There are 5 stages of grief, are there 5 stages of forgiveness?

When we consider the five stages of grief, there are probably five stages for many complex processes, and the process of forgiveness can be just as arduous and mysterious as the process of grief—and indeed on many occasions forgiveness is interwoven with grief.

Here is a proposal for five stages of forgiveness:

1.     CONFUSION – “WHAT HAS HAPPENED TO ME?”

It is utterly to be expected that those situations that we are called to forgive will at times flummox us.  There are situations where we are beyond being able to understand why people have done what they’ve done, and why people will either not take responsibility or fail to adequately and sincerely apologise.

Much of our initial confusion will come down to the surprise element, but just as much of our confusion can linger for such a long time.  This is especially the case when there is a compounding of the betrayal of abuse, where there is no justice.  Whenever we are triggered for trauma, perhaps we enter this early-stage confusion for what we experience in the triggered moment from what we experienced initially as the trauma.

2.    BITTERNESS – “HOW COULD SUCH A THING OCCUR?”

What qualifies us to speak in terms of forgiveness and its difficulties is having been in impossible situations.

It’s not until we have been in that place of grieving bitterness, where we have no way of comprehending why a thing was done to us or against us, and why justice continues to allude us, that we realistically comprehend the magnitude of some situations where forgiveness feels impossible.

Bitterness, in this way, is not only to be expected, but it is also a process of suffering that comparatively few have the misfortune to experience.  Little wonder so few understand.  In this way, such bitterness is instructive, however, because it gives us an empathy for those who suffer abuse that few can touch.

This bitterness of the second stage is equivalent to the anger in grief.  It is the real, full-blown experience of the emotions for what has taken place, and these feelings are not to be discounted or “bypassed,” on the contrary, they are to be validated.  Tremendous healing power prevails right there, IN the validation.

3.    ATTEMPTING – “WHEN WILL MY ATTEMPTS STICK?”

Throughout the process of endeavouring to forgive there are inevitably multiple times where we try and fail for forgiveness to stick.  This is a journey of a pendulum between hope and despair and back to hope again before we try on a little more despair.

The point is that we are trying.

The point is that there is a heart in us to overcome this.

That there is an attitude of forgiveness or wanting to come to a peace about the matter is enough.  As we roll through the inevitable topsy-turvy journey of finding that peace and acceptance in our hearts, we learn that our efforts speak as much for tenacity and intestinal fortitude as anything.

Attempting, while it’s frustrating, is about the heart, and it’s something to admire, because all those who continue to attempt and keep attempting ultimately overcome.

Take heart that you’re on the journey of overcoming.  It will certainly come to be.

4.    DEPRESSION – “WILL I EVER FINALLY ARRIVE?”

Depression for the situations of bitterness and injustice and attempting we find ourselves in, regaling in this way in some situations for many years, is just so understandable.

This journey of forgiving the reprehensible thing that was done to us is one of the hardest challenges we will ever have to face.  It’s understandable that it will take us to the end of our tether.  It’s comprehensible that we will suffer our mental-ill-health days.

Nothing makes our tenacity and intestinal fortitude stand out more than enduring the depths of depression for the injustices that rail against us.  Those who overcome depression develop a depth of understanding and empathy few can match.

5.    GRACE – “IT WAS WORTH IT FOR WHAT I HAVE LEARNED”

Interspersed along the way there are periods of grace, just like there are periods of acceptance that we try on in the stages of grief.

Grace, like acceptance, doesn’t stick until it sticks, and that’s the truth of it.  Grace is the ultimate understanding and acceptance of the importance of extending mercy to others because of the mercy that has been extended to us—in Christ.

There’s no pressure to arrive at this cherished halcyon of destinations, because there is always a lot to learn along the journey.

Nobody, and I mean nobody, ever, ought to expect that we’d just “arrive” at the grace of forgiveness.

~

What a journey life is that we must wrestle long and hard to come to peace with situations that occurred against us.  But the fact is, injustice is common to all of us, and perhaps it is the biggest challenge of all to overcome, to arrive at a place of forgiving the trespass against us, even as our trespasses are no longer counted against us—in Christ.

