Recently, I've explored how one person forgives another. My intuition told me that one cannot forgive another without first forgiving oneself for whatever shadows lurk in their past. But then, I wondered about the role of shame in forgiveness. For is it not the shameful things we do that we attempt to conceal (shadow) even from ourselves merely to avoid shame's scorn?
So, if we all carry shameful secrets that we hope never to encounter, things we're sure others would reject us for if they only knew, who is it that needs our forgiveness?
Then, as I often do, I researched. I found the definition of forgive in Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary: To forgive is "To give wholly; to make new without reservation; to abandon or renounce."
I'm unsurprised and surprised all at once. To forgive is the definition of non-attachment. [Quick advanced Enneagram lesson: Non-attachment is the Virtue of Enneagram Point Five and the Missing Piece of Point Eight.]
There is serenity, love, and freedom in non-attachment, my friends, and isn't that what we're after with the act of forgiveness?
Holly Margl is the award-winning author of Witnessing Grief; Inviting Trauma and Loss to Our Coaching Conversations, An Enneagram Perspective, coach, coach mentor, and trainer specializing in grief, trauma, and the Enneagram.
