“How can I forgive them, Matthew? If you knew what those animals did to me, you wouldn’t say I forgive them.”

How would you answer this question? She has a point, doesn’t she? I mean there really are men who are animals out there. But even the fiercest animal can be subdued. But before they can be, they have to be understood.

We live in a world with natural laws. Rivers flow into the sea, water evaporates into the oceans and is carried in the clouds where it rains over the mountains. All the rivers in the world flow into the sea. The whole system works fine while things are moving. A tide comes in, a tide goes out. The sun rises, the sun sets. People are born, people die. What goes up, eventually comes down. Even prayers and requests shouted to the wind.

And everything has an opposite. In school I learned that a boy said “every force has an equal and opposite force”. In Star Wars they say that there is a dark side and a good side. In Get Smart there is chaos and control. In Eastern religions there is Ying and Yang. With humans we have our feminine side and our masculine side. In our souls we have the good side and the bad side. And for every power, and every thing, there is an opposite, and when you find the opposite, it is the answer to your problem.

getting your spin back

When I was admitted to a psychiatric ward in the middle of a nervous breakdown, I found out in a way that made me very happy. They had a ping-pong table and to relieve boredom and take my mind off things, I kept playing with different people. I had played everyone in the room before facing the best player. She put a wicked spin on that little ball every time she served it and every time she played a shot. And by a couple of games she beat me.

But I watched the process. I watched the ball spin on the table and while she was eating her lunch I replayed the spin of the ball and figured out how she was hitting the ball to get her to do it. To anyone else, she was just a madman locked up in a hospital from which she couldn’t get out. To me, she was struggling to find her sanity. And this was a huge distraction! I figured out how she was hitting the ball and just hit the ball in the opposite direction every time she hit it. It wasn’t more than half an hour later when I was the best. Now, beating a supposed lunatic in a white coat in a mental ward would probably be the last place for divine revelation, but that’s where I got it.

Every action has a reaction. Every force has an equal and opposite force. Forgiveness is simply the opposing force that breaks the cycle of being abused. It’s applying equal force and keeping the other person from running you all over the tennis court, so to speak. Now you can let someone serve you spin shots your whole life. They can serve and serve them and you can lose your whole life. or you can put your own spin on the ball.

Now you can disagree with my answer. You can say sorry, right? Well, let’s take a look at some of the other standard spins we tried that don’t work perfectly and still lose you in the long run.

the return of revenge

You can incite revenge. You can get even. But that takes away the pain. He could go and hit the opponent in the white suit. But that would lock me up in the padded cells for these misfits. If your father abused you. You could cut off his penis. You could get him drunk and smash his head in. Just give me a few minutes and I can give you many ways. But not me. Returning the ball is not enough. You have to have the right shot and the opposite spin. Any short of that will have you as the loser.

justice returns

You can make justice happen. And you can get him convicted. But does that stop you from feeling like you’ve been manipulated? Does that take away the guilt you feel? The twist on your inner child? Does that stop the nightmares? What could take away the pain? Don’t go to court. You can hit the ball back. And yes, he can help you. But if you don’t get the exact spin on each and every ball you receive, you lose. You’re a loser and you can’t help but know it.

time will heal back

Maybe we can use time will heal all the wounds of the cliché. Yes, in time the actual pain of the conscious mind will lessen. You can mourn the loss of a loved one. Or even get over longing for your partner to be in your bed when you break up. But time ever heals, “My daughter should never have married you. You’re not good enough for her and you never were good enough. She’s better off without you.” Or how about this one, when this same mother-in-law sees her son. “Jeez, she looks at that beautiful olive skin, at least she doesn’t have any of that white shit on him.”

Yes, over time you can forget about the mother-in-law and it’s easier now that you’re divorced, but can you erase those statements? Can time heal those insults? Or what if the mother of your child says that you can no longer see your child. Or what if your ex changes her last name, your last name, to her new husband’s name. That’s not legal. But time ever fixes that. Yes, time only counts for bread.

The return of ‘It wasn’t your fault’.

How many times have you heard this little gem of truth? Once again, he sends the ball flying over the net to the abuser’s side of the table. But the ball isn’t straight and that doesn’t stop your legs from wobbling. Oh, you can get a couple back. And it’s a good answer. Of course, it’s not a four-year-old’s fault that his dad is a sex-craving, alcoholic abuser. Yes, yes! But it’s not really enough, is it? He doesn’t always return the ball. Actually, sometimes I still feel the guilt. I may have done something different. I could have escaped. I shouldn’t have put myself in that position. Or worse yet, I had an orgasm. And it was pleasant. How could I be guilty when I received pleasure?

Oh yeah, it’s not your fault sounds good, but it doesn’t cut the mustard. Money is a medium of exchange. When someone borrows money from a bank, they are given digits. That’s it, a couple of numbers are swapped back and forth on a page. They are just digits. But as long as we feel the value of those digits, we feel that we are hearing the truth. We’ll work twenty hard years at a job to pay for a house we bought with something written on a check. We lend digits, and right up until the last digit is paid off with our cold hard cash and real effort, the bank owns our home. And with the money we give them in interest, they have enough digits to lend to two other people. Now does this sound crazy?

It’s true. Seeing what matters are perceptions of what reality is. When I feel guilty about my abuse, no amount of telling myself I shouldn’t stop me. What you experience is your own truth. It may be true that you were not responsible. But when you grew up and did something bad, you felt guilty and got slapped when mom found out. Now daddy has done something to you that makes you feel guilty and you deserve to be punished. What are you saying that even though I feel guilty I didn’t do anything wrong? That does not compute. That’s missing something, and that’s not the right spin for the ball. Ask me today!

I’ll forget about that again.

This return works quite well. I have used it most of my life. I’ll forget about it. I’ll pretend it never happened. I have tried this. Retrieves most of the ball well, but requires a lot of effort. But it doesn’t cure the pain. It doesn’t take away the memories. It only takes one thing for memories to come back, and if you think they’re not so clear when they come back, you haven’t lived it.

Actually, they have a good phrase for this one. You are in denial. Um I love that Doc. That’s very good. So I’m not accepting that it happened to me. Well, isn’t that very fine and elegant? Would you like to take my table tennis racket and show me how I can’t deny this pain that’s chewing me up inside? Hmm take the bat and show me the shot.

The memories. Aren’t they the worst? Do you think you have solved your problems? You think this return works and you’re fine. You are a survivor. You’ve made it. But then another memeory rears its ugly head on him.

The Return of the Forgiveness Spinning Shot

So there is another way. This path is so deep that only a master can learn it. He did it first and he did it for all of us. And it worked for him and it has worked for me. If you mind learning it.. But forgiving the other party doesn’t seem fair. And it wouldn’t be if you were doing it for him. But you’re not doing it for him, you’re doing it to win the game. You are simply returning the spin to each ball. And when you become a master forgiver there is no one who can beat you at the game. Well you can try other things. I have tried them all including drugs, hooker therapy, shrinks and antidepressants.

You have to flow like nature, it has cycles

When a sequence cannot be executed. When pain continues to impoverish your soul and you don’t release it, it accumulates and grows. There is a river that flows into a sea that has nowhere to go. And you know what happens. The sea is called the dead sea. It dies. The salt and sediment remain, the water evaporates, and nothing can live. Every time you receive a mistreatment and do not let go, your soul gets a little more stuck. Keep going and you will feel so overwhelmed that you will want to die. It’s natural. It’s meant to happen and it’s meant to force you to take action. So now that I have your attention let me continue with another story to illustrate.

Go to the expert author link below to read the second part of this series, the way to forgive.