Forgiveness

“If you wish to travel far and fast, travel light. Take off all your envies, jealousies, selfishness and fears.”

–Glenn Clark

In the process of helping transform Costa Rica, I was transformed, as well.  I am still processing the impact that the trip had on me. In the meantime, I will share the method that we used and one of the values in that method.

We used a method called  Roundtables. Our goal was to model this method for the Costa Rican participants so that they could facilitate these Roundtables for people in their sphere of influence.  Roundtables employ two-way communication in a structured environment. During a Roundtable, a designated person leads, but all participants share from their experience.  We can all learn something from others experiences. There is no right or wrong, pass or fail;  it’s someone’s experience. Everyone has a “voice” and the opportunity for a win.  Everyone grows together, including the facilitator.

A few of the values and principles covered in this curriculum were; attitude, listening, priorities, integrity and work ethic.  One of the values that we modeled was forgiveness. Everyone read a part on the two pages on forgiveness which included ideas like these, which I am summarizing:

Forgiveness is Always a Choice.  Only by choosing to let go of grudges, resentment and bitterness, can we truly begin to heal and move forward towards our full potential.

Failing to Forgive is Like Carrying Heavy Baggage.  It’s easier to move through life without carrying emotional “baggage” from our past. Releasing ourselves of our wounds lightens our lives and empowers  us to move forward toward wholeness.

You Can Choose to Walk the Excellent Path.  The excellent path requires us to treat others better than ourselves. We release selfishness and our need to be right.  We try to see others through eyes of compassion.  Nobody’s perfect.

After we read through these ideas we would underline one idea that stood out to each of us personally. Then we would each share what we underlined and why.  The facilitator always shares first because we can’t transform others until we are transformed. Some things that were shared really caused me to think differently about forgiveness.  After that process, we would rate ourselves (1 to 10, with 10 being the best) in the area of forgiveness and share why we gave ourselves that rating. To raise that rating, we would each choose a personal action step that we would take before the next Roundtable to improve our rating.

“Small actions lead to great changes,”  John Maxwell

What was most difficult for everyone was making the action step detailed–what they would do, who they would do it with,  when they would do it and where would they do it. Most people wrote in generalities like, “I will become a better person,”  or “I will not resent anymore.”

We, as facilitators modeled a detailed action step and eventually, someone would get it. One woman’s action step was, “Today, I will go home and call my mother-in-law and ask her to forgive me for treating her coldly at the family gathering last week.”  There were tears in her eyes when she shared,  and her share seemed to give the other participants permission to take specific actions.  Another man shared that he had a hard time forgiving himself.  His action step was, “I am going to pray to God for help to forgive myself. Today, I will look up Bible verses on forgiveness to help me.”

How do you rate yourself in the area of forgiveness?  Are you carrying resentments or bitterness from your past?  Do you have a relationship that is strained because of unforgiveness?  What is a small action step that you can take this week to of emotional unshackle yourself from emotional baggage? Remember, small actions lead to great changes.

Two hundred and fifty John Maxwell Team coaches from all over the world converged on San Jose, Costa Rica and we trained more than 12,000 facilitators in three days.  These facilitators committed to training five other people in these values and principles. Imagine the impact–not just in the days to come–but for future generations. I will know the impact because of the new friends that I have made there.