Choose forgiveness to be happy

Simplify your Life

Nothing liberates you as much as forgiveness does!

Understanding why and how forgiveness works

Every crisis comes into your Life for a reason

Liberate yourself – forgive!

Forgiveness is deeply personal and sets you free

When you are forgiving someone you are choosing what – and who – is important to you.

Last week, I read a story that talked about Sabrina Lal forgiving Manu Sharma, her sister Jessica Lal’s killer. Interestingly, the same day Vaani and I bumped into a former colleague of ours who had maligned us in public for issuing her a pink slip when our erstwhile Firm went bankrupt and we had to lay off several team members. (Read more here: Fall Like A Rose Petal)

After we met the lady (our former colleague), Vaani and I discussed that dark time of our Life, which took place over 12 years ago. We recalled how it was incredibly painful then. The team we had built was made up of committed, enthusiastic young people. But our Firm’s financial woes necessitated that we laid off several people – all at once. This didn’t go down well with many, including the lady. She sent out mails to all our colleagues and clients literally calling us names and saying we were “heartless and remorseless”. However, when we met this lady the other day, after all these years, we exchanged pleasantries and enquired about each other’s families. We felt no rancor towards her when we spoke to her. The former colleague’s behavior back then surely caused us a lot of anguish. But we had long forgiven her. Not just her. But anyone who has judged us, who has hurt us – including my own family – has been forgiven.

We have learnt that forgiveness sets you – the forgiver – free. It may never erase a painful memory. In fact, you may never be able to forget what happened, but you will not be bitter over it. Not after you have forgiven and moved on.

To be honest, initially, I loathed the idea of forgiving people. But being this way didn’t help me one bit. I cooked within myself – I wanted to prove to people that I was right and they were wrong in doing what they did to me or to Vaani; I wanted to avenge their actions; and I wanted to see them suffer. But the more I held on to these feelings of being wronged, of wanting revenge, I was the one who suffered. My suffering made me angry, angsty and kept me perpetually on the edge. Clearly, I was not enjoying being that way. It was through weeks and months of practicing mouna – daily silence periods – that I understood the futility of clinging on to thoughts of hatred and revenge.

One day, at a Sai satsang bhajan session, which we were attending regularly around that time, I thought of all those people I hated. Several names and faces flashed through my mind – almost as if I was flipping past images rapidly in my phone’s picture gallery. As I thought about all those people, anger gripped me. I started praying feverishly for an opportunity – just one opportunity – to get even with each of them. Then, as if a switch had been flipped within me, I realized how vain my thinking was. And, miraculously, involuntarily, I decided to forgive all of them. And even as this feeling of forgiveness swept me, I broke down. I cried inconsolably for several minutes. At the end of that cathartic outburst, I felt so much at peace, so free, and so light. I realized I had unshackled myself, I had set down a huge, huge burden. That night I slept peacefully, like a baby.

So, from my own personal experience, I can completely relate to Sabrina Lal’s choice. Did Manu Sharma deserve her forgiveness? Is he really a reformed man? Will he value her sentiment? All these are immaterial. What matters to Sabrina is that she has forgiven him and so she is free – having let go and moved on.

That’s what forgiveness does to you. It makes you get out of this trap that your mind holds you hostage in – this trap of hatred, revenge and bitterness. It is irrelevant to you what happens to the other person, when you forgive someone. Forgiveness is a deeply personal choice. It is about what is important to you and you choosing that over everything – and everyone – else.

Forgive and walk away happy!

When you forgive someone, you are freeing yourself.

A lady told me the other day that she is finding it very difficult to forgive her husband for having an affair with another woman. She and her husband are going through a separation. “But I can’t get down to forgiving him. I am unable to move on,” she confessed. She wanted to know if there was a way to forgive.

I told her that forgiveness is the only way to move on. But let us first understand that people do things we dislike to us, stuff we don’t want done to us, like causing us hurt and grief, only because they don’t see themselves as doing anything wrong. So, in this lady’s case, it is possible that her husband saw nothing wrong in his relating better with someone else and being drawn to her. Now, with the lady clinging on to the hurt, while her husband has moved on, is what is causing her suffering – unnecessarily. And she will suffer until such time that she forgives her husband and moves on.

This perspective applies in all contexts to all of us.

Simply, there is no point in grieving over others’ behavior. Because you have no control over them. What you can control is how you respond. Therefore, forgiveness needs to, and must be, cultivated. This does not mean you give up your stand or stop being firm in a situation. Fight the issue, fight the good fight, be dogged about what you believe is right, including the way you want to be treated, but forgive the person.

