Are You Spiritualising Forgiveness?

EPISODE 119 | ARE YOUR SPIRITUALISING FORGIVENESS

If spiritualising forgiveness is not good for us and not good for others, and at the same time, it's so hard to do, how do we go about this journey to try and go to a, you know, genuine, authentic forgiveness? What does that even look like? 

[00:00:16] INTRODUCTION
Welcome to Becoming Me, your podcast companion and coach in your journey to a more integrated and authentic self. I am your host, Ann Yeong, and I'm here to help you grow in self-discovery and wholeness. If you long to live a more authentic and integrated life and would like to hear honest insights about the rewards and challenges of this journey, then take a deep breath, relax, and listen on to Becoming Me.

[00:00:50] EXPLORING THE STRUGGLES WITH FORGIVENESS
Hello again, and this morning I'm going to try and tackle a pretty big topic. It's been something that I've been mulling about on and off, I guess my whole life. And I think spiritualising forgiveness is - it came to the fore again because also just this last weekend, the mass readings were about forgiveness. And in a couple of conversations I've had since the weekend, friends have been bringing up this topic of forgiveness as well.

[00:01:29] Plus, even on my own, I think the last couple of months. I have also been grappling with this question about love, about forgiveness, not in the abstract, but in the concrete, right? Because what we're always interested on this account, you know, in my content, on my podcast, is always about integration of faith and life, of becoming more human, more whole. 

[00:01:58] And one of the things that I think we, many of us struggle, those of us who have faith, is that when we hear precepts like, you know, the command to love or the command to forgive. Somehow, we struggle to integrate that into the complexity of our lives.

[00:02:20] Okay, and I think this is linked. The reason why we struggle to integrate, like, forgiveness and love into the complexity of our lives is one, we don't know how to integrate, okay? We are still very compartmentalised. Two, I think a big part of it is because we don't yet have a secure enough relationship with God.

[00:02:41] So, sometimes, there's a lot of urgency and even hidden fear and anxiety behind obeying or doing the right thing. Even when we don't yet really understand, not just like in our mind, but we haven't learned what it means to do that yet. We feel like we have to obey. But how do you obey when you don't know what it is?

[00:03:04] How do you obey when haven't really grasped, not just conceptually, like I said, but these are not conceptual terms. Love and forgiveness are not conceptual terms, right? They have to be understood in praxis, so, we can't obey even when we want to if we don't know what it is. So, in today's Live, a little sharing I'd like to try and discuss forgiveness and put it in the context of our integration journey, and also in the context of our relationship with God.

[00:03:34] THREE SIGNS INDICATING YOU MAY BE SPIRITUALISING FORGIVENESS
So, first off, what might spiritualising forgiveness even look like, right? You might say, like, how do I know if I'm spiritualising forgiveness? I always like to give kind of like three simple, or three signs that you may be spiritualising forgiveness. Okay, so, three signs that you may be spiritualising forgiveness.

[00:03:55] The first one, the first one would be that in order to forgive, you have to suppress or bypass your pain and your anger. So, for example, you know, you hear the homily on forgiveness, or you read the gospel passage on forgiveness and you go, okay you know, there's this person who has hurt me very much.

[00:04:16] It could be, you know, my spouse could be a family member, could be somebody at work, whatever it is. And you go, okay, but I need to forgive him or I need to forgive her. So, in order to do that, I can't dwell on my pain. I can't dwell on the anger or the hurt. It's like, but I want to forgive. So, in order to do that, I numb myself or I ignore.

[00:04:37] I ignore or block out my pain, my anger, or I dissociate. Okay, so, dissociation is kind of, it's actually a very automatic defense mechanism that a lot of us have adopted - our nervous system has adopted from young, where we're not in contact with our pain. And then so, it's like an act of the will, which we often may think is a good thing. 

[00:05:02] We choose to forgive by disconnecting ourselves with our anger and our pain. So, that's one possible sign that you are spiritualising forgiveness. Okay, because you have to disconnect yourself and bypass your actual emotions.

[00:05:18] A second sign that you might be spiritualising forgiveness is - this one is a little sneaky because it requires personal like awareness to know if this is happening - a second sign that you may be spiritualising forgiveness is that when you feel that you've forgiven that person, it makes you feel kind of like superior morally or spiritually superior to that person. Because, you know, there's a sense of well, no, I've been the bigger person. I'm being the bigger person.

[00:05:47] You know, this person has maybe hurt me, betrayed me in a sense. But I chose and I was able to forgive the person and so, I feel superior. Sometimes this may not be immediate this Awareness or this realization that you feel superior to the person that you forgive may not be immediate but watch what happens when you feel like the person maybe owes you something or you begin to feel resentful because even though you've forgiven this person, the person maybe still so-called doesn't change or doesn't, you know, do whatever it is that you think that person should now be doing for you.

[00:06:25] So, when you begin to notice resentment, for example, or kind of the thought like, you know, I was a bigger person, I'm always being the bigger person here. That's kind of like feeling superior. You feel that you're morally or spiritually superior to that person. That's another sign, possible sign, that you're spiritualising forgiveness.

