The Power of Forgiveness
Transcriber: Thu Nguyen
Reviewer: David DeRuwe
I was five when I was raped.
It went on for over a decade.
I didn’t have the craziest idea
until I was in my late thirties
Yep, that late.
So I was doing
a coaching certification course,
and the instructor and I had a chat
about sex and my reservations about it.
So she said, “You know what, Karina?
Let’s have a session.
And through that session,
we’ll decode where this all comes from.”
So she asked me in my first session,
“What was your childhood like?”
and I told her
how I was molested as a kid.
So growing up, my father would tell me
how it’s important to please your man
and that what he was doing
was merely educating me.
And of course, as every child,
I felt the need to please him
because that’s the way
I wanted to get love
Never did I think I wasn’t a virgin.
Why would I?
So when Michelle, my coach and counselor,
asked me to walk her
through what had taken place,
I felt myself go numb.
That was the longest first minute
I’ve ever experienced in my life.
Soon after, I felt anger
like I’ve never felt before.
I couldn’t understand what was going on,
but one thing I did know
is why I had so many failed relationships
and why I was so insecure.
So anger was the first experience
I had acknowledging the truth,
and over the course of my therapy,
I went from sadness to guilt
to anger to feeling lonely
because obviously, I felt unsupported
during my younger years.
And this whole process wasn’t linear.
So the myth that the grieving process
happens in that stage, it doesn’t.
There were days when I was angry,
and there were days when I was sad.
After a period of time,
I finally came to a place of acceptance.
So I accepted what happened,
and I thought, “I’m fine,”
but to my surprise,
when people asked me about my father,
suddenly all these emotions
came rushing back
and I was transported back
to that very experience all over again.
And I thought, “Wait a minute, all that
therapy and I’m back into feeling this?”
This couldn’t be right,
and so I knew there
was something I had to do.
So I used to live in Discovery Bay
and coincidentally,
I came across a leaflet.
Now this leaflet was a special one
because it had a picture of a man
with this radiating smile.
And I was so drawn to that smile
because that smile
was radiating from the inside.
He had this glow
that I was so mesmerized by.
So it was a Buddhist class,
and I said, “You know what?
I’m going to go and check this guy out.
And not to mention,
he’s pretty good-looking.”
So that was the incentive.
So I went to the class,
and he had this perfect balance
of comedy and sharing wisdom and stories,
making it lighthearted,
and I was so drawn into it.
He had this practical wisdom that just
made me feel like this is where I belong.
After a few sessions,
I mustered the courage,
went up to him, and I said,
“Gen Rabten, I want to talk to you
about something personal.”
He’s like, “Sure.”
So I told him my life story,
and I told him how I was raped as a child,
but that I wanted to be free,
even though I’d accepted what had occurred
and done all the therapy I could do.
So Gen Rabten mentioned
the love and kindness meditation.
and how by doing that over time,
things would change.
He asked me to have the person in my mind
and to send love so that I can come
to a place of forgiveness.
Now for me, it sounded so alien.
Love the person who hurt me.
Is he kidding?
But of course, at that point in my life,
I wanted nothing more
than to be liberated from that pain.
So I followed what he said religiously.
Every single day, I did the love
and kindness meditation,
and on some days there was no love.
But on some days,
I felt like I was in a good place,
and I had a lot of compassion.
There was no one finite day
where I felt like,
“You know what? Yeah, I’ve got it.
I have a lot of love for this man.”
No, it wasn’t like that.
Over the course of the period
when people asked me about my father,
I realized I no longer carried resentment.
I felt for the first time
in the longest time, calm,
and that’s when I knew
I came to a place of forgiveness.
So a few months ago,
I had the opportunity, if you will,
to call my father.
Bear in mind, I hadn’t
spoken to him in like forever.
So I texted him just to give him
the heads-up that I was going to call him,
but I also warned him
I wasn’t going to bite his head off,
because I had done so
upon realizing I was raped.
