Philip Orth, M.A., ACHF

Forgive Them, Never!

“Wait a minute, wait a minute. . .why should I forgive those people? They don’t deserve it! You think I’m gonna risk, or other innocent people are gonna risk, being lied-to, taken-advantage-of, and insulted again and again by . . . . . . .? Don’t insult my intelligence! Get real, man! When are you gonna join the rest of us in the real world?”

“Forgive them? I’m gonna do everything in my power to get them out of my / our life forever! I HATE them!”

This is the response of a lot of folks today anytime someone suggests that they forgive certain people. Certainly the Presidential election has elicited exactly this kind of response from a lot of folks. And there are countless individuals who, in their personal lives, have been cheated, abused, raped, beaten, lied-to and stolen from, and many of them are in no mood to be forgiving. Maybe you’re one of them. I understand. The abuse may have happened decades ago in childhood, but they’re still carrying around the painful, festering memories, and the ANGER they elicit.

But look, while ANGER is certainly an understandable reaction to the many injustices that we deal with, it’s but a temporary solution at best. Take it from me, I’ve been there. I’m really no different than you. Because of the un-resolved anger within me that I carried for years, I was confused, fearful, and depressed. I was on antidepressant medication for ten years! Guilt, shame, fear and anger kept me depressed for decades. It smoldered beneath the surface, and finally errupted into a full-blown clinical depression. For years I DENIED it. REPRESSED it. That only led to more CON-FUSION. I PROJECTED it out onto others: “THEY’RE the guilty ones! The ‘losers’, NOT ME!”
Oh yes, I know RIGHTEOUS indignation!

A couple of other people come to mind as I consider this matter of ANGER. They each had to deal with intense ANGER over the INJUSTICES they experienced were Nelson Mandella and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Oh, don’t think they didn’t want to hate and lash out in rage at their oppressors!

You KNOW they did!

But they were wise enough to know that this would not solve anything, and it would only make them MORE miserable! They chose, instead, to FORGIVE!

Nelson Mandela said this about ANGER:

Being angry at someone is like swallowing poison and expecting them to die.

He learned this while being incarcerated and put in solitary confinement for 18 years by the white supremacist apartheid dominant party in highly segregated South Africa. Mr. Mandela led the fight for FREEDOM in that country, and the POWER of love and the capacity to FORGIVE, in him, eventually prevailed in that nation.

Dr. King said:

We must develop and maintain the capacity to FORGIVE. He who is DEVOID of the power to FORGIVE is DEVOID of the power to LOVE. There is some good in the worst of us and some evil in the best of us. When we discover this, we are less prone to hate our enemies.

A heart that is devoid of LOVE is a shrunken, miserable heart! When we stop and think about it like this, WHY would we want to give any person – including our own little self – the power to OPPRESS us like this?

HEART FORGIVENESS is a process that has PROVEN to be powerfully EFFECTIVE in helping individuals like you and me take the key to the prison of hate and shame and fear we have made and set ourselves FREE!

Maybe NOW is the time to give yourself this POWERFUL gift. Why wait any longer? Haven’t you suffered enough?

The gift of a more quiet, lighter, more JOYful heart is no small thing! It blesses not only the one who’s HEART has been unburdened, but everyone else in our lives as well! Believe me, they’ll feel the difference in us!

Oh yes, and about those terrible injustices in our lives. . . no, of course they won’t magically go away; we’ll just have enormously more energy and clarity in dealing more effectively with them.

Make sense? It did for me and continues to hold to this day! HEART FORGIVENESS worked POWERFULLY for me!

It can for YOU too!

Phil Orth

Philip Orth, MA, is an Advanced Core Health Facilitator call or email him to find out how you can relieve the burden of anger and/or un-forgiveness in your life.

See his Workshop schedules here.