Healing with the company of friends
For the last year, a small group of us at Harbor have been meeting as a “mindfulness” small group. Once a quarter we engage in mindfulness practices that pair breathing exercises with personal reflection to help us grow in virtues and skills related to caring for others (e.g. forgiveness, empathy, trust). In the month of June, we took a second pass at practicing forgiveness—the virtue of inner acceptance and reparation. We have learned a lot about what forgiveness isn’t: it’s not a one-time decision, it doesn’t justify other people’s actions, it never ignores the hurt, and it is not the same thing as reconciliation. So, what is forgiveness? A slow process of doing the deep internal work of releasing the anger and hurt.
Together our group of 9 has been doing the hard and vulnerable work of forgiveness. Each week we individually do our mindfulness homework—examining the depths, shadows, and hidden narratives of our own pain—and then share with one another at our meetings. These times together are filled with many tears and much laughter. We don’t give each other advice, instead choosing to listen, share from our own experiences, and hold one another.
This week marked our final meeting focused on forgiveness practices. We explored the tight grip we often have on anger and sorrow, and then we slowly moved to release that grip. Each step of this process comes with lots of acknowledging the deeper wounds and hidden parts of the pain. I can’t capture the full weight and breadth of this work here, but I’d like to reflect on a highlight of the last step, which is my favorite. After observing and loosening our tight grips on anger and sorrow, the final step is to “savor the good.” This step invites us to reflect on our own growth, savoring the good of how we’ve all transformed through the month of practices. And then to imagine a close and trustworthy friend to savor the moment with.
For many of us, the wounds we were working on forgiving were around fractured friendships. Several of us have felt so rejected, cut off, misheard, or unacknowledged by dear friends. Folks shared ideas like:
How could this friend of so many years just cut me off like that?
Am I even lovable?
They didn’t give me a chance to grow.
I feel so missed.
The heartbreak of lost friendships has gravely impacted many of us, to the point where our view of ourselves and others is drastically altered. A significant piece of the practice of forgiveness is to rewire our narratives of ourselves and these people, not letting the friendship wound of the past hijack our bodies and our way of relating to people.
Because of these wounds, the instruction to “imagine a close and trustworthy friend to savor the moment with” is a charged step—a step that touches on some of our deepest life wounds. Who are my friends?
When we went around the circle sharing, several folks shared that in this final step the “friend” they brought into their mindfulness practice was our group. They felt the love and solidarity and connection of us—we have all become some of each other’s dearest people—holding one another and repairing wounds.
One person shared how they do this practice: “When I do my breathing exercises, I imagine I am on a beach. As the waves come in I feel my tight grip, and as the tide recedes I release my grip. I release the hurt. On that beach, you are all there with me. I see you there with me and I feel the safety and comfort from your friendship.”
How beautiful is this person’s practice. Healing and growth requires a lot of us. We have to push past the surface and be willing to go to the most painful places. And we bring our community there with us. This is what it means to be church. We show up, sometimes when we don’t feel like it, and we risk being vulnerable with others. This is certainly true of the mindfulness group, which has honestly been one of the best parts of my entire work in ministry so far. But it’s also true of Harbor as a whole. One recent guest speaker on our Thursday call noted, “I’ve never seen people build such close relationships over Zoom.”
Thank you for embarking on your own journey of growth and forgiveness in this online community!
