By learning what your body knows that your mind is blind to,
you gain your freedom

Some years ago, I was defending myself and my company in an arbitration brought by the company that had bought us out. The youthful president of that company had made the purchase without fully informing his Board. Trouble? Of course. I knew the claim was unfounded and I was full of righteous indignation. The matter dragged on. A year went by. Another 6 months passed. One day I got to wondering whether my animosity toward him might be a factor in what seemed like endless stalling.  It took 2 weeks before I could relax into unconditionally wishing him well. I knew I needed to do this honestly. Doing it just get a result wouldn’t work. Eventually I did it, despite my attachment to being so clearly right. 

Within 10 days, he phoned, asking if we could do a mediation, each of us choosing a mediator. This was the breakthrough. In the mediation, the mediators got together and gave us everything we wanted! It all began to unfold when I changed my inner stance toward someone I’d been judging. Hmmm.

Forgiveness wasn’t in my playbook at that time, but since then, I’ve studied and facilitated forgiveness in groups, workshops and one-on-one. I could see in myself that holding a judgment of anyone, self included, is to bring your life – even your evolution – to a full stop.

You’ve likely seen this in others. Think of those you know who have some great criticism of themselves or another. Years pass. They grow older and the aging is noticeable. But they do not mature. Instead of doing a forgiveness that likely takes as little as 1 hour, they drag that animosity around, sometimes even ‘til death.

Forgiveness is an inside job: it’s you freeing you. You don’t involve the other person. And it doesn’t let anyone else off the hook. It’s you laying down the burden of what happened in the past. And somehow this restores to equilibrium something in the whole universe that was out of balance. How else to explain the immediate and positive moves that others make – knowing nothing of your forgiveness – once you clear your judgment out of the way? It happens every time. It’s like you pull the plug on your self-righteousness, and whoopee, what was stuck, dissolves.

The key is to recognize when we’re holding such judgments. We lie to others and ourselves about whether what we or another did or didn’t do, means something to us. Believing the lie supports a delusion about what kind of person we are. It keeps us within our comfort zone. 

Forgiveness requires more. You’ll be surprised after you’ve forgiven someone that it’s only a momentary discomfort. When the forgiveness is honest and complete, it’s obvious you gave up nothing.  In hindsight, the comfort of telling yourself you are right can be seen for what it is – a lie shielding you from reality. Being freed of the emotional charge in being right is real freedom. And that feels really good.  

The Forgiveness Self-Test  is a tool to check on your tricky mind.

FORGIVENESS SELF-TEST

1. Notice your state of physical tension or relaxation. Check your shoulders, your jaw, your belly, your breathing.

2. Now bring to mind someone you know you dislike or you know you disliked in the past.

3. Notice if a little tension enters your face, your body, your mind. Does your world get a little darker thinking of that person?

4. If it does, that’s a holding that signals an unforgiveness in you. Now you know what you’re dealing with.

Unforgiveness like all thought, is lodged in the body. You can’t talk or think your way out of it. At some time in the past, you’ve stuffed it down into your subconscious where it screws up your life while you claim it isn’t there. Its effects are devastating. Here’s an example.

Mary was CEO of a small company. She had clearly told the HR manager not to do something the woman had just done. Uncharacteristically, Mary exploded all over the hapless manager. A senior manager took Mary aside. “This isn’t about what she did. Can you see that?” Mary, luckily for everyone, recognized the truth in this. She’d linked what the HR manager did to something she’d had in her craw for years – something she thought she’d gotten over – but hadn’t. *

You’ll do the same. If you’re holding a judgment against someone, when a similar situation comes up with someone else you’re very likely to import into that situation your emotional response to what you’ve not forgiven previously, blinding you to all possibilities in the current situation. This doesn’t go down well in any relationship – personal or business.

It’s not hard to forgive. Only in prospect does it look hard. After you’ve done it, it’s nothing. The other person is still responsible for what they did. But you are free at last. 

There’s nothing that undermines your perceived trustworthiness more than lying to yourself and others. Would you trust someone you knew was doing that? 

So maybe here’s a good place to start. PCness has little value when it comes to trustworthiness. Honesty has much.

* Mary’s sincere apology to the woman put their relationship on much firmer ground, building trust that trans-forms routine interactions into flow.