{"id":1301,"date":"2008-11-03T09:04:48","date_gmt":"2008-11-03T14:04:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/girlwpen.com\/?p=1301"},"modified":"2008-11-03T09:04:48","modified_gmt":"2008-11-03T14:04:48","slug":"election-eve-on-politics-and-forgiveness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/2008\/11\/03\/election-eve-on-politics-and-forgiveness\/","title":{"rendered":"Election Eve: On Politics and Forgiveness"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"The following is this month’s installment of Jacqueline Hudak’s column, Family Stories.\u00c2\u00a0 For previous installments, click here.<\/a><\/em> Here’s Jacqueline! -Deborah
\n<\/em><\/p>\n

Amid the festive Halloween decorations I see the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153McCain\/Palin\u00e2\u20ac\u009d signs on my neighbor\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s lawn and resist the sudden intense urge to come back after dark and rip them up.<\/p>\n

OK, I think, THAT\u00e2\u20ac\u2122S not useful.\u00c2\u00a0 Maybe I should just knock on their door, and say, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Hello, and by the way, do you understand what their policies will do to me and my family?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

I am aware of how divisive the campaign has been; at times its hard to even imagine moving beyong the rhetoric of us\/them to a real conversation in which I could share with my neighbor the impact of rendering my lesbian family unworthy and invisible. How might I convey the sense of grievance when we have been made \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcother?\u00e2\u20ac\u2122\u00c2\u00a0 And yet, I want to hold a passionate position about the influence of McCain policy on my family without demonizing McCain himself. Or my neighbor.<\/p>\n

What we do with these feelings was addressed for me last weekend, when\u00c2\u00a0 I attended a workshop on \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Forgiveness\u00e2\u20ac\u009d with Dr. Fred Luskin<\/a>, author of Forgive for Good<\/a>\"\" and Director of The Stanford University Forgiveness Project<\/a>. His premise, that holding onto anger and grudges is bad for physical and emotional well being, is backed by a growing body of research.\u00c2\u00a0 Studies conducted at Stanford reveal that people who are more forgiving report feeling less stressed and fewer health problems, and people who blame others for their troubles have higher incidences of illess such as cardiovascular disease.<\/p>\n

Dr. Luskin asked the participants to write something we were unable to forgive – our grievance story.\u00c2\u00a0 You know, the one\u00c2\u00a0 that can play endlessly in your head about the time you were wronged, the one you still get all charged up over. We were then asked to describe our thoughts, feelings and actions in relation to the grievance stories. This simple exercise was powerful in providing clarity about long held, repetitive patterns of thought and behavior that simply are not effective. It also opened up space for the grief and hurt beneath the wound. Using meditation and guided visualizations, Dr. Luskin pushed us to change our\u00c2\u00a0 \u00e2\u20ac\u0153grievance stories, \u00e2\u20ac\u009d to make peace with what is, to shift attention from what\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s wrong to what\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s right and good. Suffering is normal, he pointed out, and life can be hurtful enough without inflicting further damage by holding onto grudges.<\/p>\n

As a family therapist, I see what a powerful tool forgiveness can be. Family legacies can be built entirely around a grievance story, and the goal of therapy is often to rewrite the story as one of strength and resilience.\u00c2\u00a0 I do need to be careful about applying some of these principles without a larger contextual lens; for example, I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t think women and men approach relationship in the same ways, and women might tend to \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcforgive\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 too easily for the sake of maintaining the relationship. And if I, a white woman, can summon an interpersonal grievance with such ease, imagine the experience of women of color who, frankly, have a lot more to forgive in the face of institutional racism. The goal, it seems, would be to exist someplace between forgiveness and compassion while working to eradicate injustice.\u00c2\u00a0 A spiritual practice indeed.<\/p>\n

One of my favorite lines from Luskin\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s worshop was this: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153How do we fill the gap between what we wanted and what we have?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

I will think about that, post-November 4th, as I fill the gap between what I hoped for this election season, and what I get. I will be profoundly disappointed if this country elects the McCain\/Palin ticket.\u00c2\u00a0 I desire a leader who can embrace the complexities of an issue, as Obama has done relative to race.\u00c2\u00a0 And whatever happens, I hope we all end the divisive us\/them rhetoric and fill the gaps with forgiveness.<\/p>\n

–Jacqueline Hudak<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The following is this month’s installment of Jacqueline Hudak’s column, Family Stories.\u00c2\u00a0 For previous installments, click here. Here’s Jacqueline! -Deborah Amid the festive Halloween decorations I see the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153McCain\/Palin\u00e2\u20ac\u009d signs on my neighbor\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s lawn and resist the sudden intense urge to come back after dark and rip them up. OK, I think, THAT\u00e2\u20ac\u2122S not useful.\u00c2\u00a0 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1902,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[8959,21371,10745,85,1066,21789,21818],"class_list":["post-1301","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-families","tag-fred-luskin","tag-political-campaigns","tag-politics","tag-rights","tag-sexual-freedom","tag-stanford-university-forgiveness-project"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1301","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1902"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1301"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1301\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1301"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1301"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1301"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}