What would you teach your child about righting the wrongs s/he has suffered? Would you teach “Don’t get mad, get even”? Or would you teach forgiveness? Or would you teach “Get even and then forgive”?
Is it possible to ever get even? Does getting even ever right the original wrong you suffered, or restore what was taken from you, or furnish what you were deprived of?
If you are reluctant to teach your child forgiveness as a way to right the wrongs s/he has suffered is your reluctance because you believe that it is letting others off the hook? What is forgiveness anyway? Is it an act of the one “in the right”, magnanimously exonerating “the one in the wrong”? Or is it a process of coming to see that the wrongful actions resulted from mistaken beliefs, distortions of perception, confusion, unconsciousness, or ignorance? - In other words, innocence?
When we seek revenge what motives have we attributed to the wrong-doer? What assumptions have we made? These are some that come to my mind:
They did it on purpose. They meant to hurt me. They could have acted differently. In other words, they are guilty.
When you have hurt someone, short of having acted out of revenge, were these your motives? Why is the first thing we state when accused, “I didn’t mean to!” In other words, “See me as innocent”.
The belief that we have not done our best, or that we could have or should have done differently or better seems pervasive and universal. In this belief rests our conviction of guilt, for which we are convicted with the resulting feelings of shame, which we may feel are well deserved.
To what end? How does our shame serve us? Does it really prevent us from acting wrong in the future? There is strong evidence that we cannot learn when defensive, frightened and ashamed, that is, feeling unsafe. The evidence is clear that we learn best when feeling safe, because then we are willing and able to risk.
Is it true that we could have done better or should have acted differently? Of course, it is easy to imagine the possibility of having acted better or differently, but in reality if we really could have why did we not? Maybe, given every factor in that moment – our whole history up to then, our physical state, our state of mind, our beliefs and perceptions, and all the factors of the situation itself, we literally could not have acted any differently. This seems more likely to me.
Seeing each other and ourselves as innocent is not the same as letting each other and ourselves off the hook. This idea came to me as “total forgiveness with total accountability”.
If you knew you were instantly forgiven, if you knew you continued to be totally loved and loveable, would you not gladly accept and live with the consequences of your mistakes?
Is our defensiveness and denial of responsibility not just motivated by fear of condemnation, ostracism, and rejection? In an environment that was unconditionally loving and forgiving, would we not be more likely to see the error of our ways, make amends and acts of reparation?
This article asked a lot of questions. Maybe that was a mistake and it irritated you, the reader. If so, I am totally accountable for your irritation and instantly forgiven, even if not by you.
Happy Parenting
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