Taking the steps to forgive oneself

We find ourselves in situations in life where forgiving another person is complicated by the need to forgive ourselves.  And in some situations, all that is needed is to forgive oneself.  It’s not drawing too long a bow to say that forgiving oneself is a bigger challenge much of the time.

It’s common in life to experience the vicarious trauma of feeling responsible for other people’s actions.  We know logically that these things are not our responsibility, yet we feel responsible at least partially.

This is because someone much take responsibility,
and if nobody else does, we do.

Much of the time this is because we’ve not been in control of the situations that came against us.  If it was our parents separating and divorcing, we couldn’t change that reality so perhaps we felt that it was up to us to do something about it.  It was up to us to take responsibility, and even where they took responsibility, there was something untenable about losing our family in this way.  The buck had to stop somewhere.

If it was the situation where we were abused or neglected, even though we couldn’t control what happened to us, we tend to think that there must’ve been something we could’ve done—even if that thinking is totally illogical.  Logically we know there wasn’t, and because we know we had no control, and because having no control is an untenable situation, we rationalised that we must’ve been at least partly at fault, even though we know we were completely innocent.  This is our mind at war with ourselves.

Of course, there’s a huge dichotomy in all of this, as our unaccepted reality warred with our logical mind.  There’s little wonder we struggle to forgive ourselves.  Amid such cognitive dissonance, which is just a fancy term for saying there was an incompatibility of thoughts and feelings within us, we found we couldn’t reconcile it.  We couldn’t receive any peace.

Sometimes it’s situations where our dreams were crushed and we felt we could’ve or “should’ve” done something different, even if we could not have done anything different.

In situations where there is regret for what we cannot undo, even as we process it again and again and again, we find ourselves arriving at a place of self-judgement and self-recrimination.

We reconcile that if we were responsible, we were the ones who were wrong.  And whilst that’s a cold reality to swallow, perhaps it’s the key to moving forward.

If we were the only ones who could’ve prevented or stopped something, or done something different, we arrive at the same place each time.  And even when we know in our mind of minds, knowing that we know that we know, that we were not at fault, the lack of justice leaves us in a place of still needing to attribute some cause.  We feel scapegoated, because in the absence of someone responsible taking responsibility we take responsibility.  And what maddens us each time is we know how maddening that principle is—taking responsibility for what we’re not and could never be responsible for.

~

Forgiving oneself is one of the biggest challenges many people face, and the outworking of such a challenge is we either introject with self-judgement or self-criticism or we project our anger onto others, commonly onto those closest to us.  This is because, in the absence of someone to accept responsibility, we take that on, yet half of us seethes for the injustice of it.

It’s no coincidence that when people do take responsibility for the injustices they do against us, we don’t experience the flip-flop of anger toward them and anger towards us.

In coming to a place of forgiving oneself, it’s good to recognise that:

§     If we were to blame, and we can’t fix it, we are worth a second chance, and that’s centrally about agreeing that we’ve learned something.  We all get it wrong from time to time, and we are all worth a second chance, especially with ourselves.

§     If we were not to blame, and in many situations it’s like this, we can’t be responsible, and we ought not to be held to account—by ourselves most of all.

Forgiving ourselves is about accepting that none of us live in a vacuum.  We are all acted upon just as we act onto others.  There are always reasons for the things we do and say and why we did these things and said them.

Forgiving ourselves is about accepting our past can’t be changed.

Accepting what cannot be changed, therefore, is half the journey to wisdom, and the other half is having the courage to walk boldly into a new day.  There’s only one thing we can change, and that’s our future.

Listening in the mode of speaking

Our words are not always heard by others as we say them.

Without checking what we’ve communicated was heard the way it was intended, people can easily deduce an entirely different message from what we communicated.  This sheets home the importance of listening in a different way than we would otherwise listen—listening as if we’re the other person who’s listening.  It’s something we’re at least partially responsible for; to check other people understand what we’re saying.

The heart of communication is understanding.  The purpose is shared understanding.  When understanding is established, it offers the relationship the opportunity to transact in truth.  A shared truth.

