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What she describes actually feels like forgiveness to me. Here we are, almost a month since war broke out in Israel. Now that’s traumatic — my heart goes out to all those impacted directly and indirectly. And there will be much trauma to heal from this. Just as there is and will be much trauma to heal from the ongoing war in Ukraine as well. If war is breaking out over and over on a massive scale, then that means it’s likely breaking out on a micro scale too, in our personal lives, in some way. Personally, I think the energy of war can manifest in obvious ways, like countries raising arms in violence, but also in other, not-so-easy-to-identify ways, such as: Disagreement with the inability to find common ground, force as a solution, and punishment. This war energy can lead to anger and irritability, passive aggressiveness, resentment, regret, guilt, beating ourselves up, cognitive dissonance, feeling torn. Personal wars might look like: The silent treatment, disconnection in relationships due to lack of trust or respect, physical pain from emotional repression and suppression, and more that result in de-humanization, villainization, and the choosing of sides. What else? So, taking responsibility for our healing through awareness, emotional processing and regulation, planning, action, and agency is important to peace in our lives and therefore peace in our world. But what’s the answer to a war that’s already broken out? I believe that’s probably forgiveness. Why? Because forgiveness results in peace, the antidote to war. Of course, forgiveness can take time. And I’d never tell anyone they *have* to forgive if they didn’t want to or weren’t ready. That choice is yours and yours alone. What I would say, however, is to echo the social media commenter above—that forgiveness is more about you than it is the person you’re forgiving. It’s freeing. It’s healing. Its empowering. That’s because, when you forgive, it detoxes you, not the other person. It enhances your quality of life and allows you to let go of the pain (that perpetuates war). That doesn’t mean don’t have boundaries with whomever you’re forgiving (even if it’s yourself). It simply means making different, intentionally healthy choices and moving on. How do we actually even start to forgive, especially when what happened feels so unforgivable? That’s a huge question. As a starting point, the pieces of this are acceptance, surrender, and love. So, I’ll ask myself now: “If world peace depended on each of us forgiving someone, could you do it?” I’d like to think my answer is yes. Although, if I take an honest look at my present life, there are people who I have forgiven, including myself, my late abusive step dad, my late ex-husband, and my biological dad who abandoned me before I was born (whew, that’s a big story for another day), but there’s still a list of others who I haven’t forgiven. I’ll be thinking about how I can shorten the latter list.
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