Forgiveness — the next step

Some months ago, I wrote on post on “Forgiveness,” a topic with which I’ve continually struggled, despite my upbringing and professional training. I consulted more resource material than I have when writing any other blog post. Probably more than I’ve used writing anything since graduate school. (And I listed them at the end of the essay.)

After some didactic paragraphs, I shifted to some personal reflections. I picked up on the point made by many experts that when we hang on to past hurts, it’s like “drinking of the poison that you intend for the other person.” Forgiving them – whether they care or even know – can have a positive effect on our health and peace of mind. I shared:

I am finding it helpful to identify the anger I feel about certain occurrences. In reflecting on past hurts that linger, I am starting to realize, “Oh, that’s someone I need to forgive.” I am working toward the next step: in fact forgiving them.

Among the places I’ve identified anger, in varying degrees, are some of my blog posts. I’ve started owning that anger, but the step between “Oh, that’s someone I need to forgive” and “I forgive you” is by no means a small one. Still, I’m going to give it a try, even if it is, at best, akin to “faking it till you make it.”

I wrote in one post about an intense summer in which the negative experiences outweighed the positive ones, and the “highest highs weren’t as high as our lowest lows were low.” One reason for writing about it was to try to confront and deal with negative feelings that have stayed with me. Now, to those who played a part in nurturing those feelings, I say, I forgive you.

There’s a post about a job interview experience that wasn’t handled well and another about how not to be a good house guest. To the people whose actions I described in both, I forgive you.

An honest reading of other posts has revealed traces of anger: some comments I reported in two posts about grammar and in another about a play, two people whose misunderstandings of my attempts to be innovative in my ministry amounted to putdowns, unhelpful people running “service” stations, and other complaints buried in some posts though tangential to the subject. That totals quite a few people. One by one, I forgive you.

Again, I am not offering forgiveness to try to make myself look better but rather to help myself feel better.

Here’s one with which to wrap up. I wrote one post about being “ghosted” – i.e., having people with whom you’d been close suddenly disappear from your life. This one also includes resource material describing the phenomenon and offering ways to deal with it. I interspersed fictionalized examples. While it is, by definition, unlikely anyone who inspired these examples will ever read my blog, I am saying here to four specific people: I miss you, but I forgive you.

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Postscript: I don’t doubt that various rants will creep into some future posts. I’ll try to be aware of new opportunities for forgiveness.

Forgiveness

If someone wrongs you, then later offers a sincere apology, it can be possible, if not easy to accept the apology and move on – i.e., forgive them. But what if they never do their part to make things right? Then you find yourself in the murky area of forgiveness, which seems to be a vast, perplexing area.

Can you forgive someone who doesn’t ask for forgiveness? Maybe they don’t know or accept that they need it. Maybe they know but don’t want it. Would forgiving them absolve them?

Even with a lifetime of attending church and studying the Bible, plus a master’s degree from a theological school that included training in pastoral counseling, I struggle with understanding “forgiveness.” I suspect I’m not alone.

In the Lord’s Prayer, we ask God to forgive us as we forgive those who wrong us. If we expect God to forgive us, we should be willing to forgive others. But there are differences between Divine forgiveness and human forgiveness.

Believers see God’s forgiveness as unconditional, available to anyone who asks for it, regardless of the wrongdoings. We are absolved of our sins and can start again with a clean slate.

We humans, though, are not divine. When we attempt to forgive someone, emotional and psychological factors come into play. We don’t necessarily want to let someone “off the hook.” Yet the pain someone has caused us won’t go away while we remain angry. Vengeful thoughts vex only us. It’s the proverbial drinking of the poison that you intend for the other person.

You have to ask God for forgiveness but can be assured it will be granted. If you ask another person for forgiveness, it might not be granted. Also, a person might forgive someone who doesn’t ask for it. In fact, it can be a good idea to do so, because that can get rid of that poison that is affecting only you.

That in no way cleans their slate. That’s not our job, even if it we wanted it to be. What it does do is take away the power they have over you. It allows you to recognize the pain you are feeling and to avoid (or stop) letting it define you. This can have a positive effect on your health and peace of mind, whether or not the other person ever understands and accepts that they have wronged you.

It is possible that forgiving someone may lead to understanding and empathy for them. So much the better if it does, but even if it doesn’t, it’s still worthwhile to forgive, for all the good it can do you.

What if the person you need to forgive is you yourself?

The health benefits of self-forgiveness are similar to those derived from forgiving others. Yet, I doubt I’m the only person who sometimes finds it can be more difficult to forgive oneself.

