Forgiveness is both a religious commandment and a way to keep peace in society. And to forgive your parents also means to free yourself from the burden of the past. However, favorable consequences will come only if several conditions are met.
“This viper, my viper, I once strangled to death, but it is reborn everywhere and always, I wave it and will always wave it, no matter how you call it: hatred, the desire to annoy you, despair or a tendency to self-torture! .. Thank you dear mother! I am the one who walks with the snake in his fist»1.
Few writers would have dared to make such a frank confession as the French classic Herve Bazin made in the novel The Snake in the Fist. However, hatred for the cruel and domineering mother, who poisoned her son all his childhood years, did not prevent Bazin, like his alter ego, the character of the novel, Jean, from achieving success in life. But some popular psychology books say that we must forgive in order to «feel good.» Yes, and from the point of view of religion, a true Christian should be able to forgive …
Alas, forgiveness cannot be a «duty.» “To forgive with an effort of will” is the same oxymoron, a combination of the incompatible, like, for example, “You have to want to”: the conflict is inherent in the phrase itself,” notes transactional analyst Ekaterina Ignatova. It’s not just impossible. Forcing yourself to forgive is the best way to drive suffering inward.
“Moral covenants imply that forgiveness has a healing power,” explains psychoanalyst Catherine Audibert. “But if we only blindly obey them, the relief will be only an appearance. It’s just a way to maintain order by discouraging victims from revenge or trying to pacify their feelings of hatred.
- Are we obligated to love our mother?
Forgiveness as a political and social instrument plays an important role, for many centuries it has made it possible to make relations in society more peaceful, does not allow nations to disintegrate when they, having lost a lot of blood, recover from the crimes of a totalitarian regime, religious or ethnic wars. The staging of reconciliation through ritual ceremonies can, in some cases, bring nations together again. With the psyche of each individual person, everything is much more complicated.
“The path to forgiveness is long,” emphasizes Ekaterina Ignatova. — When we have a lot of anger and resentment, even such a goal — to forgive — is not worth setting. First you need to deal with these feelings so that they do not cause suffering. And after that, there is a chance to come to forgiveness.”
Forgiveness is an intimate, heartfelt, even mysterious act, preceded by the deep work of growing up. We can’t necessarily explain it to ourselves, but it comes on suddenly and reshapes our relationship with the other person.
Get rid of debt
“Mom didn’t answer the phone for the second day. She scared me so many times: she was depressed because of an unsuccessful romance, and she did not consider my feelings. But still, I ran to her again: I wanted to make sure that everything was in order. 40-year-old Laura was in for a big test: when she opened the door, she found that her mother was dead. On the table lay an envelope with the inscription: “Laure. Do not open. Burn it.» Laura obeyed without hesitation, and then for years, suffering from insomnia, painfully wondered what could be in that letter. “I felt strong resentment due to the fact that the mother got rid of some of her spiritual burden, shifting it to me. My therapist said she acted selfishly. I think it is. But in the end time took its toll. I was able to forgive by telling myself that it was her story, not mine. That this is evidence of her vulnerability. She probably did not have the strength to go through with her confession, and she considered me strong enough to cope with it. My forgiveness saved me and I was able to truly live.”
Anthropologist and psychotherapist Claire Mestre has repeatedly come across cases where adult children managed to forgive their dead parents. And they felt an extraordinary sense of peace. «This selfless act promotes understanding, respect for parent-child bonding and separation from parents.»
Whether our parents are alive or not, by cutting the symbolic umbilical cord, forgiveness releases psychic energy, access to which was blocked, says Ekaterina Ignatova. After all, when we are offended, we deny important parts of ourselves. «Our inner child feels guilty — from the point of view of children’s logic, it is unacceptable for a good child to have claims against parents,» the transactional analyst notes. And our inner parent plays the role of an eternally dissatisfied critic. Such as one of our parents with whom 10, 20 or 30 years ago there was a difficult relationship. We beg him, we prove something to him. When we forgive, we cancel his debt and guilt, and most importantly, we separate from our parents so that we can finally live our own lives.
- Francoise Dolto: «A child is not at all what adults think of him»
Repeating scenario
Mark’s father left the family unexpectedly, leaving his housewife wife and 10-year-old son without funds. “We haven’t seen him since. It was incredibly difficult for us, we could barely make ends meet. Although my life turned out well in the end, I couldn’t shake the resentment towards my father. And so, when I turned 49, he called, and we met in a cafe. I was on edge and poured out all my bile. And then he asked for forgiveness. I had tears. I told him that I left my son’s mother… and in that moment I saw that I was repeating his story! I also acted like a coward. But I forgave him as soon as I saw him. After this meeting, I unexpectedly managed to agree with my wife, and now my son spends the weekend with me twice a month.
Such a blind repetition of parental models is explained by a strong childhood trauma that prevents our personality from forming, Ekaterina Ignatova explains: “After all, ideally, our own “I” should be the starting point for us. However, if we can name our suffering, ease it and move away from it, if we can not hold a grudge against those who hurt us, we have a chance to build relationships in a new way, show love and raise children in a different way.
Mature and heartfelt forgiveness allows you to break out of the vicious circle. Realizing that the behavior of the parents that hurt us was the result of their own unhealed wounds, we understand that we can act differently.
- «I’m afraid of becoming like my mother»
Transform your suffering
Philosopher Hannah Arendt believed that without forgiveness, “our ability to act would be locked into a single act that we could never get rid of; we would remain forever victims of its consequences.”2. But it is equally important for us to forgive ourselves.
Irina, a 35-year-old designer, recalls terrible family reunions, to which her maternal grandfather was always invited. “She and her mother always looked at each other with a fixed look, silently, like a pair of porcelain dogs. Mom couldn’t forgive him for wanting to stop her from studying to be a doctor. She was a brilliant student, and he demanded that she leave medical school and choose a “normal female profession” for herself. He saw something obscene in the fact that she would examine male patients. Mom endured all the scandals, became a doctor and married a surgeon. My grandfather’s sister and I could not stand it and often brought him to white heat. They must have felt their mother’s desire for revenge. And they did not grieve when he died. But my mother cried a lot. It seems to me that she did not forgive herself for not forgiving him. Or maybe she regretted that she was not the perfect housewife, as he wanted.
- Forgive: rise above the other or reconcile with him?
We suffer when we fail to come to forgiveness. Conversely, if we manage to recognize, accept and transform our suffering, we experience great relief, because by forgiving, we are freed from guilt. Hannah Arendt wrote that «the depth and modes of forgiveness determine how and to what extent we are able to forgive ourselves.»
Forgiveness — a sign that we have been freed from the burden of family history, from fatalism, from the role of the victim — indicates that our wounds have healed. In itself it is neither an end nor a means. Rather, proof that we have been able to process our past, turn the page of our torments and free ourselves from them without resorting to either denial or oblivion.
1 E. Bazin “A snake in a fist. Death of a horse. The cry of an owl «(Progress, 1982).
2 H. Arendt «The Human Condition» (University of Chicago Press, 1998).