We spoke, and to my surprise,
we even laughed.
And at one point, he repeatedly
asked for my forgiveness,
and I told him, “Hey, I’ve forgiven you
ages ago. It’s just I never reached out.”
But this time it was different.
I felt the need to call him, and so I did.
So there are two reasons why I called him:
One, you know, it’s one thing in theory
to say you forgive someone;
it’s quite another in practice.
And for me, I really wanted to check:
Did I really forgive this man,
or was it all in my head?
But when I spoke to him,
I felt nothing but a light-hearted spirit,
and that was for me, not for him,
I realized I had truly forgiven him.
And the other reason I did this
was because I knew COVID was happening,
and that changed the world.
I did not want this to linger anymore
because who knows if you’re still
going to be here tomorrow?
And with that in mind,
I knew that was the best time to do it.
So you must wonder,
“How does this relate to me, Karina?”
That’s a really good point - and it does.
Despite not having gone through
the traumatic experience I did,
we all hold on to pain
because someone has hurt us
at some point in our lives.
And this is where you come in.
OK, so it’s one thing to forgive someone,
and it’s quite another to
actually do it, right?
because they’re two very different things.
So this is what I want to share with you:
To actually forgive means
to understand that we’re all imperfect,
that we all make mistakes.
Think back to a time
that you made a mistake,
and then you asked
someone for forgiveness.
But the other thing is that we hold on
to someone’s error
like it’s such a big deal.
And I want to do a little exercise
with you all, if you don’t mind.
If you’re comfortable,
just close your eyes.
I want you to take a deep breath in,
and exhale slowly.
Now I want you to picture this one person,
this person that hurt you so much
that you replay this incident
time and time again.
And you feel yourself
enveloped in this anger.
Now feel that emotion.
Now, I want to take another
deep breath in,
and then exhale.
Stay with this person;
stay with this scene.
Now, I want you to go back to another time
when the same person
has done something beautiful,
something so amazing
that it captured your heart.
Now, stay with that emotion.
That loving, that kind,
that emotion that made you feel so good.
Stay with that.
Let it surround all of you.
Take a deep breath in,
and then exhale.
All right, when you’re ready, I want you
to open your eyes if you’ve closed them.
Come back to the hall that we’re here.
Come back to this space.
Come back to me.
So the reason for this exercise
is because it allows you
to understand and to feel
that even the most
painful experience with somebody,
they, too, have something good in them.
By no means am I saying
toxic behavior is acceptable, no,
but that we can see that we’re all flawed.
So when you are ready
to make that phone call,
you’re able to do so.
But bear in mind when you make that call,
you do it for the right intention,
and what that means
is that you don’t call that person
because you want them to apologize.
No, nor do you call that person
because you want closure of some sort.
No, nor do you call that person because
you want them to fix something.
No, you do that
because you want to feel life.
You do that because you
want to be unstuck.
You do that because you
want to feel happy.
Growing up, I had a friend tell me
that he knew I portrayed
this bubbly character,
but deep down, he saw sadness in my eyes.
And I was stunned because I thought
I was this bubbly kid,
and I thought I’d fooled everyone.
But man, I did not fool no one,
not even myself.
But today, I can tell you,
I’m pretty happy as an individual.
Now, don’t get me wrong,
I do have sad moments,
I do have anxiety
when something stresses me out,
but I also have the tools
to get out of it and not get stuck.
So one of the ways for me
to gauge how happy I am is this:
We don’t know if we have tomorrow,
and I can tell you, I’m so ready for it.
No, don’t get me wrong, it’s not like
I want to leave this planet tomorrow.
I love my life.
But should that day come,
I’m OK with that because I have made peace
with the people that have hurt me,
and I definitely have made peace
with those I have hurt.
So if today’s your last day or, rather,
if the journey of life is to be happy,
what’s stopping you
from making that call
to make peace with a person
who once wronged you?
Thank you.
(Applause)