Releasing anger

Pastoral counsellor David Norris puts it this way: 'Forgiveness involves a letting go not only of the negative energy connected with an injury but also of the meanings which we learned as a result of that and similar injuries throughout one's life.' By 'negative energy', Norris means the sense of bitterness and resentment we carry with us when we remember how someone has hurt us. When I would counsel a divorcée still seething about her husband's having left her for another woman years ago and having fallen behind on child support payments, and she would ask me, 'How can you expect me to forgive him after what he's done to me and the children?' I would answer, 'I'm not asking you to forgive him because what he did wasn't so terrible; it was terrible. I'm suggesting that you forgive him because he doesn't deserve to have this power to turn you into a bitter, resentful woman. When he left, he gave up the right to inhabit your life and mind to the degree that you're letting him. Your being angry at him doesn't harm him, but it hurts you. It's turning you into someone you don't really want to be. Release that anger, not for his sake—he probably doesn't deserve it—but for your sake, so that the real you can re-emerge.' And when the negative energy distances us from someone we want to be connected with—a husband or wife, a brother or sister, a close friend who has disappointed us—it is that much more important that we learn to discharge it.

How Good Do We Have To Be? Rabbi Harold Kushner