[00:06:47] Because it's like the full process of really forgiving someone or even when they said there's really immediate supernatural grace given to really forgive someone, it's unconditional, okay. So, let's not rush into wanting to forgive or you know, making ourself forgive, especially in a very spiritualised way. Because then we think we're forgiven or we think we know what forgiveness should look like and maybe it isn't that at all, okay. 

[00:07:18] Okay, the third possible sign that you may be spiritualising forgiveness rather than actually going through the process of forgiveness is that there is this sense of duty, right, that I'm forgiving. I'm choosing to forgive in order to be a good Christian, to be a good Catholic because God commanded me to forgive and therefore I forgive, right? It's just a very straight, seemingly straight, linear. I'm doing this because I have to, I should, and therefore I will do it. You see, it's linked to the other earlier points, right?

[00:07:48] It's linked to, for example, if in order to be a obedient Christian, a faithful Christian, a Catholic, I have to forgive. And if my emotions are in the way of making it possible for me to forgive, then I bypass, suppress, ignore, dissociate my emotions in order to be obedient, in order to forgive. That's another very possible sign that what we're doing is actually spiritualising forgiveness.

[00:08:16] Right, so, again, the three signs, it's not exhaustive, but the three signs I talked about that, you know, may indicate that we are spiritualising forgiveness is one, in order to forgive, we have to suppress or bypass our emotions to do so. Second, that in a very subtle, sneaky way, we actually begin to feel that we are superior to the person that we're forgiving because we are being the bigger person.

[00:08:39] And three, we find that the impetus to forgive is coming from, oh, it's in order to be a faithful Christian, a good Christian. It's because I want to obey God. Or I want to, you know, yeah, be, be a good religious moral person in the eyes of my faith. So, these are possible signs that our attempts to forgive or even what we think we may be doing when we're forgiving is actually just a spiritualised version of forgiveness. And I mentioned earlier, a big part of this why this happens could be because we are anxious about not following the commands or not being faithful and obedient, right?

[00:09:22] So, before I will look later or discuss a bit later about, you know, what the reasons may be or some contribution contributing factors to why we spiritualise forgiveness.

[00:09:32] UNDERSTANDING THE TRUE ESSENCE OF FOREGIVENESS
But let's come back to this big thing that forgiveness is, in a sense, a command, right? For those of us who wish to follow Christ, who are trying to follow Christ, we can't run away from the truth, the fact, right, the scriptural fact, that Christ calls us to forgive our enemies and that there is the hardest probably command, right, that there is for us and it's intimately linked to really this another command when Christ says love one another as I have loved you, right? Love one another as I have loved you. 

[00:10:10] And how does Christ love? He forgives his enemies. And for many of us, it's like we know and we see this as a precept out there. We see it as a moral precept. We can say a religious or a spiritual precept as well. But it's outside of us and we feel like we have to meet this command and be able to do what Christ does.

[00:10:36] Now pulling back a little, when we look at our interior journey of integration, it is a journey. Nothing is black and white. Nothing is, you know, it cannot be accomplished by looking at what we imagine should be the finished product, or the happy ending. I often use this analogy and you know, in previous sharings and episodes where, if you watch the olympics or you watch any elite athlete or for example, ballet. When I was young I really loved watching ballet, right. And you watch the the beauty and the finesse maybe, the flawless performance and execution of elite athletes or let's say, ballerinas.

[00:11:20] And we think, wow, that's what I'm called to be able to do as well. For example, if you're an aspiring athlete, okay, or an aspiring ballerina, you don't get there, we can't get there without everything that is behind the scenes, right - the alignment that I mean that there's that there's a talent. There's a potential that we have the opportunity, the resources for the training that's necessary .All the sacrifices that need to happen - the strengthening and then the injuries - there's a long long process, right? The support, the right coaches, right nutrition. There's a lot of stuff. A lot, a lot of unseen things that go into what we see as so-called the final product of that flawless execution, right, whether it's in sports or in dance.

[00:12:13] When we look at heroic virtue or when we imagine sometimes like, you know, that union with God, maybe we can't run away of having some kind of imagination. I think a lot of us maybe think of a particular saint, or we imagine what we should look like when we are more perfect. I've also mentioned before in other sharings how this can be counterproductive sometimes because it takes us away from being where we are. But I think we can't help ourselves sometimes, right?

[00:12:39] We can't imagine a perfect vision of what we we could be like, if we could truly love or truly forgive. But the reality is, one, that is still some kind of imagination. We don't know how it actually looks like. So, we have to distinguish between reality and fantasy, or reality and imagination. And secondly, the only way we can live our way into a higher perfection of love or forgiveness is by undertaking the process with the Lord, beginning from where we are.

[00:13:18] The frustration, of course, is often where we are right now can look nothing at all like what we imagined it should look like. So, take for example, you know, with our daily struggles with life and all that kind of thing. And then we go to church and you hear the gospel and you hear the homily and then you're reminded, oh, I'm called to forgive. Or I'm called to forgive the people, the person, maybe a particular person, that I'm struggling to forgive. What do we do with that?