While getting another person to change is not a goal in forgiving them, self-forgiveness necessarily involves owning your wrongdoing and admitting that you might need to change. That can be difficult, more so if you aren’t ready to change.

Sometimes those not ready to change may choose to gloss over their behavior in a sort of artificial self-forgiveness.

Another cautionary note is that even true self-forgiveness can reduce one’s empathy for those they’ve wronged. Just because you feel better doesn’t mean they do, too. Experts recommend consciously practicing empathy with those we’ve hurt even as we forgive ourselves for doing so.

Please note that people who unnecessarily blame themselves for something outside their control are not candidates for self-forgiveness. They need to work on and let go of their unfounded guilt. They may also need to forgive someone else.

If it’s something about which I am angry at myself, I sometimes remind myself, “That was X years ago.” Whatever the time frame, I realize that no one else may even remember the incident and, even if someone does remember, it may well not make any difference to them now. I also have begun to say to myself “It’s OK to make mistakes” or “You are not expected to be perfect” at appropriate times.

Forgiveness, whether of others or oneself, often is difficult. The degree of difficulty may depend on how bad the act hurt or how long the grudge has been held. It takes work and practice. Talking with someone, at least a trusted friend if not a professional is often a good idea.

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An internet search for “forgiveness” will yield a plethora of sources. Here are some I consulted:
— https://www.gotquestions.org/forgive-forgiven.html
—https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/adult-health/in-depth/forgiveness/art-20047692
—https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/topic/forgiveness/definition#why-practice-forgiveness
—https://www.scripturesshare.com/what-is-gods-forgiveness-vs-human-forgiveness/
—https://www.verywellmind.com/how-to-forgive-yourself-4583819
—https://www.bostonimp.com/post/the-link-between-forgiving-others-and-forgiving-yourself
This analysis of Don Henley’s song, “The Heart of the Matter,” which is about forgiveness, is interesting and may be helpful:
— https://melodyinsight.com/don-henley-the-heart-of-the-matter-lyrics-meaning/

A million-dollar experience I wouldn’t take $2M to repeat

As the sign came into view, “Entering Forsyth County,” one of my colleagues exclaimed, “Yay, Forsyth County!” It was maybe a little over the top but mostly amusing. She attended Wake Forest University, which is in that county.

There were four of us. Each attended a different college. No one put another’s school down, but none of us hid our pride in our own. This was just another example. It was all in good fun, much more positive than some of our interactions.

We had been chosen and put together for this summer project. Our primary role was to spend a week each in various churches, interacting with youth, leading in worship and presenting two plays. There was one other team like ours. A couple of times, with neither team booked in a church, we were together for other activities.

During one week when we were a group of eight, we had a meeting that departed from the good-natured banter described above.

Seemingly out of nowhere, a guy on the other team criticized me for talking about my school, UNC, and the town in which it is located, Chapel Hill, more than he wanted to hear. My team members, who had spent a lot more time with me, didn’t seem to have a problem with me on this. (But, as we’ll see in a moment, they did have other problems with me.) I tried to say I thought I was joining in the rah-rah banter, maybe as much as but no more than everyone else. If I’d had more presence of mind, I could’ve added that for the past three years, I had spent most of my days there. UNC and Chapel Hill provided the context for much of what I had to say.

He didn’t indicate he had a problem with anyone else sharing their own campus experiences. Ah, but what was different was that he had wanted to go to UNC-CH but couldn’t swing it financially. When others mentioned their schools, he didn’t feel envious.

It was unpleasant, but much worse was to come.

As if interpersonal issues weren’t enough, we also had to deal with a number of external challenges, including a drowning at a swim party and a serious accident during a fellowship event. One day, our supervisor received a letter from members of one church, complaining about our time with them, though the feedback had seemed quite positive while we were there. Late in the summer, we performed the play “In White America” in a town that had just been ordered (finally) to integrate their schools.

Each person had a specific area of responsibility. These roles were team coordinator, music leader, recreation and discussion leader, and preacher. I was designated the preacher and worked up a sermon to give each Sunday. The other guy was assigned recreation and discussion. The older of the two young women was named coordinator, the other given music responsibility.

That seemed good at the start, but circumstances blurred some lines. Because we traveled in my car, it was necessary for me to do some coordinating. Because my guitar and I accompanied our singing in the productions and sometimes in worship, I was de facto music leader at times. Of lesser note, but notable, I was passably athletic while the other male student was not athletic at all. This may have affected our relative roles in some recreational activities.

