I was recently working the Twelve Steps with a sponsee when I began to ponder whether the steps are incomplete. My sponsee and I were on Step 8, reviewing the list of the people to whom he wanted to make amends... In each case, my sponsee had done the person harm, but in many of the cases, they had also caused him pain. Of course, this reciprocity of hurt, so to speak, did not take him off the hook: he still needed to make his amends. But it did make me wonder why the steps focus on making amends but much less on the importance of forgiving others for harms they have done to us.
Nobody can spend long in [12 Step recovery] without hearing about the importance of making amends. But we hear less about the importance to our recovery of forgiving others the hurts they have caused us. And when it comes to how to forgive others, our literature gives us little concrete guidance. Based on years of watching people get sober and recover, I think forgiving others is as important as making amends.
Why not recognize the importance of forgiveness by adding (informally and unofficially, of course) a couple of new steps to the ones we have. They follow the amends steps and mirror their language and structure.
Step 9a- Made a list of all persons with whom we were angry and became willing to forgive them all.
Step 9b- Forgave such persons wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
- Galen T.
This is far from the entire post, some of which is quite good. At the very least Galen got me thinking about how little emphasis is given in the rooms of recovery to forgiving others. He is right that the main focus is on cleaning up our side of the street with Step 9 and, hopefully, attaining forgiveness. I can only remember a few times over the past 10 years where forgiving others served as the topic of discussion in a recovery meeting. I totally agree that forgiving others is as important as making amends.
I also like the idea of setting ourselves to do the work of forgiving others, yes, I said work, by making a list of those people we need to forgive and doing so. That said, the more I thought about this, the less I felt right about thinking forgiveness isn't emphasized enough. While forgiving others may not been the topic many times, dealing with resentments has been. Resentment is a frequent subject of recovery, particularly ridding ourselves of it. Letting go of resentment is totally tied to forgiveness. It is impossible to release resentment without forgiving. We can bury it, ignore it, brush it aside, but it always comes back. We can not dispose of it without forgiving. And in that light, 12 Step recovery seriously and often stresses forgiveness, assuring us that:
It is plain that a life which includes deep resentment leads only to futility and unhappiness. To the precise extent that we permit these, do we squander the hours that might have been worth while. But with the alcoholic, whose hope is the maintenance and growth of a spiritual experience, this business of resentment is infinitely grave. We found that it is fatal. For when harboring such feelings we shut ourselves off from the sunlight of the Spirit. The insanity of alcohol returns and we drink again. And with us, to drink is to die.
If we were to live, we had to be free of anger. The grouch and the brainstorm were not for us. They may be the dubious luxury of normal men, but for alcoholics these things are poison.
We turned back to the list, for it held the key to the future. We were prepared to look at it from an entirely different angle. We began to see that the world and its people really dominated us. In that state, the wrong-doing of others, fancied or real, had power to actually kill. How could we escape? We saw that these resentments must be mastered, but how? We could not wish them away any more than alcohol.
This was our course: We realized that the people who wronged us were perhaps spiritually sick. Though we did not like their symptoms and the way these disturbed us, they, like ourselves, were sick too. We asked God to help us show them the same tolerance, pity, and patience that we would cheerfully grant a sick friend. When a person offended we said to ourselves, "This is a sick man. How can I be helpful to him? God save me from being angry. Thy will be done."
- Alcoholics Anonymous
And:
If you have a resentment you want to be free of,
if you will pray for the person or the thing that you resent,
you will be free.
If you will ask in prayer for everything you want for yourself to be given to them,
you will be free.
Ask for their health, their prosperity, their happiness, and
you will be free.
Even when you don't really want it for them, and your prayers are only words and you don't mean it, go ahead and do it anyway.
Do it every day for two weeks and you will find you have come to mean it and to want it for them, and you will realize that where you used to feel bitterness and resentment and hatred, you now feel compassionate understanding and love.
- From an AA member's story, Freedom from Bondage, Alcoholics Anonymous
While neither of these two references specifically mentions forgiving, perhaps because we often balk at forgiving those who have truly wronged us, they do give a course of action, prayer for the person, which if followed will result in realizing we have forgiven. This is from Step 4, which means the process of forgiving should be worked on long before we reach Steps 8 and 9. But, in case we haven't done the forgiving work, the literature on Step 8 may not say a lot, but what it says is simple, clear and concise:
These obstacles [to working Step 8], however, are very real. The first, and one of the most difficult, has to do with forgiveness. The moment we ponder a twisted or broken relationship with another person, our emotions go on the defensive. To escape looking at the wrongs we have done another, we resentfully focus on the wrong they have done us. This is especially true if they have, in fact, behaved badly at all. Triumphantly we seize upon their misbehavior as the perfect excuse for minimizing or forgetting our own.
Right here we need to fetch ourselves up sharply. It doesn't make much sense when a real tosspot calls a kettle black. Let's remember that alcoholics [and all other types of addicts] are not the only ones bedeviled by sick emotions. Moreover, it is usually a fact that our behavior when drinking has aggravated the defects of others. We've repeatedly strained the patience of our best friends to a snapping point, and have brought out the very worst in those who didn't think much of us to begin with. In many instances we are really dealing with fellow sufferers, people whose woes we have increased. If we are now about to ask forgiveness for ourselves, why shouldn't we start out by forgiving them, one and all?
- Alcoholics Anonymous
If we want forgiveness, how about starting by forgiving others, one and all? A simple and short sentence, but one that makes it clear we need to forgive, and that we should forgive before seeking the forgiveness of others. Forgiveness is critical to a healthy spiritual life, recovery and step work. We are told to forgive as Christ has forgiven us. It's not always easy. In fact, sometimes it is impossible without the enabling power of the Spirit. But it must be done. One last thought on the quote I started with; forgiving someone else can never, ever, do them harm. Telling them you forgive them might stir up anger and trouble or bring healing. Pray for guidance about having the discussion, but when it comes to the act of loving and forgiving, just do it. You'll be better for it, even if it doesn't affect or change them at all.
Check out The F Word for more on the subject of forgiving others, and you can read the entire blog entry that inspired today's Moment here.
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