[00:13:48] I think many of us who are aspiring disciples or who like to think of ourselves as disciples, we feel like we need to do it now, or we need to get it done now, we need to obey now. There is that sense, a good sense, that I don't want to delay, right? But then that desire is often met at the same time, with resistance. Right, that resistance of this is too hard, I don't know what this means, how can I forgive if this person is still hurting me? What does forgiveness mean? Does it mean that I continue to be available to being harmed by this person?

[00:14:25] These are all also very important and relevant questions. And integration, actually, or really living the life of faith, means having enough spaciousness in ourselves and in our lives to be able to hold these questions, to wrestle with them, to test them out, to not need to have an absolute certain model answer right now. When we spiritualise forgiveness, we short circuit all that. When we spiritualise forgiveness, we don't give ourselves that spaciousness that includes time. And we don't know how long it may take. 

[00:15:12] It includes distance, often distance from the person who has hurt us that we're struggling to forgive. If you're constantly still in contact with the person who is hurting you or has hurt you you know, again, that's another way of ensuring that you don't actually move towards genuine forgiveness because our nervous system will not be safe, will not feel safe, and then we're still in fight or flight or freeze or fawn mode.

[00:15:39] Sometimes, forgiveness may actually be a way of fawning. It could be actually our defense mechanism, you know? We forgive actually to appease, so that we can still be a so-called in relationship, right. It's coming from a place of fear from insecurity of fear of losing that relationship And then again, we have to ask, is that really the kind of forgiveness that Christ meant when He calls us to forgive?

[00:16:06] So, let me backtrack a little and ask, when we think of God's commands or Christ's commands, what's the stance that our heart takes towards having a command from God? Is it like, we're a soldier under the command of a superior officer. Is that how we take a command, an order?

[00:16:26] You know, we just have to execute it. There's no option about it, right? There's no choice about it. There's no delay that's allowed. You just have to do it. But of course, the question is how do we even understand what is required to do this, right? Does it feel more like maybe taking an order from your boss? From a superior? Does it feel like maybe receiving a request. Let's just stick to the word command at this point. But does it come from like a loving father?

[00:16:52] How many of us even have the real experience of a secure relationship with a loving parent, in which when a command is given, there is no threat of punishment imminently, you know, behind, that is fueling that need to obey. Or is the command, there's also a command of the heart, really, and lovers know this, right? Lovers, there is a command that is an imperative that comes from love, and when someone that loves us very much and whom we love, tells us to do something, sometimes, there can be a sense of authority.

[00:17:33] So, I'll give you an example. Say, my husband sometimes can be very firm when he tells me, Ann, don't do that. Okay, when you hear, don't do that, it sounds like, oh, is he being bossy? Is he trying to command me? But what's the context, right? The context is he was asked, he was reminding me not to put myself in harm's way, in a particular relationship where there has been very long term dysfunction.

[00:18:02] And I am often unaware and I just avail myself to be triangulated and harmed, right, because I think that's being loving. And when my husband was telling me, don't do that. There was a sense of, he was very firm. But at the same time, I know that it was for my flourishing. It's because he loves me.

[00:18:29] And that makes me want to, in a sense, obey him, but I'm not obeying him. He's actually reminding me of what I truly want to do for myself as well. When a command really comes from love and we can receive it in love, we will realise that command comes from within ourself, right? Because the command is by love, for love.

[00:18:51] Now the question is, is that how we take commands when we look at, for example, the command to forgive from Christ? Do we experience that command as a command from love from within ourselves? Do we really believe that it will give us blessing? It will, you know, help us to flourish? Or do we experience it as a command from outside of us?

[00:19:12] A command that is oppressive, a command that is unreasonable. That makes a lot of difference. It makes a lot of difference if we are trying to obey a command that's coming from outside of us because we are afraid of the consequences if we don't obey this command that leads us back to spiritualising forgiveness, for example.

[00:19:31] We will not reap the blessings of forgiveness. So, why am I even talking about blessings? So, let's take a moment and think what was In the Gospels, right, what may give us an indication of the way Christ himself how he sees commands, or laws, okay, or imperatives. If you remember, Jesus himself, although He was a Jew, and also, you know, in many ways an observant Jew, there were times when he broke their laws, right? The religious laws. Especially the Sabbath laws.

[00:20:08] And in the Gospel of Mark, there's a very, I'll say, famous line. Famous, at least it's very famous for me. I often think of this line. Where, when he was of course criticised and judged for breaking the Sabbath law, Jesus had said this line that Sabbath was made for man, not man for Sabbath.

[00:20:28] Right, that the Sabbath law, that no work can be done, was made for men. It's meant to be a blessing for men, and not meant to be a burden for men, such that obeying the letter of the law of the Sabbath. What the Pharisees was doing was saying that Jesus was wrong and unobservant, and was breaking the Sabbath law by healing people on the Sabbath, right?

