn’t learning to understand and accept ourselves for who we are, better for us emotionally than trying to be someone we are not?
I’ve been lucky enough never to have suffered with depression but I do believe in forgiveness as a philosophy. Though I don’t belong to any organised religion this is what Jesus taught and it makes sense.
Not forgiving can eat you up and fester away in the mind, which in turn can effect the body and maybe cause illness or disease.
Disease, I think, means not at (dis) ease.
It’s important to be at ease with everyone and the world in general for true happiness.
The only problem with saying we should forgive others (and ourself) is that it’s not always that simple. Sometimes it’s hard to convince our unconscious mind to accept what we intend.
Interesting subject.
Mike.
Hi Mike,
thanks for your thoughts.
And yes, disease can mean (did) ease, I agree, especially in a whole body concept.
I’m not religious myself (partly because of my thoughts on organised religion, better not expressed here… and partly because trusting in ‘faith’ has produced its setbacks…), but yes, forgiveness, if possible, is definitely a way of moving on and stopping the ‘festering’ as you so rightly say. I have no argument with that.
But the philosophy of forgiveness for forgiveness’ sake does worry me. As you say, we have to convince our unconscious mind that it’s ok to forgive and that can be extremely difficult, especially when the harm done to us is profound and to forgive is like saying ‘that’s ok, I understand why you did that to me. But I’ll never fully understand why…’
I’m thinking particularly here of someone who has been abused as a child (not me incidentally). It is a slippery slope to go down in forgiving their abuser, when for years the victim may have been blaming themselves for the abuse.
I would prefer moving on myself and accepting that what the other person did to me was wrong. So in that case I would be judging them and I think it’s ok to do so.
In those circumstances (and a few others…), telling someone they should ‘forgive’ sounds shallow and fraught with difficulty. I think we should be telling that person it’s ok to judge and why bother to understand one’s abuser if it hurts to do so?.
Just my thoughts…
And thanks for popping over to see me in this end of the online world