El Coraje de Perdonar

Forgiving is a choice. What is forgiveness? How do you go about forgiving? What happens when you actually go ahead and forgive?

To forgive, in the Greek, means “to let go.” Many times it takes an abundance of courage to forgive. During a discussion with a friend, she said, “Sure, there are times I can sense I have built up resentment toward someone. They didn't do what I wanted them to do. I found I had to ask myself, ‘Do I want to give up my resentment? Aren’t I entitled to my anger? If I let go, whom will I blame?’” These were courage consciousness questions! Why? It is your courage that supports your ability to let go of deadly attitudes such as attachments and judgments.

A client told me, “I’ve lived long enough to know that deep anger and resentment can fester and turn into other symptoms—both psychological and physical.” Columnist Ann Landers offered great advice to this client's statement: “Hanging on to resentment is letting someone you despise live rent-free in your head.” As a courage expert, I wondered how we could develop and deepen our courage reservoir and give up those feelings. It seemed moral to consider combining two virtues: moral courage.

Morality is defined as that which is good between and among people. Morality has been around since Aristotle. He said that courage was the first of the virtues because it made all the other virtues possible. The origin of the word courage is corage, Medieval Old French meaning “heart and spirit.” If I apply energy from my reservoir of courage to step up and forgive, then it benefits me to let go of those harmful emotions.

Pema Chödron’s book When Things Fall Apart quotes Trungpa Rinpoche as saying, “It is a dark time when people lose faith in one another and so lack courage.” Forgiveness is in the heart, and radiating goodness comes from the heart’s energy. What goes through your heart changes you! Many spiritual people showed us this energy—Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr. and Abraham Lincoln, among others. When you identify, claim and apply the original definition of courage, you develop a willingness to forgive. Then you're the one who is set free. You receive the blessing.

Sandra Ford Walston is a speaker, internationally published author of COURAGE, trainer and courage coach. walstoncourage.com
(Originally posted on September 30, 2008 en The Pink Community)