[00:20:54] But this principle that Jesus mentions, that Sabbath was made for man, not meant for the Sabbath, gives us an indication that laws and commands, especially coming from the heart of Christ, is meant for the human person, not meant as an oppression of the human person. But think a while now, from our own experiences, how often this call, this command to forgive, from the Christian context, has been weaponised against us.

[00:21:24] Think of the times when we feel forced coerced to forgive someone who's harming us, and we think that forgiving means that we cannot hold them accountable, we should not hold them accountable. And in real life, this really does happen. Even in criminal cases, sometimes, we confuse the two. Does it mean that to forgive someone means that I shouldn't report the person, right? 

[00:21:48] Or even if it's not criminal, even if it's happening in everyday we'll say like, you know, like relationship kind of situations where we are poorly treated, there may be emotional neglect or emotional abuse. And we think that to forgive, means not to seek, to search, and to work for a truly more authentic relationship, or not to seek a way for us to uphold our own dignity with more courage and boldness.

[00:22:22] Sometimes, and I think I would say even oftentimes, forgiveness, especially the spiritualised version of forgiveness, has been weaponised against the human person, against us. And that is exactly opposite of what Jesus was talking about when He says Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.

[00:22:41] So, if forgiveness is meant not as a burden to us, not as a millstone around our neck, it shouldn't be the reason we are bypassing our emotions, suppressing our emotions. It shouldn't be the reason we are not holding people who are harming us or others accountable. Forgiveness should not be the reason that we can't become fully human, right? So, then now, let's come to the question.

[00:23:09] REAL-LIFE COMPLEXITIES OF FORGIVENESS IN OUR RELATIONSHIPS
So, if forgiveness is meant to help us thrive and flourish because Christ would never command something of us that would harm us, why is it that so many of us see in our own lives, as well as in the people around us, forgiveness, even when it is practiced? Okay, so, first, yes, a lot of us know we struggle to forgive.

[00:23:33] But we also, I think, have experiences whether in our own lives or in other people's lives, or people in relationship with us, where people claim that they have forgiven, they say, I have forgiven, but then you don't feel it. As in like a part of you that goes like, well, this doesn't feel like forgiveness.

[00:23:49] Yeah, so, let me just give you a concrete example because real life is really complex, right? So, I give you a context in marriage because this often happens in marriages and in families, right? But especially in marriages. So, let's say person A insists that she has forgiven person B. So, let's say person A is the wife and the wife insists that she has forgiven the husband who has hurt her many times, you know, according to her. I mean, she has experienced hurt and she says, but I've forgiven all these years I have been forgiving you.

[00:24:21] I've been forgiving the husband, right? Over and over. But every time there's a new conflict and there's a new fight, person A, you know, let's say the wife, will bring up a list of past transgressions, right, to the argument. So, the question is, has she actually forgiven?

[00:24:42] Because in this kind of scenario, often then the other person, person B, in this case, let's say the husband, would say like, well you see, you know, you haven't forgiven me, right. You haven't forgiven me because you're bringing up a list of all the, you know, the past transgressions and person A will say, well, if I hadn't been forgiving you, that relationship would have long been over.

[00:25:05] Right, the fact that we are still in this relationship and we're still fighting is because I have been forgiving you. Got how complex this is? But this is real life, right? This is the kind of thing that we experienced, some of us. Well, a lot of us, I think. Some version or the other. Now the truth of the matter is, yes, these two people are still in a relationship, you know. Their marriage is technically still intact, and this could go on for, you know, 10 years, 20 years, 30 years, 40 years, longer, maybe even, and they may feel like they are obeying the command to one the sanctity of the sacrament of marriage, right, because divorce is not an option.

[00:25:39] So, they remain married, but this relationship is one that is filled with this kind of cycles where clearly there's a lot more at play than simply forgiving past transgressions. There's no mention of repair. There's no understanding of repair, which brings me again to the point how often when we hear about forgiveness in a spiritual context, let's say at mass or, you know, in a homily. Can we put it into that larger picture and fuller context, but other things also need to happen alongside it, let's say for relationship to really flourish, such as repair, right?

[00:26:21] And if there is no repair, then maybe forgiveness looks different. Maybe there are versions of forgiveness where the relationship shouldn't continue as is because if a relationship continues as is, without any maybe necessary boundary that's being put around it then, the human persons involved continue to be hurt and harmed. And if we're talking about in this example let's say in a marriage, it's not just the husband and wife, it's not just the couple in the marriage that are harmed. If there are children in the picture, they are greatly harmed, being caught in such a family dynamic of marital conflict, right?

[00:27:01] So, real life is really complex. Like in the example I said, this is exercising forgiveness. We have to ask, is something missing about our understanding of forgiveness, or in the practice of forgiveness, it doesn't seem to really give life to anyone. If anything, there seems to be more resentment. Sometimes, there's a sense of moral superiority, like I said, you know, where, well, I've been forgiving you. Even though the other party may feel like, no, I don't feel like it, there has been real forgiveness.

