Freedom's Just Another Word For Forgiveness

Janis Joplin sang, "Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose." Freedom's also just another word for forgiveness.

It takes so much courage to forgive the difficult people in our lives. Yet until we forgive, we can never put the past completely behind us and create a future free from the constraints of the past.

One reason I think it's so hard to forgive is because we confuse forgiveness with condoning what was done to us. They're not the same.

Two recent movies have reminded me of the courage it takes to forgive and the freedom that becomes available when we do. Both movies are based on true events.

"The Railway Man" is the story of Eric Lomax, a British engineer fighting in Singapore during World War II. His unit is captured by the Japanese and taken to Thailand where they are forced into slave labor to build the Thai-Burma railroad.  Lomax is tortured. His forearms are smashed and he is repeatedly waterboarded.

Lomax survives, but he is haunted by what happened to him. He suffers what today we would call post traumatic stress disorder, repeatedly reliving the torture.

In 1980, Lomax discovers that Takashi Nagase, one of his torturers, is alive in Japan. Lomax tracks him down with the intent of killing him. Instead, he realizes that  the war will never truly end for him until he forgives his tormentor.  Lomax does so.  The scene where he and Nagase embrace is unbelievably moving.

Here's a video of the real Lomax and the real Nagase:

In "Philomena," the teenage Philomena Lee becomes pregnant and is sent by her father to live in an Abbey where she is held in virtual servitude. The nuns force her to give up her son for adoption.

As an adult, Philomena searches for her son. She is joined by a newspaper man thinking this would make a great story.

Philomena discovers that her son, renamed Michael by the American family that adopted him, died of AIDS at the age of 43. Knowing he was dying, Michael visited the Abbey to search for his birth mother. The nuns knew where Philomena was, but refused to let her son know. They had also refused to let Philomena know that her son was looking for her. Michael died thinking Philomena was uninterested in finding him.

When the truth is uncovered, the newspaper man is outraged and shouts curses at the nuns. He expects Philomena to do the same. But in an extraordinary act of generosity and courage,  Philomena forgives the nuns, saying that she doesn't want to live her life full of hate. She knows that, like Eric Lomax, her suffering will never end unless she forgives.

It takes so much courage to let go of the past hurts done to us. The movie examples are of people who were tortured and lied to. But our daily interactions with difficult people are much more mundane: The person who treats us like we don't exist at meetings or talks over us.  The person who butts in front of us in line without apology. The person who tailgates us because we won't drive faster. The person who criticizes us without regard for our feelings. The person who calls us stupid or lazy or some name that hurts. The person who is arrogant or stubborn or opinionated or, in short, difficult to get along with. Sometimes we hold on to these daily slights for years.

I remember meeting a man who had spent years blaming his ex wife for their divorce. One day, having had no contact with her since the divorce, he called her. When she answered, he apologized for blaming her. He took responsibility for the divorce. Not 50% of the responsibility. 100%. He told his ex wife that he was genuinely sorry.

When he was done speaking, there was a long pause. Finally,  his ex wife said to him (and this is a quote. It was such a surprising comment that I wrote it down), "I was prepared to hate you for the rest of my life. What am I going to do now?"

A great question. A hole is left when we give up resentment. What are we going to do now? I think the answer is that now we can be free and powerful. Now we can create a future free from the past that was holding us back. Now we are free to be extraordinary.

How Do Difficult People Occur To You?

Have you ever said, "It suddenly occurred to me" or "That never occurred to me?" Those statements are exactly correct. We see something we hadn't seen before or something we never thought of before. Reality hasn't changed, but the way we see reality is quite different. As Wayne Dyer has said, "If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change."

Something happened recently that changed the way a person I had thought of as difficult occurred to me and made me realize that "difficult" is in the eye of the beholder.

I've been living next door to John for two years.  I would see him driving away or returning to his home or I'd see him washing his car in his driveway. We'd nod towards one another and, occasionally, add a small wave. In truth, I knew John's name only because a neighbor had told me.

The fact is, I'd been afraid of John ever since I moved in here. I sensed that my neighbors were afraid of him as well. I had been told by several neighbors that he wanted to be left alone. John is a big man in height and weight, with a bald head. That combination of physical characteristics and what I had been told had John occur to me as menacing. I may have occurred to him in the same way. After all, I hadn't exactly been the friendliest of neighbors.

This year, I took over being the "Block Watch Captain" on the block where I live. We have meetings of the homeowners twice a year and my job is to chair those meetings to discuss issues that are important to people who live in the 37 houses on the block. I also distribute the email and phone list for the residents as well as the minutes of our meetings.

There are residents of seven houses who never come to the meetings. Needless to say, I don't have their contact information. One of those residents is John.  I decided that I was going to get that information. I wrote a flyer that asked if they'd like to be included in the phone and email list. I walked down the block to put the flyer in the seven mailboxes.

I had crossed the street and was a few doors down from my house when I saw John's garage door opening. I stood still as though frozen to the spot, considering whether to walk across the street to talk to him. I waited to see if John would drive out of his garage, but no car emerged. Neither did John. I must have stood there for 15 seconds. Then I turned and proceeded up the street, berating myself for my cowardice.

I put the flyer in the mailboxes and turned to come home. I decided that if I got to John's house and he was in his garage, I would talk to him. If his garage door was closed, I'd put the flyer in his mailbox. As I walked, I practiced what I would say.

John was in his garage, with his back towards me. As I had practiced, I smiled broadly and, in as friendly a voice as I could muster said, "John." He turned to face me. I put out my hand and said, "Your neighbor. Larry Barkan."

To my surprise, John shook my hand and smiled back. In fact, he couldn't have been nicer. We talked for at least 15 minutes. He brought me into his yard and showed me his garden. He told me that he was a power lifter and had recently had shoulder surgery. He gave me some pointers about the safe way to lift weights. There had recently been a minor fire in our neighborhood and we talked about it. It occurred to me (another "occurring" that may or not have been true, but "true" has nothing to do with it) that he would continue talking to me as long as I continued to respond.

He told me his name was James, not John. We laughed. I apologized. I had been calling him "John" for all the time we had been talking.

I finally said that I had to go and asked if he would be willing to give me his contact information for our distribution list. Without hesitation he did and even said, "I should come to one of those meetings." I told him I hoped he would.

"We see the world not as it is, but as we are." I've seen this quote attributed variously to Anais Nin, Stephen Covey and the Talmud. In other words, it's an occurring world.  James occurred to me differently after our talk. He was the same James. I was the same Larry. He just occurred differently to me and that made all the difference.

Do you sometimes avoid certain people because you are sure they're difficult to get along with? Perhaps that's only how difficult people occur to us.

If you have any questions, comments or concerns, please write me at ljbarkan@thepivotalfactor.com I'll be happy to respond.

If you'd like a copy of my report "How To Deal With  Difficult People," go to conflictresolutiontraining.net and give me your email address.

My thanks to Landmark Worldwide (landmarkworldwide.com) for insight into the occurring world.