If not forgiveness, then compassion

Most people, I assume, don’t get through life without getting hurt by others. We also may intentionally or unintentionally harm ourselves and other people. The harm done to us leaves us having to heal our emotional and or physical wounds and to repair the damage to our soul — our belief and trust in a higher power that gives our life meaning — caused by the pain we have experienced. Some of us struggle to forgive ourselves for whatever harm we did to ourselves or to someone else. The effort to forgive ourselves for what we have done may be difficult. It is often a more formidable challenge for us to forgive someone else for the pain they have caused us and if that injury has traumatized us.

Forgiving others can be a lifelong process as Bishop Desmond Tutu and his daughter Mpho Tutu shares in their book: “The Book of Forgiving: The Four Fold Path for Healing Ourselves and Our World.” There is no cookie-cutter approach to or specific timetable in the process of forgiving someone who has harmed us. We all need time, a safe space and relationship with someone whom we trust to tell our story of being harmed. Keeping our pain as a secret has immediate and lifelong negative emotional, physical and spiritual consequences as Bessel vander Kolk clearly describes in his book “The Body Keeps the Score: Brian, Mind, Body in the Healing of Trauma.”

Compassion is sometimes adequate and contributes to our self-healing when we are unable or not ready to love again or to forgive ourselves or someone who hurt us. Compassion is not quite sympathy or empathy nor is it pity, but it is a way of being kind to ourselves.

What about the person who hurt us? Perhaps you have heard it said that people who hurt others are hurting. Sometimes the perpetrator is also a victim. Whatever is their pain, it does not justify their harming other people, nor does it release them from being held accountable for their actions. Being compassionate towards those who harmed us, and even self-compassion is a way of staying connected to our humanity and the humanity of those who have defiled us in some way.

Each of us has inherent dignity and worth. This is important to remember whenever we are struggling with feeling ashamed or suffering due to what someone has done to us. The healing of self or wounds inflicted upon us by others begins as we no longer define ourselves by what or who defiled us.

There are many ways, rituals and methods along this path we can engage that can cheer us on toward a place of feeling safe, strong and whole again. Some of these methods we can create for ourselves. We also need the help of one another on this road of recovery. Reaching out for help is self-care and not selfishness. It is not an act of feeling like a failure. In the mist of our vulnerability it is an expression of our self-compassion, wisdom and strength.