[00:27:31] And then if there's forgiveness, if let's say person A in the story that I'm talking about, the example I'm giving, says, I've forgiven you, is there a sense of talking about accountability or repair? Because if there isn't and then person B does the same thing again, because there was no account. He was not held towards any accountability and person A thinks that forgiveness means that okay, everything is forgiven but at the same time everything is the same as it was before. Why would we expect there to be a different outcome? There's a saying, right, something about stupidity is trying like doing the same thing in the same way and expecting a different outcome. There's something to that, right?

[00:28:15] If we think that forgiveness is just a reset, but we don't look at the underlying causes of why certain patterns are happening, certain dysfunctions are happening, are we not setting ourselves, as well as the other person, up for more failure, more hurt, more trauma, right? When we spiritualise forgiveness, though, we short circuit all of that.

[00:28:39] We just try and get to the outcome, so to speak, of like wiping this debt off my slate. And actually we're not, we don't really do that. We think we did it, but we don't really do that. We may just be psychologically blocking it, dissociating ourselves from our pain. Like I said, but the pain is still there. It's unprocessed. The anger is still there. It's unprocessed. 

[00:28:59] And it all comes up again to the surface at a later time, in our bodies, as it accumulates in our life. If this way of practicing forgiveness does not make us more fully human, does not make us more whole, then it cannot truly be forgiveness. So, I think we have to ask ourselves sometimes, when we think about love and forgiveness, are we elevating principles and laws above the human person? And we have to remember Jesus never did that. 

[00:29:34] Laws and principles are meant to serve the person. Love, and the way that love is exercised, if it's not building up a person, maybe it's not really authentic and genuine love yet, right?

[00:29:48] EXPLORING THE PROCESS OF FORGIVENESS
And we are in that process. So, are we elevating principles above the human person or are we wrestling and finding a way to live into understanding this principle, not just in our head intellectually, but in an embodied way, right? In a way that gives time, space, and honors the process, okay, without giving ourselves undue pressure that short circuits it.

[00:30:16] When we give ourselves undue pressure, it short circuits the whole process. It's like we don't even allow ourselves to digest what's happening. So, that's what spiritualising anything usually does. It short circuits the process, it short circuits our humanity, right? So, why do we do that? If that isn't good for us, why is it that we keep doing that?

[00:30:40] WHY DO WE SPIRITUALISE FORGIVENESS?
So, here are some possible reasons, okay, from my own journey and my own experience and my own observation.

[00:30:46] And it stems really from a lack of secure relationship with God. Okay, which is, may sound very abstract, but here's what it feels like concretely. If I don't forgive, I'm a bad Christian, I'm a bad disciple, I'm a bad Catholic. I can't live with that over my head. Maybe I identify myself as being a good disciple, right?

[00:31:11] And so, if forgiveness is required of me in order for me to be a good disciple, then I must forgive. And that must overrides my ability, my capacity to attune to myself. It overrides my capacity to be present to how God is attuning to me. And God is not rushing me to do anything, right? Because God honors the process.

[00:31:37] He created me with a specific design and He honors that design. We are the ones that often push ourselves beyond what the design can do. But, when I have that overriding need to be, to fit a certain image of myself, such as a good Christian or a good Catholic, that's one reason why I spiritualise.

[00:31:58] What is that need for that image linked to? Very often, it is linked to our fear of rejection. Either our fear of rejection by God himself - will God reject me, punish me if I don't meet the image of what it means to be a good child of God? So, see, back again, it's linked to our lack of secure attachment with God or fear of rejection from our community.

[00:32:23] For many of us, relationship with God is still something that's still quite far away. Many people who start to begin to take their faith more seriously have a more concrete attachment with their community, with the people around them in their church or in their community, in their ministries, you know, whatever that is.

[00:32:43] But that attachment is also often not secure. And I want to say, often, for good reason, because we never really get unconditional love from people, so, we are very aware that our acceptance and people's good opinion of us is predicated on certain, maybe certain behaviors or even let's say our identity, our religious identity.

[00:33:07] So, that fear of losing other people's good opinion of us or being rejected potentially by the people whose, you know, opinions matter to us may be another reason why we end up spiritualising forgiveness. Okay, or we end up telling people to forgive in also in a very spiritualised way and we let ourselves be pressured into maybe forgiving, so to speak, in a spiritualised way. Okay, so, fear of rejection, fear of losing our identity, the way we need to see ourselves as maybe a God fearing good Christian. 

[00:33:43] Another reason why we tend to spiritualise forgiveness could be we are already very out of touch with ourselves, which many of us are, all right. Especially if we are survivors of complex trauma, attachment trauma. The whole point is we have never been in touch with ourselves.

[00:34:00] We've never been attuned to our own emotions and our body. We don't know how to be in touch with that and we don't have people in our lives who show us how they can attune to us. That is the true and sad reality that many of us find ourselves in. So, if we have never experienced what it's like to be attuned to, to have compassion extended to us, for someone to show us how we can take the time to hear what is the truth that our bodies and our emotions are telling us and to honor that process into becoming more whole, then of course, the only option we may know, the only option that maybe has been modeled for us, is the spiritualised version of forgiveness.

