Forgiveness

In preparing a talk on forgiveness for a conference in Holland, I reflect that it is not easy to forgive these abusers, the darkest criminals on our planet perpetrating the worst horror stories in a calculated, organized way, skillfully hiding their crimes from the public, while they remain above the law. It has been hard to overcome my envy, imagining my perpetrators in spectacular houses on the Mediterranean, on their yachts, respected and admired by the public, while I struggle and feel all the pain.

However, feeling is the gateway to the self, and my journey led me back to truth and the ability to assert myself without guilt or worry. I find that the greatest gift of all is the ability to just be me. It took this healing, that I should be content with all the circumstances in my life, not identified as a victim anymore, to stop feeling envious of my perpetrators.

But how could I think of forgiving them if I could not first forgive myself? Not only for what I was forced to do in the network, which took decades of healing from the extreme guilt I carried over the violence I had inflicted, in spite of my tender age and coerced as it may have been. But after I finally understood that I had never wanted to do harm as a child, I had to find forgiveness for all the times when, in my adult life, affected by childhood trauma, I was incapable of responding in a self-empowered manner and left hurt or brokenhearted, or was myself hurtful or rejecting. Today, I refuse to engage in stories. Emotional attachment usually comes from a trigger which sends us into the past, whereas the current situation then serves as a loop, going from one strong emotion to the next and the next and the next, until the final, negative result leaves you either with the original painful feelings around some unresolved childhood issue in the role of the victim, or, if you have taken the role of power, you get to dole out the pain, and experience the pleasure of not feeling it. All this emotional repetition packed into big or small interactions between friends, lovers colleagues or even with strangers. Two sides of the same coin, original trauma with its endless echoes in so many dramatic, tragic, or comical stories.

From a place of inner empowerment, I can forgive my perpetrators, knowing I would never want to trade the wealth of being me for the poverty of spirit of the psychopaths who rule the world. Forgiveness comes from generosity, when you are attuned to the abundance of the universe through connection to the self, when answers to life’s problems arise from inner stillness and your intuition guides you, when you have regained the power you lost in the abuse.

Forgiving does not at all remove accountability or absolve perpetrators from their responsibility. If there is a way to obtain worldly justice, it should by all means be pursued. Forgiveness has nothing to do with the material world; it belongs to eternity. It frees you from the burden a perpetrator has dumped on you.

Forgiveness is a choice, a free will decision. By forgiving you complete the cycle of abuse and restore the greater truth that existed long before the abuse - the truth of both you and the perpetrator as souls, no matter how grave the offense.