~

An example of this problem is in the utterance of encouragement that leaves another person quite discouraged.  I heard an author on radio mention the impact of a specific feedback on him.  He had one fan say to him that he particularly appreciated one specific scene in a play he had written, and the author secretly thought, “But you think the rest of it is rubbish, don’t you?”

It’s the same when someone carries two versions of self-talk, a logical one with an illogical one.  This is a very common phenomenon.  I think most of us have held two opposite truths in tension simultaneously.

It’s so easy for a person to know a truth in their own mind only to be assailed frequently by thoughts that are destructively opposite.

Many people know they are worthy of love whilst also feeling unworthy of it.  Both, at the same time.  And it can be rather exhausting holding these two opposites in tension.  It’s reasonable for a person to serve others and give them their time whilst also feeling they’re a burden to everyone.  It’s exhausting though to know that you’re worthy of other people’s time and effort without feeling worthy of it.

Unless we ensure our encouragement is heard the way we have said it and mean it, by checking, without being forceful, we can’t guarantee it is heard as encouragement.

~

If we want others to operate on the right information, it’s always best to check our message has been received as we intended.  By taking the time and care to check, we create intimacy.  But we also need to make sure that in checking we don’t manipulate or coerce situations.

We can also be proactive in checking with others that we have received their message the way that they intended.  This shows them that we care about what they are trying to communicate.

There’s probably no better way of building trust with others than caring about what they’re actually saying.  And not just caring about what they’re saying but also ACCEPTING what they’re saying.

When we’re interested in what others are saying AND we also accept what they say, we communicate that we’re safe, and there’s no greater gift we can give another person.

Only when we check another’s understanding do we give them the opportunity to respond to what we really mean.

We all have a role in checking what people understood by things that are said.  But of course checking is also reciprocal on feeling safe with the person.  If we don’t feel safe, we’re less likely to take such a relational risk

~

When we listen in the mode of speaking, we hear ourselves, our tone, our modulation; what we could mean as others receive us.  Listening while we speak is a vital part of listening.

Listening isn’t just about listening to others, it’s also about listening to ourselves, not to justify ourselves, but to empathise with others in what they hear us say.

Boundaries in Conversations with the Opinionated

Invariably we find ourselves in situations in conversation with people who have opinions on everything, and people have opinions on something.  The former’s whole objective is to turn discussion from anything else onto whatever their opinion is and dominate.  The latter lurk for their opportunity—passion is awakened, and they transform the dialogue into monologue.

In both instances, it’s a case of instant regret for not only the uninitiated, but for seasoned conversationalists alike.  One way conversations where you become a conscripted audience are never fun.

Have you heard of the terms, OOE and OOS?  They stand for “Opinion on Everything” and “Opinion on Something”.  I didn’t come up with the acronyms, OOE and OOS.

Dr Rod Wilson in his little book, Thank You. I’m Sorry. Tell Me More.: How to Change the World with 3 Sacred Sayings, talks about these in a short chapter titled Being Opinionated.  His central point is, there’s a difference between having an opinion and being opinionated.  The difference, Wilson says, “revolves around the experience of the listener.”

Most if not all of us hate it when we find ourselves in a social situation where we’re dogged by an opinionated person—especially when we cannot easily make an escape.

Even when two or more people share the same opinion it makes for a very superficial and potentially dangerous conversation.  Pushed to the extremes, it’s how people are radicalised.  Birds of a feather with the same extreme views begin to live in a bubble.

Rod Wilson talks about the pleasure he gets when he’s surrounded by people who have opinions; when they can share openhandedly in a way that suggests they haven’t got everything worked out.

That’s real conversations, isn’t it?  When there’s flow that suggests we’re listening to each other.  When it’s clear that the other person is actually more interested in what you’re saying than in figuring out what they’re going to say.  When you discern that there’s space to share your opinion without it (or you) being judged.  Where you can affirm another person genuinely and not through a fawned response of not having another option for fear of the consequences should you disagree.  When you discern that there’s actually room to disagree somewhat or inject nuance into the topic.  When you sense the conversation goes to new levels when new information is injected.

