Blame and Forgiveness

A common psychological game that people play is the “blaming game.” Whilst playing a game one gets caught in a loop wherein one finds some sort of pleasure or reward. To take the board game Monopoly, for example, one may play for hours and begin to be bored, but then one crosses “GO” and it is time to collect two hundred dollars. One just cannot resist but collect that two hundred dollars and continue playing. The blaming game operates the same way. One just cannot resist thinking about how the actions of another have led to one’s feeling of anger, or one’s screwed up life. Sadly, the only way to keep feeling anger is to remain screwed up, as one cannot blame anyone for screwing up one’s life if one is successful.

Psychiatrist, Dr Eric Berne, in his book Games People Play, points out the simple truth that the only way to stop playing a game is to stop. It is get up and refuse to keep playing. Dr Scott Peck, in Further Along the Road Less Travelled, borrows this truth to say that the only  way to stop the “blaming game” is forgiveness. 

There is something called “cheap forgiveness,” which is to say that somebody didn’t do anything wrong, or that they did the best they could. Real forgiveness, however, entails recognising the evil that another has done to one. It requires the task of putting someone on trial. Often this task is painful because the someone on trial is a person close to one – a father, mother, sibling, spouse, child, best friend, or boss. This trial requires thinking of arguments for the defense and arguments for the prosecution, until eventually one reaches a verdict. And a guilty verdict it must be for the work of real forgiveness to begin. As Dr Peck notes, “you cannot pardon someone for a crime he hasn’t committed. Only after a guilty verdict can there be a pardon.” (p. 42). 

Some people may say that they no longer think about the evil done to them. The fact is that such people repress their memories, pushing them into the sub-conscious, where the memory is very much present. Thus, the truth is, as Dr Peck observes, “we cannot forget anything. We cannot truly forget. We can only truly forgive” (p. 45). The best we can do is to come to terms with the memory of what it was we experienced. We must be able to remember something without feeling pain and anger. When we reach this point we know that we have truly forgiven.   

From personal experience, I can attest to the fact that practicing forgiveness results in the feeling of a huge load being lifted off of one’s self, as one no longer is carrying the heavy feeling of anger. And what a heavy feeling anger is. 

May God grant us the ability to bypass the blaming game and practice true forgiveness. Aameen.