Two Tools for Forgiveness: Giving and Taking and the Scissor Release
For my whole life, I have felt responsible for the emotional and physical wellbeing of others. Not just my parents, my son, my husband and friends; but everyone I’ve ever worked for, everyone who has ever worked for me, and everyone who I’ve ever worked with.
That’s not to say that if a co-worker gets sick, I feel accountable. It is more that I feel accountable for how someone feels after they interact with me. If someone talks to me and then feels bad, I feel that it is my fault. And if someone is suffering, I feel like I need to fix it.
This overreach of responsibility, likely ingrained in me due to my generation, my gender, my class, my race, and everything intersectional that has built the psychological bricks in the wall of my reality, sometimes leads to feelings of resentment.
It goes something like this.
Me (in my mind):
Feel good, please, because we have interacted.
Say something that makes me know that you feel happy because you have talked with me.
Them (out loud): I’m disappointed/angry/frustrated at/with you. You did the wrong thing/said the wrong thing. I disagree with what you think. Now I feel bad. I don’t like you anymore because I think you caused my feelings.
Me (out loud — because half of my mind really believes that I am fully to blame for whatever happened): I’m so sorry!! How can I fix this? What can I do better to make you feel more comfortable and happier?
Me (in my mind — because the other half of me is protecting the ego of that previous half): F$#*! you.
(Proceed to simmer with resentment.)
I’m not saying that this is the healthiest aspect of my personality. And I’m working harder to overcome it. I know I may be able to avoid future resentment by being honest the first time and just living with their disagreement or dislike. While I work on that mental shift, I also have begun to strengthen my ability to release the resentment itself before it starts to fester. And this is no easy task.
In the last year or so, I have discovered two tools that have helped me authentically release myself from this sense of constant responsibility for pleasing and gratifying everyone. And I suspect others who experience this sense of accountability in relationships could benefit from these tools as well.
Giving and Taking: One Method of Feeling Compassion Instead of Anger
Some of you may be familiar with the loving kindness meditation. My method involves sitting quietly and saying:
May I be filled with loving kindness.
May I be free from inner and outer harm.
May I be safe.
May I be healthy in body and mind.
May I be happy.
And then I pick a person I love and I say this about them. And then maybe a person I feel neutral about — like the cashier from the grocery store today. And then maybe a person I really don’t like — and this often translates into a person who I was unable to please. (If you’d like a good primer on loving kindness meditation for yourself, check out this Ted Talk by Dan Harris. He’s the 10% Happier guy. It’s a good one.)
My new tool (discovered in some reading for a yoga teacher training class) is a more personalized form of this. It’s called giving and taking and it is basically a practice for compassion and kindness.
First, you take. Think about a person in your life. Any person. And you think about something that is causing that person great pain. Something specific. Something that you know they wish wasn’t happening. And you take a deep breath in and take that pain-causing thing and hold it in your own heart so that it is no longer in theirs.
Then you give. Think about what that person wants more than anything in the world. And you do this without judgment about what you think is best for them and without consideration for what is best for you. And you breathe out a wish for them to have whatever this thing is.
So — you breathe in compassion for this person and whatever is honestly (don’t make it up) causing them pain.
And then — you breathe out kindness and whatever they truly (no — not your agenda) want for their own happiness. (This piece about what they really want is key. It should not be what you want for them.
This involves being honest with yourself about what you know they want, and becoming truly willing to give it to them no matter what you think about it.)
I start thinking, perhaps, of someone who has hurt me. Someone who, when I think of them, I feel angry, ashamed, furious, embarrassed, confused. I think about something that I know causes them pain, and I take a deep breath and I pull that pain from their heart into mine. I sit with their pain, and I think of them being free of it. And then I think about whatever it is that I know that they want more than anything else and, without judgment and without a thought to my own needs, I exhale and breathe that thing over to them. And I do this for a series of minutes.
Here is the magic.