[00:34:50] And that's why we spiritualise forgiveness, right? Because that's all we know and because we don't have the capacity to do otherwise. But whatever the reason may be, and I'm saying, you know, these are also reasons to be compassionate to ourselves and to others who spiritualise forgiveness. There's a reason why it happens, whether it's ignorance or just really lack of ability.

[00:35:12] We do this, we spiritualise forgiveness. But now, I'm hoping that more of us are becoming aware that spiritualising forgiveness actually harms us and others. It doesn't heal us. It doesn't do anything to help us actually be more authentically loving.

[00:35:28] If anything, it actually sets us back because it prevents us from doing the actual processing and the repair work with ourselves that needs to happen in order for us to love authentically, right? 

[00:35:41] So, if spiritualising forgiveness is not good for us and not good for others, and at the same time, it's so hard to do, how do we go about this journey to try and go to a, you know, genuine, authentic forgiveness? What does that even look like?

[00:35:57] I'll be honest and say I'm still asking that question. Okay, I don't know how it looks like. Because when we are on this integration journey, one of the things that will happen is that God gives us clearer and clearer sight, right? Clearer ability, better ability to see our present reality as it really is.

[00:36:22] Now, that itself can be very challenging and overwhelming, right? And I know that a lot of you who are going through this journey know exactly what I'm talking about. Sometimes it may be easier to forgive, for example, if you don't really realise extent of the harm that has been done to you.

[00:36:39] When you begin to have your eyes open to just what a number has been done on to you, by let's say a parent or, you know, someone, which healing does. And Christ is the truth, right? And so, He shows us more and more of the truth. Then the challenge to forgive a greater trespass or, you know, when you recognise the harm that's done for you is even harder, right?

[00:37:05] It's an even higher challenge, especially if you're not going to spiritualise it. Very honestly, for me, I often find myself telling God, I don't know how to love so and so, or I don't know how to love even the church. Someone just asked me not too long ago in a conversation, the question she's struggling with now or beginning to ask now is, what does it mean to love the church?

[00:37:29] You know, she didn't think she had a problem with that before, but as she became more and more aware and more able to see deeper into reality and she realised just how much harm and dysfunction is happening there to herself and to others. And then the question, it becomes a harder question, right?

[00:37:47] How do I love? How do I forgive? Okay, so, I'm not copying out of that question, okay. The question I asked, how do we go about this? But here's the thing, I don't think we need to know how it looks like. We don't need to know what genuine love actually looks like. We don't need to know how genuine, authentic forgiveness must look like.

[00:38:09] Because there is no one perfect version of love or forgiveness. It is something for us to live into, to wrestle into. But there are certain underlying precepts and principles that can guide us, okay, so that we know we are going in a sense in the right direction. We don't know what the ultimate goal looks like, but we can have a sense of what experience can feel like.

[00:38:41] EMBRACING THE VASTNESS OF GOD'S LOVE
So, first and foremost, genuine, authentic love, or genuine, authentic forgiveness, the fullness of that forgiveness, wherever it is, for whatever, in whatever context it is, it has to be undergirded, undergirded and held, by a very deep - that ground of our being, which is that deep security of being loved by God, of our being loved by God.

[00:39:09] Now, right there, I think most of us already struggle with that. We struggle with having a very deep, abiding, felt security of being loved by God. And that is why we spiritualise things. Because we feel like we need to do this, or we need to do that, so that God won't stop loving me. Or so that, you know, our image of God is already distorted, right?

[00:39:31] So, at its root, instead of just trying so hard to forgive or trying to figure out how to forgive, I think at its root, it's a lot more helpful for us to work on developing that deeper more secure attachment with God because that secure attachment is what undergirds the whole process of forgiveness.

[00:39:49] And then secondly do the real work of attunement healing and repair with ourselves first, okay. So, I'm talking about even our own internal relationship with ourself and relationship with God. I mentioned earlier when we are cut off from ourselves, when we don't know what it's like to be attuned to, we can't even be present to God attuning to us, which is actually necessary for our healing and our integration, right?

[00:40:20] So, when we are not able to attune to God's presence to us, we're not able to be present to His attuning to us, we can't move forward into genuine or authentic forgiveness. So, working on that attunement, on that healing and repair within ourselves is going to help us move towards genuine forgiveness, genuinely being able to forgive, right?

[00:40:43] And also remember in the context of grace and when we talk about God, we are also speaking about eternity. Eternity is very spacious. Our traumatised nervous system, the way we live our lives is often very compressed. And we go about even trying to obey Christ's commands in ways that are very anxious and very driven and with a lack of sense of space, right?

[00:41:09] It's like there's not enough time. Often, we may fear we don't have enough time. What if, for example, I can't forgive before the person that I can't forgive dies? Or what if I never have the opportunity to repair this relationship? Would I have regret? Possibly. But here's the thing. When we talk about God, we're talking about an eternal, abiding, limitless, infinite love that surpasses and transcends time, space, even death. 

