During my grieving journey, I have been struggling with forgiveness. I have also had a few instances where others have triggered my insecurities, resulting in me not managing my anger effectively. Am I forgiving myself? Forgiving others? Setting appropriate boundaries? A recent discussion made me realize I needed to better understand forgiveness and setting boundaries.
Starting with forgiveness, I loved this quite simplistic approach to forgiveness.
– First you need to choose to forgive! Yes, there is a lot written about how forgiving someone is more about releasing the stress within you, but it is still a choice to forgive or not. And that choice will determine the future of the relationship with that other person, if it is about forgiving someone else. While this step sounds so simple, it can be challenging. Perhaps you don’t feel good enough to be forgiven. Or you like the “status” of being wronged.
– Second step is to acknowledge the feelings of resentment or betrayal. It’s OK to have those feelings and forgiveness does not mean you will forget nor discount the feelings. It is neither about condoning nor excusing the event, behavior, or mistake. This idea of not excusing the event was very powerful to my thinking about forgiveness. It happened, move on.
– The third step is actually fascinating to me, and so often you or others might see this as shifting blame. This step involves understanding why the person (or you, if forgiving yourself) did/said what they did/said. It’s about having empathy for their beliefs or intentions. It’s about realizing we all are human and do things (often unintentionally) that can hurt others. It is about recognizing how your own actions might have added to the situation that caused you to be hurt. It forces us to consider, how detrimental was the mistake? It’s about recognizing the past cannot be changed, but you can learn to make changes in the future. Is there something you can do (like creating better boundaries) to avoid similar situation in the future?
– And finally, forgive – let it go! Abandon your resentment and rebuild the connection. It was interesting that active rebuilding was also seen as part of forgiveness, not just all on the other person’s side of things. As the forgiver, you take an active role in re-establishing the connection.
Interestingly forgiveness did not involve telling the other person they were forgiven, nor of expecting anything from the other person (any restitution, any fix). It was a conscious and deliberate decision to release feelings of resentment or pain and not continuing to cherish the injury (“I was wronged, feel sorry for ME.”). It is not about who was right or who was wrong, but choosing to move forward with compassion. If setting better boundaries is part of the understanding in step three, then that could be a step five.
Looking more into setting healthy boundaries was fascinating as I realized that a boundary could easily become a wall. In reality boundaries simply communicate, “this behavior is OK with me and this is what is not.” Boundaries do not cut off contact/communication but rather increase it. Once again, it was recommended to understand the other person’s why in the behavior, which can help modify your approach to the communication. Is the behavior malicious or misguided? The boundary setting needs to be clear on what behavior is being done, how that behavior affects you, and what you need.
A few other things I learned about strong/weak boundaries. Strong boundaries mean, “it is not my job to fix you” and “it’s OK for me to say no.” If someone does not have strong, healthy boundaries they won’t be able to say no even if they feel uncomfortable doing what was asked. They will try and solve problems they see that are not their problems to solve. They will seek to please for fear of being rejected.
Boundaries can easily become walls when you choose to stop communication or end the relationship. Even reducing communication while you feel hurt (giving space or the silent treatment) is building a wall. Sometimes walls can be constructive if continuing the relationship will continue the hurt (someone refusing to try and change behaviors).
I realized as I read about boundaries and forgiveness that it was easier to start judging the inappropriateness of others actions (their poor boundaries, their lack of forgiveness) than to look at the contradictions in my own behaviors. Am I truly forgiving behaviors/mistakes made? Do I feel not worthy to be forgiven? Am I being passive aggressive versus setting clear boundaries in a couple of current situations? What can I do to set better boundaries instead of being continually hurt?
Forgiveness and healthy boundary setting sound so easy on paper but are quite hard in execution!
Picture: Another yard art craft – pouring tea pot.
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retirementtransition 
After my dad died, I think we, his children, had so many mixed emotions. We were never as close to my father. We didn’t know or understand my father well. There was some guilt and a lot of sadness. Now that my mom has died, too, we feel guilty for missing her, talking more about her, than we did my dad. But we all felt closer to her. With my dad there were a few skeletons in the closet. With my mom, we had an open book…until we realized she had struggled with mental health issues all of our lives. Relationships are hard. But they are worth the work. I am trying to move beyond dissecting my relationships with my parents and just remembering the love.
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Your last words say it all – “just remembering the love”!
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This post resonates with me. If one thing blogging has taught me it is to establish personal boundaries that allow for connections, but also make me feel safe. I do not tell all, nor do I dwell on, or try to fix, people who behave disrespectfully toward me. It might be an odd thing to take away from my blogging experiences, but lately I’ve been thinking about this a lot.
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Ally, I need to definitely learn how to not dwell on people who behave disrespectfully toward me. If you’ve been thinking on it, I’m hoping you’ll post about it and share some ideas on how to do that effectively. I’m in a situation now with someone like that and I’m not ready to quit the organization because of this person, so I can’t really avoid them. I recognize it’s all about my reaction and she seems to be able to hit my buttons regularly! I’m going to keep thinking “don’t dwell on it” at least.