At the end of that practice, I feel less hurt and less angry at that person for judging me or who I feel has hurt me for some reason, because I have concentrated on feeling genuine compassion for their pain and genuine hope for their happiness.
I have achieved a sense of their humanity.
And I feel a tremendous rush of letting go and relief all throughout my body.
There is an even bolder exercise that provides a further release. It’s about releasing these people and the thick tendons that represent my sense of accountability for them. True detachment.
The Scissor Release: A Practice of Forgiveness
I read somewhere that the best form of detachment is forgiveness and the best expression of forgiveness is a pair of scissors cutting the strings of resentment. In other words — you’re not changing the feelings. You are cutting them completely away.
In this exercise, I imagine a huge pair of scissors with enormous, razor-sharp jaws. They are the size of an elephant — many times bigger than I am. And I imagine that I am surrounded by a tangle of white rubbery bands connecting me to people in my life (the good feeling people, the not good feeling people) and the bands are thick like tendons, ribbed, opaque and tough, gristle-y. The bands are all around me, like a spider web, pulling and pulling.
Then I imagine that the scissors cut through those tendons in huge, slicing waves, chomping with this powerful clanging biting sound and I feel this immediate release, like something that was pulling me, a great physical tension, snaps away.
I rock a little on my feet or in my chair because the emptiness is so immediate and surprising and the tension pulling me toward all of these people was so powerful. And I breathe a huge breath — a deep, expansive belly exhalation. And my shoulders drop.
The scissors create a circle around me, like a moat of emptiness and space, and I imagine that something like a force field that is only light surrounds me, and I think to myself I am alone.
And the next thought is, honestly: I can dance now.
The first practice — giving and taking — loosens those bands of resentment that tie me to others. The second — enormous scissors cutting away those bands — allows me to free myself entirely. Together, the combination is powerful, and my belly and my fingertips thank me for it.
Interestingly, I’ve found that these exercises work not just for those who have judged me. They also work for the people (wait for it) who I judge.
Yes, I’m guilty of it too. Sometimes I don’t like what others say or do. For those lucky folks (like my family members, for example), I feel compelled to judge the quality of their choices and, if I judge them to be not ideal, I feel that I must somehow influence them to change their choices into choices that I approve of.
The giving and taking practice forces me to ask myself “what does this person really want?” and “can I authentically, without judgment, wish for them to have it?” It’s so easy to judge the people we love (or even people we work with who we authentically like). Wishing them their hearts’ desire without judgment is a Jedi trick, because I think we tell ourselves judgy lies about what is best for the people around us. I like doing this exercise for them, because I don’t have to feel like I’m some sort of arbiter or spiritual gate keeper, deciding which wants are good wants and which wants should not be wanted.
There is a freedom to this.
I’ve also used the scissor release with people I love. It may sound counter-intuitive, but my strong sense of responsibility for their wellbeing is so powerful that it takes a pair of enormous scissors to hack their way through these tendons of perceived need. In truth, they don’t really need me to survive or thrive. They can stand on their own.
My real job is simply to love them.
I raise all of this because these practices work so well for me, and in particular, work well together. And these tools can be powerful as we navigate our lives. Why?
For me, these practices change my narrative. I go from thinking “that person hates me and maybe that means that I’m bad” or “that person is making choices I don’t like and I should try to make them change their choices” to:
I do not have to hold responsibility for the life experiences, choices, or emotional status of others.
And even more magical is the fact that when I have truly changed my narrative about other people and myself, I can practice more detachment and approach all of my relationships on better terms.
Everyone has needs that are not being met that I can authentically wish were met. Everyone must stand on their own two feet to move through life. These practices remind me that I can wish the best for you, authentically, and I can cut away any tensions that might pull either of us off of our feet. I can meet you with my own strength intact, and appreciate and celebrate yours, no matter whether we agree.
Try these out, friends, if you are holding resentments and anger or judgments of others (if you are, basically, human). Tell me how they work for you.