The practice of forgiveness involves training your mind using three steps: 1. Give the situation love. Send peaceful thoughts and energy to that person. This may be initially difficult, because the very thought of that person may make you feel angry. But keep at it. Keep saying, “May everything that this person wants to achieve in Life, and with me, be possible and may there always be light, happiness and peace in this person’s Life”. 2. Find ways to communicate to the person what your stand or views on the issue you are fighting over are. Avoid getting even. Stick to the point. Text messaging or sending a simple email are good options for such a purpose. Remember a physical interface can only aggravate and lead to a verbal duel. 3. Work hard on not revisiting that hurt. Immerse yourself in what gives you joy. Music, children, work, nature…whatever; keep reminding your mind that you don’t want to think about the hurt.

When you forgive someone, you are freeing yourself of all the emotional burden you would otherwise be unnecessarily carrying! Holding on to a resentful episode at a personal level means you are continuing to hurt. This will only chew you up, keep you unhappy and make you suffer. When you walk away, with forgiveness in your heart, from a hurtful, resentful situation, you are walking away happy. Doesn’t that matter the most?

Pissed on and passed over? – Never confuse being compassionate and being firm

Forgiving someone for a transgression and yet being firm on the issue need not be mutually exclusive.

A young manager I know is in a quandary. His boss has been harassing him at work – to the extent that the young man went into depression. His colleagues advised him to report the boss’ behavior and to seek a new role within the organization. The manager got himself assigned to a new project within the company over some months but he has chosen not to complain about his ex-boss. Over coffee the other day he asked me if was right or wrong in a. forgiving his boss and moving on and b. not reporting his boss’ behavior to his company’s HR leadership on grounds of breaching an organizational value – ‘respect for the individual’. “I am not sure I can be forgiving and also report him,” he confessed.

As I have learnt from Life, you can – and often must – do both. There’s a warm and compassionate side to each of us. We are, by nature, willing to forgive people for their transgressions. But often times our softer side is viewed and interpreted as our weakness by people who trample upon our emotions or deny us our freedom or even basic, fundamental, human courtesies. In such situations, it is absolutely fine to stand up for yourself, look the someone who is bullying or harassing you in the eye, and say that you will not take this treatment anymore. Besides, in this particular manager’s story, it is important that his boss’ behavior is reported. Because it conflicts with an organizational value and if left unchecked it may cause serious emotional injury to other employees and also impair the organization’s culture.

Important, when you are forgiving someone, you are gifting yourself freedom from the trauma that following any pain that has been inflicted on you. Forgiveness frees you of suffering. But fighting for the injustice meted out to you in the first place, that’s issue-based. So if you choose to stay firm, and unrelenting, on not allowing such an issue to arise again, either to you, or to anyone in the future, there is no conflict whatsoever.

I have learned this from Swami Sathya Sai Baba: “In any relationship between two people, one may well be a cow and the other, a bull. There’s nothing wrong in being either. Each has a role to fulfil and each has something to offer the other. But at any time that the bull starts taking advantage of the cow’s benevolence, mistaking it for meekness, the cow will be well within its rights to assume the ‘avatar’ of the bull. In taking a stance, in your own interest, there is no right or wrong. Just be true to yourself – do what you believe must be done in any context. The cow need not perpetrate any acrimony, aggression or animosity. But the cow shouldn’t suffer any of these either.”

In essence, while to make a mistake is human, and to forgive such a mistake too is human, to suffer in silence and sorrow is both unjust and inhuman. It is the biggest hurdle to inner peace and joy. So, don’t confuse being compassionate and being firm. They need not be exclusive. Simply, no matter who it is, don’t let anyone take you for granted, trample upon your self-esteem, piss on you and pass you over. Remember: if you don’t stand up for yourself – chances are, perhaps, nobody else will!

 

How I am learning to live happily, peacefully, in a WhatsApp Group-ridden world!

If we can overcome the urge to want to make a point and to be seen as being right, every single time, we will have learnt the art of intelligent living.

Yesterday, I posted this Prayer on my personal Facebook Wall:

O! Lord!!

Grant us this day, and ever after, this Prayer…

Disable Forwarding Privileges on WhatsApp
And give us Sense and Sensibility among our WhatsApp Groups
And grant people the compassion so that they don’t add us back when we have quit a WhatsApp Group
And, through all of this, make this digital world a better place for us to leave behind for our children, and their children…

Amen!
PS: Even if you like this status, please don’t forward it…:) 🙂 :)!!!

It was posted half in jest. And half out of concern.

I am part of very few WhatsApp Groups. Out of these, a majority are well-regulated, non-spamming Groups. Some are virulently spamming and so, I ignore the spam in them and scoop out only relevant messages. In one Group that I am part of, the Admins are making a valiant effort to invite people to pause and reflect before they spam. They are encouraging self-regulation and sensitivity rather than enforcing discipline with non-negotiable rules.

It is in watching their struggle that I was inspired to write this Prayer yesterday and this blogpost today.