The opinionated don’t leave people or conversations with such freedom.  They’re always looking to capitalise on the moment.  You even get the feeling that being in conversation with them is an inevitable trap—it’s only a matter of time before they turn the conversation toward promoting their view, to consuming the vocal bandwidth, to where “their wisdom” dominates.  As they share, they get to show you just how much they know, who they know, their achievements, etc.

It’s all a show of self-promotion, or it’s a case they’ve got a hobbyhorse they love to ride, incessantly, at others’ expense.  They never stop to appreciate the finer things about connecting with others in conversation.  It’s for mutual enjoyment and edification.

Boundaries are important for the opinionated, in much the same way that Gray Rock is used to protect empaths from their narcissists.

The bigger part of this is the awareness that the opinionated lurk in so many places that we’re constantly aware that we don’t want to give those situations our valuable oxygen—for both their good and ours.  The last thing opinionated people need is to be enabled and encouraged to spread their unhelpful and at times dangerous views.

When we’re in conversations with people who are opinionated, we can try to push back a little rather than agree with what we don’t agree with (which is a fawning response).  But I wouldn’t try more than once or twice.

After that I’m looking to depart, which is simply about being kind while walking away.

Acknowledging the cost of unequally yoked relationships

Every good relationship is equally yoked, in that, as oxen teams were selected according to weight and strength to plough a field, relationships need that same characteristic.  With oxen, a stronger/weaker unequal yoking would see inefficient ploughing and poor results.  With relationships, it’s about both parties pulling their weight.  One can’t do the work of two.

Those who bear little or no responsibility for their impact on others do affect us.

They live unaccountable lives in that, for a variety of reasons, they either can’t be or won’t be called to account.  This is because it’s either not worth it or it’s a risk to do it—or both.

Many years ago now, I recall a manager in a workplace who was as slippery and manipulative as you can get.  I recall the executive that I reported to saying, “One of these days he’s going to slip up.”  And it did happen.  And it wasn’t just dismissal from the job role he had.  He ended up in jail.

In another situation, again twenty years ago now, a customer service officer had embezzled a high six-figure sum, and I had the role of assisting forensic auditors, and it was summary dismissal and criminal charges and jail time for her.

But there are so many times in all our lives where those who won’t live accountable lives impact us and we may get to a point where we need to remove them from their impact on us.

Anyone who constantly requires the accommodations of others is living on borrowed time.

I can think of individuals right now who always coerce the ‘favour’ of others—in that it isn’t real favour, it’s a coercive control of, “You better accommodate me with a smile, or else!”  And the only response we can mete out at the time is one of fawning—of giving them what they subtly or not-so-subtly demand.  It’s worse when they feign that THEY are the ones being kind, and THEY are the ones who are putting up with us, not the other way around as is the reality.

Unequally yoked relationships occur in marriages—a lot—but they also occur in the workplace, in church, and in community settings.  Anywhere there’s accountability for one and little or none for the other.

The final accountability for the one who absolutely refuses to live a responsible life is the accountability of separation—of, “It’s over, for your own sake, so you can learn the consequences of your actions.”

In this life, we learn the easy way or the hard way.  We should not want to save a person from the learning they’re destined to need to do.  If time and again, a person keeps proving they’re squandering grace, the loving thing to do is to direct them toward the consequences of their actions—they’ll not learn otherwise.

Think of those others we love who watch on as we constantly accommodate abysmal attitudes and behaviour of those who care nothing for others or their own attitudes and behaviour.  Little wonder that there’s vicarious trauma and anger resultant of ONE person wreaking all this harm.

Acknowledging the cost of unequally yoked relationships is the catalyst of reflection.  It is the right thing to do to give every adult person the opportunity to grow up if they haven’t already.

Therefore, it’s a loving thing to call people to account for their attitudes and behaviour.  And, ideally, people call themselves to account—that is true adult behaviour.  A person who readily calls themselves to account is more equally yoked with another who calls themselves to account.

In emotional intelligence terms, self-awareness creates self-action, often leading from social awareness which ultimately creates social action (apologies, for instance, where required).

The emotionally intelligent are equally yoked with another who is emotionally intelligent.