Even if you don’t intend to usurp some of other people’s authority (and even if they let you), doing so can engender resentment. And I presented them with other issues as well.

I do own some of the blame for intra-team friction. I had strong ideas about many things and could be short on tact. I had mental health difficulties I had only begun to address, though it turned out I wasn’t the only one on the team wearing this tag. Nonetheless, I felt then and still feel now that the amount of criticism leveled at me, as compared to what others received, was excessive.

That I was less conventional in my appearance and approach to life was a problem for the others from the beginning. Yet before the summer started, I had shaved off my then-full beard. I got my hair cut shorter and neater, though since it still touched my ears, it was too long for my teammates. Less superficial were the adaptions I made conversationally. I made sure my language was less “colorful” than was the norm among my college friends. Just as significantly, I began peppering things I said with theological words and phrases, something I had pretty much abandoned as a college student.

I felt I was compromising — moving closer to being like my teammates. I made changes to be less different from them. But I didn’t become exactly like them, and they discredited or disregarded the changes I had made. It wasn’t all; so it was none.

We had a weekly meeting that including the chance to air concerns — i.e., a gripe session. I seemed to be the primary object of the aired concerns. There was one week in which the two females had done something that the other male told me he was going to criticize in that week’s session. But it was held after we’d led some activity in which everything had clicked. My compatriot was in too good a mood to complain during the session. That was the closest we came to having one of those meetings in which I wasn’t the focus.

Things boiled over in a team meeting one night with our supervisor. The other guy on the team went through a long spiel about his growing dissatisfaction. He said he didn’t think he could continue to be on the team. His biggest issue was that there was one person he just could not work with. And that person, he revealed (though everyone already knew), was the person now writing this piece. Among other things, he criticized my hair. That didn’t surprise me, but I was taken aback when he also said the sermon I had preached most Sundays wasn’t any good. That was the first I’d heard of that. Some helpful suggestions early on might’ve been nice.

Before he officially quit, he got a chance for a repeat performance. The next week, we were again together with the other team at a weeklong youth conference. There was a meeting one night of both teams with our supervisor and his supervisor. My colleague repeated his soliloquy for a larger audience, with the same buildup to leveling blame on me. The first time, I had tried to offer some personal defense for my alleged transgressions. This time, I said nothing.

Accommodations were made for us to operate as a team of three in the last two or three churches. Despite this person’s growing resentment toward me, he had freely used me as a sounding board for his personal struggles. Not many days after he had left the team because he couldn’t work with me, he called one morning to the home where I was staying that week, because he just had to talk to me about the latest things with which he was dealing in his personal life.

The summer provided growing experiences, and not all of them were negative. Our highest highs weren’t as high as our lowest lows were low. But there were a lot of highs. Many joyful moments. A lot of intensity, often good, at times not so good. I can’t say I’m sorry I went through it, but by the time it was over, I was more than ready to go home.

After the goodbyes at the conclusion of a meal following the Sunday morning service in our last church of the summer, I got in my car and headed southwest. In Durham, on I-85, I reached the exit with the sign saying:
U.S. 15-501 S
Chapel Hill

Tears flowed.

Physical benefits of communing with nature

Most people who know me know of my fondness for sunrises. (See https://johnbecton.blog/2019/11/13/five-days-of-beach-sunrises/ ) Watching the sun rise, as I do often, makes me feel good. I’ve recently been not surprised to learn that the benefits are not only emotional, but also physical.

For me and many others, a sunrise evokes a sense of awe. Experiences of awe, medical scientists tell us, significantly reduce unhealthy levels of cytokines, which are associated with disease, depression and ill health. Sources of awe are certainly not limited to nature (music and art, for example), but here I want to focus on nature.

I recently read about some of the ways experiences in nature have been shown to benefit us physically. There was a lot more to the article — “Rewilding Our Minds,” Lucy Jones, The American Scholar, Summer 2021 — but here are some points I gleaned.

–Exposure to certain chemicals emitted by trees and other plants significantly increases natural killer cell activity, which helps fight infection and cancer. “Even just looking at a natural scene can decrease levels of inflammatory cytokines.”

–Studies suggest that in natural areas, our parasympathetic nervous system is more likely to be activated. This slows the heart and helps us feel calm. It is associated with better sleep, feeling of contentment and safety, as well as high resting levels, enhanced emotional regulation, decreased risk of cardiovascular disease.

–You know how great the air smells after rain? You’re not just smelling the clean earth. Oil from soil and possibly plants is in the air, triggering brain activity associated with calmness and relaxation.

