On a particularly uneventful Thursday morning, I was invited to one of those fancy media phone conversations with Iyanla Vanzant: motivational speaker, author, and host of Iyanla, Fix My Life. I’m still not sure how or why I was mistaken for a respectable journalist, but if you know me from my other blog, you know that I live for personal development and spirituality. I wasn’t passing this up. Ms. Vanzant, whose newest book is called Forgiveness: 21 Days to Forgive Everyone for Everything, broke down what forgiveness is, how we obtain it, and why you need to partake in forgiveness now. She opened the telephone call with lots of gratitude, but, in typical fashion cut to the chase with one sentence.
“While it seems that everyone has a different challenge, a different issue or a different story…at the core of every single issue and every single story, there is an upset or a wound that needs to be healed.”
“Forgiveness,” she added, “is the universal resolution to every single problem. I don’t care what the problem is. There is something that needs to be forgiven.”
It is so easy to get seduced into the drama and details of our own unique stories. As a writer, I can transport myself directly into moments of past transgressions. With the wave of a pen, I can conjure the scent of his skin, and recall the way the light hit his fresh haircut. I can count the number of buttons on his dress shirt, and vividly recall the way his shoulders slumped as he walked out of my apartment. If I’m not careful I can live in that memory and, as a result, live out patterns of victimization and heartbreak. Forgiveness helps us break old patterns.
Sometime last year, after a particularly bad situation, I set out to do 30 days of forgiveness prayers. What I found out was that I had to choose to release the hurt. The prayers brought things to the surface, but, ultimately I had to let things go. Forgiveness is very rarely about another person. Though I may not have consciously asked for the incident to occur, I ultimately had to decide how I would clean up the mess left behind. Part of truly clearing and healing is, in fact, acknowledging and forgiving ourselves for how we were complicit in our own dramas. We have to forgive ourselves for giving events meanings and interpretations that disempower and terrorize us. Our interpretations of the things that happen, more often than not, screw us up. The incident may only last seconds, but how we’ve defined it is what continues to haunt and scar us. Forgiveness gives old events new meaning.
“It’s our response to what happens that sets up the wounding, the healing or the upset,” Iyanla said. “Until we can forgive ourselves, until we can forgive ourselves for how we participate in our own difficulties, it’s going to be difficult to forgive [others].”
Going beyond traditional forgiveness, Iyanla specifically mentions black woman, and our need to release pain, shame and anger that seems to be ingrained in our collective psyche.
“We [black women] stay angry about what we know to be cuts in our soul – the things we’ve heard, and the things we’ve seen. Things that have been said to us, things that have been said about us, things that we desire, but don’t seem to be able to accomplish, so forgiveness is if you just want to feel better.”
“And you don’t have to be doing badly,” she adds. “This is not about economics. This is not about class. This is not about education. It’s about being human. It comes down to who you need to forgive because that’s the only thing that’s going to neutralize the energy or take the story, or issue, or the wound to a platform where it can be healed.”
That’s my wish for myself and everyone I know…to step into the place where we can ultimately heal.
Who do you need to forgive, SBM? I’ve got two copies of Iyanla’s new book Forgiveness: 21 Days to Forgive Everyone for Everything to give away. Answer the question, and then register for the giveaway here:
Patia Braithwaite is a Brooklyn-based relationship blogger and life coach. Her wellness and relationship articles have appeared on The Huffington Post, Yahoo Shine, Clutch Magazine and Bounce Back.com. She is the founder of The Untitled Love Project, a three month coaching program that prompts people to ask the question: What would I do if I loved myself more? Check her musings and offerings out at: www.menmyselfandgod.com.
I am ready to forgive myself. I have been too hard on myself for the mistakes I have made in the past and it's time for the healing to begin. I won't go into too much detail but for too long I have looked out for people without anyone really looking out for me. In doing so I have to build myself up to the point that I can thrive the way I know God wants me to thrive. I'm a work in progress like most people, but I was able to look in the mirror and truly see me for who I am. I didn't like what I saw. So I have proclaimed my life back and putting myself first. It feels really good to be in the position I am in.
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I would have to agree with the previous comment. I too need to forgive myself. I sometimes feel like I am to blame for most of the things that have happened to me and with that blame also came a lot of self doubt. This has limited me in so many areas, but I have slowly started taking the steps needed to fully heal.
I just recently learned how the art of forgiveness can be such a freeing act for ones own spiritual and emotional growth. For years I harbored quite a bit of anger and resentment towards my mother for the way that I was raised. Due to my lack of knowledge as a youth and not having been taught certain things that a young lady needs to learn from her mother, I suffered a lot from making wrong decisions. I figured out that holding all the things that I was holding onto was keeping me from reaching my full potential in life. So, to make a long story short I’ve forgiven my mother. Now I am working on forgiving myself as well because I can’t dwell in the past and the bad decisions that I made. I can only move forward and do great things! I can for sure relate to the other person who commented on self forgiveness. When you’re able to do that it’s truly an amazing feeling.
I loved this joint, speaks to a situation of mine currently.
I almost there with forgiving my younger self. I've held onto things i've said and done for far too long and it's had a place in my life that does not deserve residence. Over the years I've learned and accepted so much about the whys and hows about how I operated but now I need to forgive myself for it all. I'm in no rush but i'm certainly not stagnating. I know that like so many other things in my life, everything in divine order but i'm here for it.
Wow this is great! I don't know where to start, but I will say that I'm currently in treatment. I'm hoping to develop some of these skills because my spirit has been weary for a while now. Mainly due to me not forgiving myself for a myriad of things, and not forgiving those I allowed to hurt, abandon, misuse, etc. me. Thanks for sharing.
While it appears that everybody has an alternate test, an alternate issue or an alternate story sat essay example at the center of each and every issue and each and every story, there is a disturbed or a wound that needs to be mended.