One of the numerous adages on forgiveness is ‘to forgive and to forget’. While many of these are true, some are impossible of application unless there is a full understanding of the cliché. Before there can be forgiveness and conciliation with another, it cannot be truly effective unless we initially forgive oneself.
I believe that like any other feelings of hate and love forgiveness should commence personally. But one might argue that, why should I forgive myself when it is him or her who wronged me? By analogy, forgiving someone is like a doctor healing a patient. You must be well first before you can cure another. How can you effectively cure someone when you yourself are sick?
Studies have shown that when something goes wrong people unconsciously blame themselves in one way or the other. When a relationship goes wrong, one of the parties who are not at fault may think that it was because of his/her shortcomings why the other prompted to act that way. When a marriage breaks up, the child might think that it was his/her fault why his/her parents argue all the time. How can a mother forgive the violator of her son when she can’t stop thinking that maybe it would not have happened if she did not permitted him to go to that party.
Forgiveness may be a unilateral act. We can forgive someone even if that someone did not make amends to correct his act. I believe that this is a higher form of forgiveness because it requires ones personal volition of forgiving without the other saying sorry or making restitution. This is an admirable act but it always make someone feel good when he can muster coming into terms with himself and with the other, only then he can have peace from within.
Reconciliation on the other hand comes after forgiveness. When forgiving someone after he wronged you there comes amendment or mending of relationship that will lead to conciliation. Unlike forgiveness, conciliation is a bilateral act, meaning it requires mutual consensus from the parties before it can happen. When someone says sorry and the other has forgiven, conciliation follows and the relationship is back to the way it used to be.
This is not normally the case under other circumstances. They say that a relationship is like a glass that once broken it can never be returned to its previous state. I am of the opposite opinion. There can be no appropriate parallelism between a glass and a relationship. For one, a glass is a thing and a relationship is the dealing of one person with another. Second, a glass is breakable and can be thrown away and replaced. A relationship must be pliable or flexible; it’s a shame to break it and can never be replaced since each relationship is unique on its own.
This might be thought provoking but often-neglected facts. But the act of forgiveness and conciliation will lead to hollow truism if we don’t understand the true meaning of it and learn on how to effectively put it into practice.