–Getting your hands dirty is also beneficial. When you dig in the dirt, you pick up microbes (mycobacteriun vaccae) that activate serotonin neurons, associated with mood and well-being. “The microorganism also increased stress resilience and could suppress inappropriate inflammation within cells.”

As I noted above the article deals with a lot more than the points I’ve listed here. This is just a brief summary of what I found especially interesting and useful. If you want to read the article itself, here’s a link: https://theamericanscholar.org/rewilding-our-minds/

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Blogger’s note:
The article writer’s source comprises “robust evidence based on countless studies from scientists in various disciplines from countries across the world,” some of which she cites specifically. Were it a scientific journal article, there would have been countless footnotes. Were I writing a graduate-school paper, I would dig down to primary sources, rather than relying only on this secondary source. I think, however, we’re fine in this context. I haven’t been graded for years on anything by anyone, other than myself. And my therapist suggests (and by “suggests,” I mean “insists”) that I stop doing so.

Easing back in

When COVID restrictions were finally eased enough so that I could get back into the gym, I struggled to complete “workouts” that before the pandemic had been “warm-ups.”

In my younger days, my primary and preferred way of staying in shape was running outside. That begin being more difficult in my 60s and nearly impossible in my 70s. My knees and back rebelled, and with age came less tolerance of cooler and warmer temperature. I did more walking, which can be boring to a runner. Another drawback is that it takes longer to burn off calories than running. And that too has to be restricted to my ever-narrowing window of comfortable weather.

So I’ve grown to depend on the climate-controlled gym, with its variety of equipment that allows me to measure how much work I am doing. During the pandemic, it became too easy to vegetate. I began to enjoy being lazy. Eventually, though, I did not enjoy getting out of breath merely walking up a few stairs nor the extra pounds that far exceeded any amount I’d ever imagined possessing. Then I began to remember and miss how good I used to feel after a thorough physical workout.

Yet, of course, I couldn’t pick right up where I left off. The less exercise you do, the less you can do. I had to start slowly, increasing workouts by small increments. I don’t have a timetable for getting all the way back to where I was, but I’m moving toward it.

The experience is similar as I am becoming able to shift from Zoom to in-person encounters with others of my species. I’ve always enjoyed interacting with other people in a variety of contexts, but I’m among those whose social interaction batteries run down more quickly and need longer to recharge. I find now that, just as with my heart, lungs and muscles, my battery needs to build back its strength. I can’t immediately fill my social calendar as full as it was before the days of sheltering in place. I’m sure this is true for many other people.

I admit that the sheltering may not have been as difficult for me as for more extroverted individuals. It was, to an extent, a respite from social anxiety. Eventually, though, I began to miss specific people and specific activities. I remembered how good it felt to be together in person. I’m sure you know what I mean.

So as I gradually increase the time on and speed of the treadmill, bike and elliptical machine, I’m incrementally increasing the frequency and length of opportunities for human contact. In both cases, getting back into shape to be able to enjoy it once again.

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UPDATE, Oct. 19, 2021:

Easing back into exercise is going as well as I’d hoped. Easing back into in-person encounters is more difficult, so far, than I had hoped. No major problems, but more social anxiety at times than I’d prefer. And my interaction batteries aren’t holding a charge very well.

I posted a brief comment recently on Facebook, referring to this blog post and noting that it is proving more of a challenge to return to social interactions than to get back in the gym regularly. I took it down after the first two people to react used “ha-ha” emojis. This told me I had not communicated well. I failed to make it clear that this is a disappointment rather than a whimsical comment. I don’t find any humor in the struggle.

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UPDATE, April 2022

I suspect that many others have had and are having similar experiences. Now, our calendar has started to look more like it did pre-pandemic. At this point, four social events in five days leaves me feeling emotionally similar to the way I feel physically after that same grouping of vigorous gym sessions, though I can recover more quickly from the gym.

What I might say about my mental health

If I wrote my own mental health confessional, I would begin by saying I’ve struggled with depression most of my life. I would note that for many years this condition went undiagnosed, but therapy brought to light indications of the illness going back at least to when I was 9 or 10. I guess I would admit that the first time I seriously considered suicide, I was 10.

I would talk about difficult feelings I was having by the fourth and fifth grades and beyond, even up to the present. About making decisions, some more significant than others, that weren’t the best choice, even though on some level I often was aware they weren’t the best when I made them. About feelings of despair and low self-esteem. About difficulties in processing feelings and accessing relationships. About hurts that lingered.

