“The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong”  Mahatma Gandhi

Who and What to Forgive

Showing my age, I remember Schoolhouse Rock on Saturday mornings. A noun is a people, place or thing. Similarly, forgiveness eligibility has the same dynamic. It can be a person, event or yourself.

The easiest to identify population in which to grant forgiveness is other people. Someone does you wrong, they become eligible for forgiveness. This becomes the straightforward process of connecting a hurt to the person inflicting hurt. Angry because you had to correct mistakes of another team member is simple to connect to that team member. Upset because your spouse barked at you can be pinned directly on him or her. Anyone that you attribute wrong or hurt to should be considered for forgiveness.

Events should also be forgiven. These are those times and situations in our lives in which things went wrong. We learned the lessons, hopefully not repeating any of them and now is the time to forgive and move forward in full heart and emotional health. Examples of event forgiveness includes blocks of work and career time, stretches of personal relationships and even single choices made by you or others. Stop talking regret and grant freeing forgiveness.

The hardest forgiveness to grant will be to you. That’s right. Forgiving yourself for your mistakes, poor choices and events in which you were responsible. Many people can grant real forgiveness to others easily but yet hold deep frustrations, regrets, disappointments and worse about themselves. Yes, you caused something bad. You paid the price. Now is time to forgive yourself and get this ugly, caked mud off your heart.

First Time Clearing

The first clearing of past wrongs, including your own, will be the most difficult. Some of these people and event have been living on your heart and influencing your actions for years or even decades. This first event will not be easy and it will not be quick. Depending on the depth of hurt and wrong, you may have to go back and re-forgive a couple of times to truly have it cleared.

As a practice, use this process the first time around:

1. Note three to five people or situations that you need to forgive in your journal.

2. Leave the list alone for a couple of days.

3. Include thoughts of who has wronged you, what dragging baggage you are carrying around, and any situations which still bring you pain or angst, in your daily meditation. Let the thoughts flow freely to you in this setting.

4. Examine the list a second time and add another three to five people or situations that need clearing forgiveness. Ensure that at least two and hopefully more of these are forgiveness of self.

5. Leave the list alone for another couple of days.

6. Take a final look at the list and ensure you have most of who and what needs to be forgiven, including those things you need to grant yourself forgiveness.

7. Next to each item, list a date certain in which you will forgive that person or event or you and release the negativity associated with it. The first date should be within the next day and it should also be the simplest or easiest situation to forgive. The guy that cut you off in traffic and caused a minor irritation should be at the top of the list compared to complex life situations and people that have wronged you greatly. If you are not yet prepared to set a date for all items on your list, that is okay too. And some dates can be out there for a bit of time to allow yourself the reconciliation and readiness to let it go.

8. On the date listed, add the words of forgiveness to your daily meditation. In the simplest form, it would sound like “Today I forgive XXXXX and promise to never let this event influence me” or “Today I forgive XXXXX and promise this event will never influence me again”.

9. Congratulate yourself on this step. Be pleased with you. This is a big thing.

10. After your meditation, say the above aloud and cross it off your forgiveness list. Continue until the list is gone.

The Forgiveness Practice

Beyond the initial clearing described above, events and wrongs happen regularly and need to be forgiven. The quicker you can make the event/person-forgiveness cycle, the healthier your heart and emotional intelligence. With this junk cleared regularly and daily, the room for great emotions, attitude and energy is almost limitless.

During the quiet and clearing portion of your meditation, search for those people or situations that may be weighing on you. Repeat the action steps above and forgive quickly.

As this process becomes a habit, you will be able to grant forgiveness on the fly and make it a natural part of daily self-care.

By Tim Schneider

Tim Schneider is the founder of Aegis Learning and has been working with teams and leaders for 25 years.   He generates results, impact and his sole focus is your success.

He is the author of The Ten Competencies of Outstanding Leadership and Beyond Engagement and a widely sought speaker, training facilitator and individual development coach.

“The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong”  Mahatma Gandhi

Forgiveness provides us with:

•  Peace from past conflicts, issues and challenges
•  Closing resolution with people and situations
•  Space in our emotions and heart for positive thoughts and feelings
•  Freedom from the burden of past hurt
•  Capacity to allow people to grow and overcome their transgressions against you
•  Ability to create relationships in the current state and not bogged down by the past
•  Enhanced personal resilience

With gratitude, forgiveness is one of the biggest cures to restoring the heart to a point of love and your attitude to a consistent positive state. The mud-freeing that occurs when forgiveness is practiced for the first time and then consistently thereafter is nothing short of amazing.

What is Forgiveness

Often forgiveness is misunderstood and associated with forgetting. You hear things like “just let it go” or “forget about it” and that is a common misconception. We humans do not have an erase button or delete key to remove a memory. The memory stays. Forgiveness gives us the power in how the memory is framed and the capacity to create positive overwrites of the prior memory.

Forgiveness is also not some grand spectacle where the person who wronged you is involved. Real forgiveness is quiet and there is really no need to share with the person being forgiven. Many times, the person who wronged you forgot about the event long ago or doesn’t even have an ounce of awareness about it. This is all about you and not about anyone else.

For our purposes, forgiveness will be the solemn promise and vow that the event or person we are forgiving will not influence any future interaction or event. So, by forgiving someone, I am not promising to forget it happened. I am promising that whatever the past event, I will not allow it to change how I deal with that person moving forward.

In the simplest analogy possible, someone cuts you off on the freeway during a long commute. Forgive them quickly and you return to safe and alert driving very quickly. Failure to forgive that other motorist and your attention is focused on harsh judgement of him or her, your anger and perhaps even revenge. Here, failure to forgive distracts from the ability to drive safely and could have dire consequences.

Accountability and Forgiveness

In a working environment, the most common objection to the practice of forgiveness comes from the apparent exclusivity of accountability and forgiveness. As a leader or person of success mindset, accountability is a core principle. Team members must be accountable for their performance and behavior. Vendors must be accountable for their promises of delivery. Partners must be accountable for the terms of the agreements they executed to work with you.

And all of that is true. Accountability is a foundation of success and leadership and must not be compromised.

Far too often in a business environment, accountability becomes a lifetime proposition. Someone commits a transgression, makes a mistake or other has some significant challenges and sadly, that becomes their career-long legacy. In my work as an executive coach and with other teams of leaders, the phenomenon of someone being on a radar screen for a past transgression is extremely common as is the failure to provide any pathway off that radar screen. Yes, that person made a terrible mistake three years ago and you held them accountable for it. Now is the time to stop defining them and judging them on that mistake and allowing them the chance to recover and giving yourself the freedom from this baggage as well.

Accountability should be swift and fair. Behind that, forgiveness should be equally swift.

The equation of workplace and leadership forgiveness will look like this:

•  Judge and asses an event, performance or behavior
•  Use defined accountability tools such as corrective feedback, documented discipline, or even termination of relationship
•  Grant forgiveness and not have the event affect future interactions with that team member or other person

By Tim Schneider

Tim Schneider is the founder of Aegis Learning and has been working with teams and leaders for 25 years.   He generates results, impact and his sole focus is your success.

He is the author of The Ten Competencies of Outstanding Leadership and Beyond Engagement and a widely sought speaker, training facilitator and individual development coach.