I just read a small story in a book from Ramiro Calle (Calle, 2006) about two young people who, after their country lost the war, were held prison in a concentration camp for two years. After they got out they both went their own ways and only saw each other after ten years. They had the following conversation:
- How are you doing, my friend?
- Fine, even though I cannot forget what we have been through. And you?
- You'll never forget such a thing, however I've got over it.
- I didn't. I'm still full of hatred towards our guards. There's not a day passing by on which I don't hate them with the full force of my being.
- Oh, my dear friend! The worst isn't the two years you've been prison in the concentration camp, it's the ten years you've still been prison afterwards.
This small story is so true. I think we all have experienced it. Something happened to you and in stead of going on with your live, you keep rewinding the situation in your head, feeling all the pain over and over. You live it again and again and again, until you get attached to the pain, sometimes you even start to feel comfortable with the pain, the pain becomes you or, for at least, that's what you think. You're starting to identify with that pain.
This is what Eckhart Tolle calls 'the painbody'. The identification with your pain becomes so strong, that when you think about letting go of the pain it feels like letting go of your identity. But you always have to remember that you are not your pain, you are not your emotions, nor your thoughts. You are simply you.
To forgive, but not to forget. To forget is not needed, but letting go of your pain and your hatred towards other people who hurt you is an enormous relieve, the burden will fall right of your shoulders and everything becomes light again. It might even feel that you have a blank space in your heart where earlier the hatred seated, but if you just let it be, this blank space will fill itself up with love and peace.
