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HYC#14: Forgiveness - The Four-Fold Way

Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu p.3 Book of Forgiving. Desmond & Mpho Tutu. William Collins 2014

Stone Ritual Part 1

What forgiveness is not: • Forgiveness is not easy – it requires hard work and a consistent willingness. • Forgiveness is not weakness – it requires courage and strength • Forgiveness does not subvert justice – it creates space for justice to be enacted with a purity

of purpose that does not include revenge. • Forgiveness is not forgetting – it requires a fearless remembering of hurt. • Forgiveness is not quick – it can take several journeys through the cycles of remembering

and grief before one can truly forgive and be free.

Tracing the myths: • Choose a stone, large enough that you can trace around it and write inside the shape. • Take your stone and a sheet of paper and make five tracings of the stone on the paper. • Inside each tracing write one things that forgiveness is not:

o weakness o injustice o forgetting o easy o quick

• For each of these myths about forgiveness, call to mind an instance where that myth is holding you back from granting forgiveness.

Meditation on letting go: • Think of the things you must give up or let go of in order to forgive. • The list might include things like the right to revenge or the expectation of an apology. It might

even include having to give up an expectation that the person who hurt you will understand the pain they have caused.

• As you jot down this list, pause with each item and offer thanks for the ability to let go of what you do not need in order to forgive.

I would like to share with you two simple truths: there is nothing that cannot be forgiven, and there is no-one underserving of forgiveness.

Until we can forgive, we remain locked in our pain and locked out of the possibility of experiencing healing and freedom, locked out of the possibility of being at peace.

Until we can forgive the person who harmed us, that person will hold the keys to our happiness: that person will be our jailor. When we forgive, we take back control of our own fate and our feelings. We become our own liberators.

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The Four-Fold Path

• Telling the story Speak the truth. Start with the facts. Tell your story first to a friend, loved one or trusted person. Consider telling the story to the person who harmed you, or writing a letter. Accept that whatever has happened cannot be changed or undone.

• Naming the hurt Identify the feelings within the facts. Remember, no feeling is wrong, bad or invalid. Recognise the stages of grief, and honour wherever you fall in the process. Find someone who will acknowledge you and listen to your feelings without trying to fix them. Accept your own vulnerability. Move forward only when you are ready.

• Granting forgiveness Forgiveness is a choice. We grow through forgiving. Forgiving is how we move from victim to hero in one story. We know we are healing when we are able to tell a new story.

• Renewing or releasing the relationship The preference is always to renew unless there is a question of safety. Ask for what you need from the perpetrator in order to renew or release the relationship. You may need an apology, an explanation, a tangible object or to never see that person again. Look at your part in any conflict. When you renew, it is always different. By renewing or releasing a relationship you free yourself from victimhood and trauma.

Stone Ritual Part 2

• Take your stone again and trace around it four times creating four shapes.\ • Within each stone shape, write the name of each step of the Four-Fold Path: • Write around each circle what resistances you notice as you consider walking down the Fourfold

Path. • Write down anything that you assume is holding you back • What would you have to assume otherwise in order to move forward?

Just Mercy: a Story of Justice and Redemption, Bryan Stevenson

I’ve come to understand and to believe that each of us is more than the worst thing we’ve ever done. I believe that for every person on the planet. I think if somebody tells a lie, they’re not just a liar. I think if somebody takes something that doesn’t belong to them, they’re not just a thief. I think even if you kill someone, you’re not just a killer. And because of that there’s this basic human dignity that must be respected by law.

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Meditation: Finger Tracing Mandala Meditation

Finger walking the Labyrinth: A labyrinth is a circular path leading the seeker into a central space and back out into the world. It is not a maze. It contains no dead ends or wasted journeys. A “finger labyrinth is “walked” by tracing the path with a finger of the non-dominant hand. The pathway is not “straight” but meanders and takes you through the four quadrants.