If you want to cross the English Channel, and have your name officially ratified and posted in the short list of successful Channel-crossers, you are allowed only a swimming cap, goggles, and a swimsuit. You can, however, be accompanied by a support boat. While you can’t touch the boat without forfeiting, the boat will carry your supporters to cheer you on and provide moral support, food, and drink. You are the only competitor, but you aren’t forced to make the swim alone.
In the healing-from-traumatic-events endurance event, you are the only competitor, but you aren’t forced to make the journey alone. Therapists, friends, magazine and book authors, a healing community…the list is endless. Unfortunately, you are bound to meet up with people who don’t understand the nature of your event, and seem oblivious to what you really need, and when. Some people, in their rush to help, can do you harm.
To illustrate, imagine you have just leapt into the chill waters of the English Channel, ready to begin your swim. The supporters in your boat aren’t all on the same page. Most came prepared to offer useful assistance, but one person tosses you a huge, fluffy towel.
It soaks up gallons of water in seconds. If you don’t toss it away fast enough, it may pull you under.
If you protest, the towel-tosser will insist they meant it for the best, and be indignant at your lack of gratitude. They may be persuasive enough, and may shame you enough, to get you to retrieve the towel. They’ll then proceed to blame you if you drown.
That fluffy towel would be appropriate at the end of the swim; it would be welcome, and wonderful, and the recipient might even feel inclined to give the supporter a hug. But in the beginning, well, the most charitable thing you can say is that the person offering the towel is ignorant and misguided. (Other less charitable labels may also come to mind, but of course you and I would never say them).
No sooner had I started my journey, and begun to heal from the abuse I survived as a child, than supporters urged me to cut to the finish. “What you have to do,” they’d say, “is forgive them.”
Forgive them? I didn’t yet know how badly I was hurt! I hadn’t worked through any of the pain, fear, anger, or shame. It was the worst possible advice, but it was also the most popular. Forgiveness, I was told, was a short-cut everyone should take.
Many of the towel-tossers claimed they had “forgiven” their abusers, but the not-so-surprising part was, none of them were healed. They were still carrying all the shame and pain and anger and fear, and it leaked out in inappropriate ways at awkward times, hinting that healing needed to be done. (Souls have the desire to heal, even when their owners do not). Their “forgiveness” was denial in disguise.
Truth is, forgiveness isn’t even possible in the beginning. You haven’t yet processed everything the person has done that needs to be forgiven. Forcing forgiveness can nip your journey in the bud. It will soak up the painful emotions, bind the trauma around your limbs, and leave you gasping.
But what about at the end of your journey, when all the work is done and the feelings have been felt and the memories recovered and drained of emotion? At that point, you can truly forgive without condoning, accepting or denying what happened, and like a warm fluffy towel after a long cold swim, it feels great.
There’s a time, and a place, for forgiveness. Trust that you will come to that place in your own time.