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Personal growth & self-awareness is a continuous journey. Learn. Forgive. Move forward. A few phrases resonated with me. 1) “or you like the status of being wronged.” The role of martyr is an easy one to fall into & hard to relinquish. I never thought of the connection between forgiveness & boundaries. 2) “boundaries can easily become walls.” Personally, I have to be mindful of not falling into an “all or nothing” mentality. The focus needs to be on healthy boundaries, compassion, empathy. Thank you for another thought-provoking post.
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Thanks for your comments. Topics like these are a bit scary for me to post about…. this one sat for 3 weeks before I had the courage to post it. And then the comments make me think about things even more. Like how I’ve set up walls and am OK with one of them but not the other. And how the person I have the hardest time forgiving is myself. Self compassion is a challenge for me, but you are right – Learn and move forward!
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Oh my goodness. The teapot is adorable. That would bring a smile to my face every time I saw it. 🙂
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Teapot is super easy to make. Challenge is to find a cute and cheap one at a thrift store. This one was actually a replacement … a falling branch broke the previous one. Typical Florida hazards – falling palm branches and high winds!
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Oh boy, yes they are both hard to do and my fall back plan for boundaries with other people is to just avoid them all together! I don’t do confrontation – I just can’t seem to think of everything I want to say at that moment (it comes to me hours or days later!) I’m a little better with forgiveness because I view it as a gift to myself – why should I waste my precious energy holding a grudge or being angry with someone else. However, when it comes to something I’ve done that needs forgiveness that takes me a little longer. I need to evaluate what happened, and then reevaluate it about 10 more times before I can feel good about forgiving myself!
I love your posts so much! They are so thoughtful and insightful allowing me to look inside myself and grow. Thank You Pat!! 🙂
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Sharon, what a great way of thinking about it! “why should I waste my precious energy being angry with someone else” and I’d modify it to “someone like that”! And I’m with you, the great words come well after the confrontation moment. And yup, re-evaluate the situation 10 times…. or more!
Thanks for your comment. This post sat for 3 weeks because I was worried about posting it. But then I get such positive comments like yours and it makes me wonder why I was scared.
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Yes, they are hard in execution, no matter how much written guidance you try to absorb. Your post resonated with me today because I just finished a book about forgiveness. NOT a how to book, but a memoir about a situation that contemplated forgiveness. It was interesting and helpful to read how someone actually put these tools into practice over a period of time. On The Way to Casa Lotus. Thanks for the post.
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Tracey, I had this post written for 3 weeks wondering if I had the courage to post it. And then I get such positive comments, like your thanks, and I wonder why I was so fearful! I appreciate your commenting.
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Awwww, forgiveness. One of the hardest things to do! Both for ourselves and for others. I really feel like I’m pretty good at it now, I must admit after much counseling after my first husband left me in the manner he did. But……I find that I still have to tell myself to “let it go”, don’t hold that grudge or wish them ill. And I feel like I still keep the “don’t let them do that to you again” as a pretty strong wall. I might keep the lines of communication open but I stay a little leery and withdraw from truly being open. Always “on guard”. Communication to the person about how they hurt me would never happen – “They might not like me if I did” would prevail.
As for myself, perhaps I forgive myself but I often use those flaws to berate myself as not good enough. That conversation seems to be one of my most popular with myself still. Oh my, that fodder for a whole other conversation!
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Candyse, You made me think even more about this. The last couple of times I’ve actually told someone that their actions/words hurt me, it did not result in anything that was positive to me. One, a response of “I’d do it again” and another of “you’re just being too sensitive” … both resulted in me just putting up a wall – not a boundary. And yeah, not much forgiveness on my side with those responses! I’m worse on forgiving myself for things I felt were mistakes. It is so hard to “let it go”… I admire folks who can, who let things just slide off their backs and move on content with life. Still an area of development for me!
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I’m hopeless with boundaries – absolutely hopeless. Porous membrane, that’s me. As for forgiveness, I’m actually okay with that…it is a minefield though and you’ve articulated that beautifully.
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I had a chuckle at “porous membrane”. I’m actually better with boundaries than forgiveness myself. Although I’ve learned my boundaries can look like walls if I’m not careful. Although sometimes I’m OK with the wall!
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Hi Pat – these are areas I’ve done a lot of work on – especially after the years I spent in my toxic job – working with a narcissist is very confrontational for someone like me with my need to rescue people and keep everyone happy. My biggest takeaway from it all was that I had no understanding of creating boundaries – your description of not having strong boundaries summed me up perfectly.
What I’ve learnt is that saying ‘no’ means risking someone will be disappointed in me – and that’s okay (big one for me!) and that forgiveness can mean accepting the apology you never got….and moving on. I don’t do confrontation well – I tend to ghost away – so I may lose people along the way, and that might have to be okay too. Life is never perfect and tied with a bow, and I’ve got a lot of self-awareness and self-acceptance to catch up on – but hey! that’s what Midlife’s for! 🙂
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Leanne, I really like your phrasing “accepting the apology you never got”. What a great way to think about it. I need to think about whether I “ghost away”. I know I am prone to being passive aggressive. It’s fascinating what awareness in mid-life does to one’s perception of self.
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