forgiveness

Recently, someone assumed the worst, got upset with me, and attacked me verbally. I respect this individual, but it put me in a sour mood that I couldn't get rid of for a full 24 hours. It's painful to be angry. I felt tired, my forehead felt tense, and my chest was tight. I had my head slightly bowed all day considering different responses I could make to hurt this person and exact my revenge. 

As I lay in bed, I turned on Sam Harris's Waking Up app (10/10 recommend), and his daily meditation invited me to wish loving kindness towards someone who hurt me. At first, I couldn't; but then he invited his listeners to consider how so much of why others hurt us comes from the fact that they themselves are hurting. I considered how this person who hurt me was himself hurting, and my whole attitude warmed. I felt my chest relax, felt my forehead wrinkles die down, and I felt at ease. I don't feel like I forgave this person at all. I feel like I understood this person, and this prompted a sincere feeling of compassion and understanding deep in my core.

You see, I've always been worried, since leaving Christianity, that I left behind a better version of myself, a more Christ-like version. As a Christian, I was constantly trying to serve others, be like Christ to others, and even be a priest. I look back at times I've told people who hurt me "I forgive you", and I can't think of many times when I meant it. Those were just words I would tell my pain-inflicting relations, because I felt obligated as a Christian to say them. I could even fake sincerity so that the individual left truly feeling forgiven, and I felt like this unexamined action I took was heroic. 

Forgiveness says "You hurt me, but I will act as if you did nothing and move on". Compassion and understanding say something different, "You hurt me, and I get it; you're hurting yourself, and we are all doing our best, but we all fall short of expectations". Compassion runs deeper than forgiveness and gets to the root of what's happening. Rather than sticking a band-aid on a tumor, it digs beneath the skin and removes it. 

Christianity talks a lot about virtue and how hard it is, but I found compassion and understanding to be an instant, painless relief. Forgiveness was tough because it was fake and left me upset and angry. Perhaps the Christian concept of forgiveness is something that can lead to compassion and understanding, so I'm not trying to slam Christianity with this post, just the concept of it as I once understood it. 

Taking this a step further, maybe we look back in our pasts and can't forgive ourselves for things we've done. I know I look back and think this way about a lot of my past actions. I feel so much regret and anger towards my past self for the way I treated others. So I can't forgive myself for all these things, but I can understand myself—be compassionate towards myself. From the bottom of my heart, I wish anyone reading this a relieved and less troubled heart. You deserve that... well, unless you're a pedophile. In that case, please turn yourself in.