[00:41:46] Suddenly, if you can insert yourself into that reality, the horizons just open up and you realise that not even death can keep you from completing the process of forgiveness. So, there literally is no hurry, no rush. There's no need to rush, no need to fear about honoring the process because in God, there is no limit.

[00:42:17] In God, there's infinity and there's eternity. If we cannot place ourselves within this context of being rooted and grounded in the infinite, limitless, eternal love of God, we can't really move towards genuine forgiveness, especially where there's been grave hurt and grave wounds. Okay, let me see your comment.

[00:42:42] I love your mention of how we often even forgive sometimes because we don't even realise the extent of the hurt until later, forgiveness isn't always a one and done action. Yeah, so true. Often not one and done. Layers and layers, right? Yes, and the comfort of the reminder of the vastness of eternity. And that's the difference that grace and faith makes.

[00:43:05] You know, I also follow quite a lot of Instagram accounts from therapists talking about healing or talking about healing of trauma and childhood trauma and many of these are secular, right? I mean, they don't necessarily have the faith perspective. And there's still a lot of truth in them because a lot of these about the process is all true. But it also often strikes me there's such a huge difference when you don't have the faith perspective.

[00:43:29] For example, like what I just said; the faith perspective is ultimately, it's not just about like religious identity. I think for some people, they think the faith perspective is, oh, this is because it is commanded of us. You know, this is what God wants of us or this is what it means to be faithful No, no, no, okay. That's not the way I mean it at all because I think that has issues of its own. For me, the faith perspective is ultimately that relationship with God, which then, reminds us we have the vastness of eternity and it is with the resources that is not ours alone, not our limited human resources, but God's love itself. 

[00:44:07] We can draw from that infinite resource of God's love to love, but that process is not immediate. It takes time. It's messy. But because there's that vastness of eternity. We can be safe even when what the process looks like right now may look anything but virtuous. You know, sometimes we, if we're at the process where we're still feeling the anger because we're just realising what has been done to us, we need to feel that anger.

[00:44:43] It is part of that process. If the work of the moment is to allow ourselves to be angry and then we are worrying about how this is not forgiving the person who has hurt us. We are not helping ourselves towards forgiving the person either, right? If we have to be angry, we have to be angry. If we're feeling hatred, even, feel the hatred.

[00:45:02] Look at the Psalms! Look at the psalms, look at how honest the psalmists are, you know, even when it's filled with anger and thoughts of vengeance and all that. I mean, it's part of the process. It's part of the process and we don't have to be afraid of it. But we are afraid of it when we don't have that firm anchor in the vastness of God's love, right?

[00:45:23] So, whenever we find ourselves anxious, afraid or disappointed in ourselves or being hard on ourselves. It shows that we are still operating on our own egos agenda, okay. Our ego has an agenda to be a good Christian, for example, or we think that we should be better than this, more mature than this. But when we lose ourselves in the vastness of God's love, then we can also let go of our egos agendas, right?

[00:45:50] But it's not a one and done thing. It's an over and over again kind of thing. So, Monty Williams, a Jesuit that I have also quoted from before, I attended a talk that he gave once and someone asked during Q & A (question and answer) about forgiveness, and he said, forgiveness is God's business.

[00:46:09] It sounded a bit controversial at that time, I remembered I was taken aback because he says forgiveness is God's business. Don't try to do what is God's work, right? So, and then, I think the person who asked the question also was a bit confused, like, aren't I supposed to forgive? Doesn't God want me to forgive?

[00:46:24] What does Monty mean by forgiveness is God's business? Don't try and do God's work. But truly, just as love, we can't give what we don't have. And we give whatever we have, in whatever form we have received it in. So, if all we've known is distorted love, that's the only way we know how to love. Distortedly.

[00:46:44] If all we've known is emotional manipulation and guilting in order to be a good person, that's what we will do to others. Because that's the distorted version of love that we have. So, love is also truly God's business. Genuine, authentic love can only come through God working in us and so is the case for forgiveness.

[00:47:05] Forgiveness is God's business. It is God's work and it's God's work in us. And we just need to know how to lean into that grace and not work against it. Sometimes when we try too hard on our own, we're actually working against God's work in us.

[00:47:24] HOW TO NAVGIDATE OUR EMOTIONS AND FORGIVENESS
Okay, you're saying, there are so many times feeling anger and resentment are so scary because we've been taught that's not what it means to be a good Christian. Yes, absolutely. So, we don't even allow ourselves the freedom, the right, not just the freedom, the human right to feel what we feel. How amazing the freedom to have a secure attachment in God, to be able to feel all those feelings.

[00:47:46] Amen. Amen. And to reach the point of relationship with God, that we realise that God is not afraid of anything. I mean, on one hand, it's like, duh, of course, right? Cognitively we should know God is not afraid of anything. And yet, sometimes we walk on eggshells around God, right? It's like we're so used to walking around, it's like we're walking on eggshells around people that we also end up walking on eggshells around God. It's like we're afraid we'll offend God with our big emotions. He is infinite, He is eternal. There is no end to His love And it's only when we embed ourselves in that love that we can love like He does. It's still too hard. Of course it is. Yes, it is. It is too hard.