I would include something about the unhelpful things I’ve heard from an early age. One was a bemused “Now, don’t be bitter.” Another, “You’re too sensitive.” How about “we’re not laughing at you; we’re laughing with you” — when I was not laughing? “Snap out of it,” was the commonly suggested cure for people with conditions such as mine. Similar are “get over it” and “suck it up.” One parent once lamented, “I don’t know why you have to be so different.” The other once complained that I was “always miffed about something.”

I might mention but would not describe an incident in early adolescence when I was feeling so bad about myself that I expressed it in a way that engendered anger, making me feel even worse about myself. It left a deep scar. I’ve shared details only with therapists and my spouse. Therapists have said it was an obvious red flag. The first time I shared it with anyone was with my spouse. I became emotional and had trouble getting through it. That may have made it easier to talk about later in therapy.

Adventures in therapy

I would describe the first time I tried therapy and what led to it: During my sophomore year of college, I started noticing I was tired a lot, even for a college student. I continued to feel that way during the summer, the last summer I spent in my childhood home.

A doctor determined it was nothing physical and gently suggested seeing a mental health professional. When I returned to college for fall semester, I jumped through assorted hoops at student health, eventually landing weekly appointments with a psychiatrist.

In hindsight, it’s easy to see that the tiredness was a manifestation of depression, but you never heard much about depression in those days. It was not my diagnosis at that time. The doctor listened to me for 50 minutes each week for most of the school year, asking leading questions but offering few reflections on what I said. I got much more from one session with a college chaplain that summer. He was the first person who ever said to me in all my 21 years, “That must feel bad.”

As I would continue telling my story now, I would include reports of helpful therapy sessions. The first came many years later, when I finally shared with my family doctor how I often felt. I told him of the feelings listed above, as well as how I was no longer enjoying a number of things that had given me pleasure in the past.

He immediately diagnosed my condition as depression. My first thought? I was glad to know that I wasn’t crazy. That there was an identifiable reason for what was going on with me. A definable disease for which there was treatment. I knew intellectually that I “shouldn’t” have a lot of the feelings I did. This diagnosis provided an explanation.

So at this point in my imagined essay, I would talk about sessions of nearly a year each with three different psychologists spaced over several years. All were helpful, especially the first and third. I was not “cured” by any, though I gained some tools that helped me cope better. In time, I’ll go back for another tune up. Yes, I tried many prescribed anti-depressants, but I’m in the 40 percent for whom such medications are not effective.

I would want to note that someone with depression is not always down. We smile, we laugh, we enjoy. At times.

What would be the reaction?

It seems that more and more well-known people, including entertainers and athletes, are opening up about their own struggles with depression and other mental health issues. They want to help destigmatize mental illness. Some say it’s also therapeutic. As each comes forward, I ask myself if I would do well to do so, too.

Yet, I worry about how people would take it. What would they think of me? Would they treat me any differently? I wonder these things, even though I think more of people who share their struggles. And I don’t treat them any differently.

Or would they make light of it? Maybe the reactions would be similar to the unhelpful words I listed in the third paragraph above. Or similar to a reaction I often get on the rare occasion I dare to mention a physical health concern — i.e., “I have (or someone I know has) the same problem, only worse, and have (has) had it longer.” This response seems to devalue my concern.

Would I end up feeling better or worse?

Another barrier is that I haven’t completely stopped buying into the very stigma I want to counteract. That’s a little ironic, I guess, as is the fact that my depression-nurtured lack of self confidence makes it difficult to take this step.

The S word

If I did take it, I might mention suicidal thoughts. Or I might not. Or maybe just say I wish I didn’t know as much as I do about what it’s like to have them.

I could share significant difficulties I have with light deprivation. Or difficulties getting out of bed sometimes. Times of feeling bad that I feel bad. And how motivation can be a problem when feeling “what’s the use?” or struggling with low self-esteem. I could talk about a well-developed sense of “don’t belong,” which can crop up in almost any context.

That would probably lead to an acknowledgement of ever-present social anxiety. I could admit to worrying before a social event that I’ll say something stupid; worrying during that I am saying something stupid; worrying afterward that I did say something stupid. (Worrying now that this all sounds stupid.)

Then I might note how easy it is to be embarrassed by things others would just laugh off and humiliated by things others might just find a little embarrassing.

I would, if I could muster enough self-confidence, claim some ability as an actor. For the past few of my infrequent appearances in a play, when writing a brief bio for the program, I’ve thought of adding this to the list of past performances: Has portrayed a mentally-healthy person in everyday life 24/7 for many years. If I wrote my own mental health confessional.