Anatomy of Forgiveness

3 Unexpected Gifts of Letting Go & Moving On

Is Father’s Day difficult for you? Maybe you grew up believing that everyone else had a happy and loving family, that only you had the painful childhood.?

Maybe feeling like you were ripped off when you heard your friends talking about how great their dads were. Now, with social media posts, you can feel even more isolated and alone in a crowd of dad-loving friends.?

How do I know? I grew up with a violent, alcoholic father in a home where nothing made sense.?

My father left this earth in 2017.

Before he passed, through many signs and promptings, internal and external, I realized it was best for me to forgive him and release the pain. I was in an evangelical church at the time, and before you judge, let me say that I don’t know of any religions or spiritual paths that encourage unforgiveness and/or hatred.?

There were two simple scriptures that suddenly stood out to me, as though they’d been glued inside my eyeballs.?

The first is well-known:

“Honor your father and mother so that your days may be prolonged and it may be well with you.”

Nothing about our fathers and mothers doing a great job, just that we benefit if we can honor them. For me that also spoke of forgiveness.

More obscure was my second scripture from the Book of James,

“Therefore to him that knoweth to do good and doeth it not, to him it is sin.”

No matter how you view the concept of sin, this spoke to me again of my own choice, nothing to do with my father. I knew I’d benefit from forgiveness, and that there was good in it, whether he knew it or not. I had a choice. The best choice for me was forgiveness.

Maybe a roundabout way to get there, but this was my influence at the time, and it changed my life.?

I released my own pain. I let go of all that baggage, the load I’d carried for so long. And for the first time, I was able to see my own future, feel hope, instead of feeling stuck in my past.

What always felt like a hot coal inside, the constant reminder of what I hated, disappeared. The chains, stretching all the way from Denver, Colorado to Grand Rapids, Michigan, always pulling me back, were cut.

I don’t believe he was ever able to release his pain.?

Our families teach us lessons. It’s up to us to figure out how to deal with and ultimately master some of the more difficult ones.

Lesson One: I Am Not My Story

My dad definitely had his own demons, fighting them and also fighting the world. From Ohio to Alaska, and either Houston or Dallas, Texas, to Colorado, my dad left pain and betrayal in his wake.

For a long time I hated him for what he’d done to me and to our family. Mostly, I was angry that he’d stayed with us instead of moving on like he had with the rest. We suffered his rage, drinking, his battles against us.?

The anger, resentment, hurt, betrayal – it all created a very heavy burden. The heaviness. The loneliness.?

I moved to Michigan to get away. But there was no place far enough for me to escape even though I went for several years without any communication with him. Everything I did had some type of relation to my home, my dad. I wanted to prove I could be successful in spite of him. I wanted his praise in spite of myself. The man I married was about as far opposite of my dad as I could find, because I wanted someone who would never hurt me.

If you knew me, you eventually knew about my dad. He was part of my identity. I wore my story like a shield, a warning not to hurt me because I’d already been hurt enough.?

Once I forgave him, I faced the fact that I’d created my own self-image around an identity as an abused girl.??It was frightening to let that story go, to move past the excuse I’d always kept handy. On the other hand, the knowledge that I was free to live my life as myself, without the burden of the past, was exhilarating. Little by little I realized I was free to create a life the way I wanted it.

Lesson Two: Responsibility and Boundaries

In my book, Winning at Work: A Practical Guide to Career Success, I have a chapter called Comfy Excuses. When we shine the light on the excuses we carry in case things don’t work out the way we want them, we have more awareness of how we have sabotaged ourselves.?

I have identified many of my own comfy excuses, and even though it’s an uncomfortable process, I’m now able to see my past self-sabotage and take responsibility for events in my life. Even if I didn’t create an event, my responsibility is how I react. If I automatically reach for one of my comfy excuses, I can create guilt and shame in situations where there is none.?

Once I forgave my dad and started taking responsibility for how I wanted to show up in my life, I could see patterns. Relationship patterns, automatic assumptions and reactions, especially around men or authority figures. Now I’ve been able to identify these patterns, take responsibility when I see them, and assess the situation without that self-destructive filter.?

The past decade has been much more fulfilling because I have learned to make choices based on what I want.

A word about boundaries: forgiving someone doesn’t mean you are a doormat. If their behavior hasn’t or doesn’t change, you are free to move on, move out or away, and decide how you want to live. Live the life you want, practicing identification of what you want. No need to justify or explain, unless you want to. Yes, this takes practice. Start with baby steps, but start.

Lesson Three: Gratitude

I have half-siblings from three of my dad’s known marriages, and others I couldn’t track down.??When a man marries or cohabitates, and ultimately that union produces children, that man is likely secretive about his past, even where he’s been or lived. At least my dad was. I never actually knew he’d been married twice before he met my mother, or in reality, that he was married when he met her.?

At some point in the past decade or so, I decided to find my siblings, for whatever reason I wasn’t sure at the time. My dad was still alive. He gave me the phone number of one sister. I called her and we ultimately met.

I tracked down my mystery brother, about whom I’d known but never had the nerve to contact. He was on LinkedIn, and I sent him a crazy, nervous message about having the same last name, from the same town, and wasn’t that a coincidence??

Other sisters I connected with after my father passed. Of my half-siblings, I’ve met two sisters and my mystery brother, and I’m grateful for them in my life.?

Never did I believe I would honestly be able to say I was grateful for the experience and lessons growing up with my dad. I can take those experiences (living with violence, abuse, confusion, and ultimately in a halfway house and group home) and share my story in a way that may give hope to others.?

I’m currently working with a local women’s shelter. Many female patrons can relate to my family history and experiences. I can share my story, my lessons and journey, and teach them how they can create their own future.?

I’ve been able to heal, living a fulfilling life, especially as a mother and also as myself. I don’t drag the chains of bitterness, hate, resentment.?

I love my dad. I’m grateful for him, and I do have good memories of some fun times.?

I’m sharing this because many of us grew up or were taught to find someone to blame, whether for our own trauma or when bad things happen. Blaming others takes energy and drains us emotionally. We can choose another way. We can love, appreciate, and forgive, no matter what. We stop drinking our own poison.

Remember,

• You are not your story.
• You can take responsibility for your life and create boundaries.
• You can look for gratitude in how you feel about the past.

And things change. What we see today may be completely different tomorrow. Life is so short.?

If you can relate, I’m sending you big love.