[00:48:29] I don't think it's ever meant to be easy. Jesus never, Christ never promised that it was going to be easy to follow Him. But that's the thing. I think it's learning, it's learning the dance. It's not just learning the steps, but learning to trust how the Holy Spirit leads us in the dance.

[00:48:47] And when it's too hard, probably usually it means that we are trying too hard. And we're not leaning sufficiently into grace. And that's the thing. God doesn't give grace all at one go. It's a journey, right? And so, a big part of the interior integration journey is, I guess, learning not to run ahead of God's grace.

[00:49:09] And to be patient and to be okay with the limit of our progress because God hasn't brought us further than that. If God's okay with that, why are we not okay with that? That's often something I've begun to realise. He's not the one in the hurry. I'm the one that's in a hurry. I'm the one that's impatient with myself and with other people, with the world, with the church, everything. But when I bring all this into contemplation, I'm always met with the reality of God's allowingness, that somehow, in the vastness of his love, incomprehensible to me, He allows all these things that I cannot abide.

[00:49:48] Right, and let's not worry for a moment about the rest of the world, or people around us, or the church, or the country, or the politics, but even in our own interior journey, how much more does God give allowance than we do? And it's only when we allow ourselves to be rooted in God's vastness that we can actually make real progress towards genuine, authentic love, genuine, authentic forgiveness.

[00:50:14] Alright, so, I'll bring this sharing to a close with a prayer that often, not a formal prayer, but something that I learned. So, I realised that every time I get stuck on my interior journey or I get stuck in drawing closer to God, whatever it is, okay. Whatever it is that I think I'm struggling with, maybe being too hard on myself or being too hard on others or whatever it is, however I judge myself - I've come to realise that in a sense, the answer is always, I need more love.

[00:50:46] Because I cannot give what I don't have, right. Like I said earlier. And I am still in the process of being healed and transformed by real genuine love, which is God to have my distorted images and distorted expressions of love healed. So, when I struggle to forgive, or when I struggle to love, but especially when I struggle to forgive, I realise that the most honest thing I can say is, Lord, okay, if I'm not even ready to want to forgive yet, I can tell Him that. Lord, I can't even bring myself to want to forgive this person right now. Can you give me grace to want to forgive, right?

[00:51:24] It's like, if we don't have the desire, ask for the grace for the desire, right? And if I have the desire and I find that I just can't, it's just too hard right now, at some point it could be, Lord, I want to forgive, but I can't, right? Love me, love me more, love me some more until I have that love that I need to forgive.

[00:51:46] And then it's an open ended it's an open handed and open ended prayer in the sense that I don't keep checking back and expecting like this, you know, by tomorrow, I should be able to do this or by next week I should be able to do this. This is what it means to surrender into the vastness of God's grace and love.

[00:52:06] We ask for what we need, we ask for that grace, and then we trust that at some point in God's wisdom, in His timing, He will give the grace. And remember, in eternity, nothing can be a barrier to that grace being fulfilled or our forgiveness fulfilled, not even death. I mean, how hopeful is that? Right, so, that's what I wanted to share about forgiveness and, you know, spiritualising forgiveness.

[00:52:36] I know it's something that we all struggle with and I just really, really want to encourage those of you who may still be stuck in cycles of spiritualising forgiveness. Okay, so, go back to at the start of this video, this sharing, I talked about, you know, three signs that you may be spiritualising forgiveness.

[00:52:57] If you recognise that that's what's happening, I hope that you will ask for the grace to break that cycle. And to deepen your relationship with God into deeper security so that you can genuinely love yourself and not short circuit the process of actual forgiveness. It will take as long as it takes. 

[00:53:20] And also be open to the possibility that forgiveness doesn't look one way. I mean, it's just too much to cover. I'm not going to be talking about it in this sharing. But forgiveness can coexist with boundaries. Forgiveness, genuine forgiveness, especially when you're still in the process of forgiving, oftentimes, boundaries are needed. Even harder boundaries may be needed in order for you to make headway into genuine forgiveness.

[00:53:47] Okay, so, don't short circuit that process for yourself. Lean into the vastness of God's love and get the resources and the support that you need. Okay, whether it's spiritual direction or counseling and therapy. I think very very much, we need the latter two as well because otherwise, you know If our issue is spiritualising forgiveness, oftentimes we can't get out of that without learning more about what we can do on the human, front emotional front to process, digest and accompany ourselves. There's time. God does not rush us or hurry us.

[00:54:27] So, I hope that this gives you encouragement. All right, if there are no other comments or questions, I'll just call it a close for this episode. Thank you so much for joining us. Here's to all of us who are still learning to forgive, struggling to forgive, may we know that we have the time and the space in the vastness of God's love to make the journey as long, for as long as it takes. You're welcome. Bye!

[00:55:04] CONCLUSION
Thank you for listening to Becoming Me. The most important thing about making this journey is to keep taking steps in the right direction. No matter how small those steps might be, no matter where you might be in your life right now, it is always possible to begin. The world would be a poorer place without you becoming more fully alive.

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