Page 10 - the Noise April 2017

Laurent Weichberger Photograph by Vanessa Weichberger
“Forget the past, and make the most of the present. Keep your own hearts clean. Learn to love each other first before you tell others about my love for one and all. Give love, receive love, gather love; everything else
is dissolved eventually in the truth of divine love.”
~ Meher Baba 1
This forgiveness life-cycle assumes there (at least) are two people involved in the process, and there is giving forgiveness, asking for forgiveness or both:
1. Identify what happened. In Non-Violent Communication (NVC) terms this is the “Observation.” While this stage may seem like common sense it can get more com- plex, such as when a memory is repressed or only partial. In my work with people, I have seen that in the retelling of the incident, more than once, the details of the incident may in fact become more clear, and more full, and the story may change from a dim memory of what happened, to a clear and potent story with many more details and sometimes greater depth injury that in earlier versions of the incident. Identification can be done in many ways, such as writing about the incident, or verbally or through artwork. Whatever medium of communication is best for the situation is fine, as long as the problem can be as clearly identified as possible.
2. One of the benefits of the NVC approach is that observations are separated from feelings in the describing of an incident. This is helpful on many levels, but not the least of which is that it can untangle the thread of mixed feelings, and memories of what happened, which if communicated all at once can be confusing. To move into only communication about the “feelings” associated with the incident is helpful. To be fair, some people have great difficulty describing emotions and feelings. This stage would benefit from a hand list of feelings as is easily found on many websites, and we provide a version in the appendix of this book as well.
3. Once the feelings are identified it is important to feel the feelings. Again, this may seem to be obvious, or common sense, but surprisingly I have found that many are re- sistant to feeling the feelings around a painful incident. This can lead to other problems, such as is found in psychological circles of splitting or fracturing of the psyche, or other “shadow” related issues. Since I am not psychiatrically trained, I won’t go into that more here except to say that allowing oneself to feel the feelings associated with the incident will naturally lead to the next stage.
4. Share what happened with someone safe. It may be that we share directly with Baba (or God) within first, before involving another person. It is also possible that all these stages are done with a therapist, or in the absence of a therapist many people work on their is- sues with their circle of family and friends. So, in this stage, when we say “someone safe” we mean that it is important when sharing about the incident and the feelings associated with that you select someone who is safe. Safe is a relative term, and it means many things to different people, but because of the nature of trauma and forgiveness, it should be a trust worthy person who will not go around sharing what you are sharing in confidence with them, someone who will not judge you, and someone who knows how to listen and honor
your words, your experience and your feelings. If you have no one like that in your life we highly recommend a therapist be invited into your process.
In conversation with Jeff Wolverton on this point he pointed out that in addition to be- ing safe, “Someone who can help you by keeping the feelings alive at the deepest level, for an extended period, so that they can be more fully experienced. In other words, to help you face this issue, and facilitate you delving as deep as possible into those feelings. Even then the awareness will want to pull out of something that is uncomfortable. Bringing it before Baba, as if he is right here, is of course the safe place, and it invites Him to be a part of the process. And in the healing process, He has infinitely more options on how to deal with forgiveness than we do.” As Annie Lovett shared with me, also on this point, “It is im- portant to fully feel your feelings.” 2
5. Share what happened with the other person (or people) involved in the incident. This is where the stages of forgiveness may get the most intense. We realize that there are many issues involved in sharing with the other person. This brings up the forgiveness directions, and the need for continued safety in your life and process. It is possible that you feel it is impossible to share your experience of what happened with the other person. It may be that the only way to share with them is with a “third party,” like a friend or mediator, or a therapist involved. During the seminar work we have done, I have repeatedly heard that an individual attempted to share, but there was no interest on the part of the other to listen. Another case is when the other is no longer reachable (they moved, or you lost contact), or they have since died before you were able to bring this issue up. In any case, we feel that while this stage can be vital and helpful it is not required. My own case, when forgiving my father for his suicide is a great example of this. In that case, I decided to share my forgive- ness with my father at Meher Baba’s Samadhi, since he had long since died and there was
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