The Christmas season is associated with forgiveness. Many of the countless Christmas movies on hallmark have themes of forgiveness.
This is on top of the romanticism of of leaving the big city for a quaint small town filled with nostalgia. Paring up the nostalgia with forgiveness leaves you with the impression that you can go back to what you had.
When you’re saturated with so many messages of forgiveness and couples with gushy sentimentality, you start considering forgiveness as a good idea.
Forgiveness isn’t just a good idea, it’s a great one! The problem with all the forgiveness going on and promoted during this time of year is ‘the motivation for forgiveness.’
When you’re surrounded with messages about forgiving, its’ a form of peer pressure. It sends the message that you won’t be loved if you don’t forgive. At those moments you feel compelled to forgive based on guilt and obligation.
I’ve even encountered people, including counselors who state you’re required to forgive. I understand where you’re coming from.
I have some concerns about forgiving. Forgiveness based on obligation is insincere and mechanical. The obligation forgiving is about ritual more than forgiving.
There’s a time and place for obligatory forgiveness, which I’ll have to address in a future email. Suffice to say when obligation is driving premature forgiveness, it’s not a good thing.
Premature forgiveness halts deep level healing. With premature forgiveness, you give forgive without even having a clear idea what the object of your forgiveness is.
It’s important that you have a clear idea of what you’re forgiving. If you’re forgiving before you know what you’re forgiving, it could be premature.
If you’re forgiving based on being put on a guilt trip, it could be premature.
If you’re forgiving based on peer pressure, it could be premature.
When it comes to forgiveness, especially related to affairs, your motivation is important. Your motivation for forgiving makes a difference in the outcome.
Genuine forgiveness brings healing and real change, while the premature stuff only brings a momentary relief and temporary change.
If you want to know more about forgiveness, consider the video “Forgiveness: Heal the Pain, tear down the walls and remove the obstacles”. In the video, I take you through the forgiveness process step by step.
Instead of doing it according to the role modeling presented to you in the Christmas movies, you can instead know how to generate genuine forgiveness. Forgiveness is too important to settle for cheap substitutes that only provide temporary relief.
You can know when to forgive and when not to. You can know the difference between repentance and the cheater just going through the motions of asking for forgiveness. Not knowing what to look for can lead you into making some costly relationship mistakes.
Keeping It Real,
Jeff