Over a drink last night, I thought through deeply about what we can learn about human behavior and about ourselves while being part of WhatsApp Groups – spamming, non-spamming, whatever kind!

I personally don’t read forwards, jokes and spam memes (including festival wishes). I don’t believe in anything that’s not personal. If it lacks a personal touch – including stuff that comes over email/bccs) – it gets trashed by me instantaneously. In fact, my WhatsApp Status message reads thus: “Please don’t send me Jokes and Forwards. Appreciate your kindness. :)” A huge majority of my contacts respect this choice of mine. And I deeply value their sensitivity.

But, of course, I realize that not everyone is the same. Fundamentally, we human beings are very expressive. Introverted is a word that does not really apply to us. Seriously. Even the most “introverted” person is expressing himself or herself through their silence. Silence is a great way to say something – several things in fact! So, because we are expressive, and because not all of us are very powerful conversationalists, over phone or face to face, a platform such as WhatsApp gives us so much space, and opportunity, to say whatever we want to. Sometimes, we may have nothing to say, but WhatsApp is seductive enough to entice us to want to make a statement. A Forward, which has no connection with either the subject being discussed or the core intention of a WhatsApp Group, is someone’s way of  seizing the opportunity to make that statement. A meaningless festival meme or joke being forwarded is the person’s way of hollering in the deep, black, endless, digital hole: “Hellooooooow! See, I Forward, Therefore I Am!” Further WhatsApp – more than Facebook – because it is at this time hugely text/image driven and smartphone-based, allows instant gratification on several fronts: you can express yourself by forwarding, you can speak your mind on social, economic, cultural, political and religious issues, you can berate someone, you can take on anyone, argue, debate, and fire your salvos (often your dormant emotions, feelings, opinions a.k.a your dil ki bhadaas) head-on. In a face-to-face debate, a better communicator can win an argument. But on WhatsApp, you can drown someone and their argument with your ability to type faster and, interestingly, purge endlessly. If you observe closely, a pattern you will often find in your Groups is that very combative stances taken on issues by people are purely a function of what they think of you as an individual and has nothing to do with their being objective or issue-based. I chose to exit my school WhatsApp Group for the same reason – people who believed Vaani and I were faking a bankruptcy kept attacking every post of mine, while others watched in ‘dignified’ silence. Initially, I didn’t see the pattern. But when I saw it, I exited because I didn’t want the camaraderie in a school buddies forum to be vitiated by a few people’s opinions of one individual and his Life! So, in summary, WhatsApp to a majority of people is not just a messaging platform. It is the virtual version of the Speakers’ Corner in London’s Hyde Park. At least in London, the police intervene when there is a complaint. In a WhatsApp Group, unless the Admins are strict, who is to regulate? And, seriously, no Admin wants more administration responsibilities on their Life’s plate – which is overflowing from so much to do already!

So, how do we live, survive, converse and, if you like, share, in a WhatsApp Group-ridden world?

Here’s what I have learnt to do – take whatever works for you, if it doesn’t, well, trash it! 🙂

#1. To not be in a WhatsApp Group is a personal choice, so exercise it. In essence, this is a leadership moment – decide!

#2. If you choose to stay (if you are being forced to stay, revisit #1), please be sure to stop complaining. Complaining never made anything better. It only makes you bitter.

#3. If you are on a WhatsApp Group that’s stuffed with folks who are Forward Terrorists, you can learn to ignore their posts. Ignoring is an art. Not everything in Life is relevant or requires your attention and focus. And these folks are giving you a great opportunity every single day to learn the art of ignoring all that is not relevant.

#4. Related to #3 are two other arts – the art of not having an opinion and/or the art of not having to share an opinion. The human mind rushes you to want you to have a say in everything. You need not opinionate on everything and in some contexts, even if you have an opinion, it is pointless to voice it. So, simply, learning these two arts, helps you practice patience. A very, very, very important Life skill.

#5. Finally, if someone’s being rude, combative, unnecessarily argumentative, then don’t react. Just be silent. The best way to win any battle is to not fight at all. That’s an art too – and WhatsApp gives you just the right opportunity daily to forgive, forget and move on.

I treat my engagement with the world via WhatsApp as an opportunity to unlearn, learn and share. If my saying anything will create value, if it is an original thought, I share. If not, I remain silent. Yes, I am human too. And so I wish my fellow humans are more sensitive than they are…but then, because I can’t go change the way people are engineered, or the way they think, I lean on this great, spiritual, song from Amar Prem (1972, Shakti Samanta, R.D.Burman, Anand Bakshi, Kishore Kumar) which reminds me that Kuch Toh Log Kahenge…

And this is the way I believe I can live happily, peacefully, in a WhatsApp Group-ridden world!