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#7 - TW Forgiveness

6/13/2023

.TW Forgiveness Ten Step Program.

Trauma-informed & Wholistic Forgiveness (TW Forgiveness)

When we have been injured by social, moral or criminal injustices accompanied by betrayal. rejection, discrimination, isolation, slander, and huge losses, we can fall into the pit of despair languishing in hostility, resentment and unforgiveness – powerless.

There is a ten-step ladder of TW Forgiveness that promises a way to find peace, love, freedom, and joy again.

Ten Step Program:
·     Admit feeling powerless - ask the Higher Power for help.
·     Choose the less travelled road of TW Forgiveness.
·     Accept trauma triggers as part of the human experience.
·     Transform trauma triggers into mood enhancers.
·     Address broken relationships with human kindness.
·     Take responsibility for one’s own wrong doings.
·     Research and identify all of the losses.
·     Let go of past losses.
·     Weaponize goodness.
·     Reinforce your forgiveness story by sharing it with others.

Celebrate each step.

By: Wilma Derksen. June 13, 2023.

TW Forgiveness is based on biblical principles and on my own personal journey of forgiving an act of murder inflicted on our family. What makes TW forgiveness different is that it is trauma-informed and addresses wholistically the four quadrants, body, heart, mind and spirit equally.

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#6 - Ten Steps

6/8/2023

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Quick Review of Background Story

The only reason I am daring to present my ten-step view of forgiveness is because of my story. It is considered unforgiveable by some researchers which makes it of particular interest since we innocently declared our forgiveness the day her body was found. Could we forgive - and if so How? That is the question that has followed us.

This is a review of the story again.... none of it was easy to forgive.

It all started on November 30, 1984 when our thirteen-year-old daughter, Candace, did not come home from school as expected. This led to a seven-week search for her.

We were desperate. Our daughter was in danger and we needed help immediately. First of all, we asked her friends for help. Had they seen anything? Did they know anything? Then we asked the police for help. Finally, we looked to the organizers of our community for help. Each one did their part and each helped - but we all failed.

Seven weeks later her body was found in the shack not that far from our place. Her hands and feet had been tied and it was obvious that a stranger had taken her to the shack for sexual purposes and left her to die in the plunging, freezing temperatures of a Winnipeg winter. That’s the beginning of the story. A seven-week nightmare!

Then we lived with this mystery - trying to make sense of our lives for the next 22 years until in 2007 a man - unknown to us but who had a sexual assault criminal record - was charged with her murder. In 2011, after a five-week trial, he was found guilty and sentenced to 25 years without parole.

The first trial had been based on DNA evidence which was convincing enough to convict - but it was the circumstantial evidence that convinced us that he was guilty.

That’s why we were so surprised that the case went through an appeal process that found its way right to the Supreme Court of Canada resulting in a retrial that ended with an acquittal, October 18, 2017.

Never forget the three powerful resources you always have available to you: love, prayer, and forgiveness. - H. Jackson Brown Jr.

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#5 - Ten Steps

6/7/2023

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Explanation

Before I begin my description of my ten-step forgiveness process, I think I need to give an explanation as to why I am doing this.

After having chosen the word forgiveness the day Candace’s body was found - I was surprised at the reactions we received. Listening to the discussions I realized our understanding of the word was completely different than most. Confused, I started to look into the literature on forgiveness - some of the authors at the time were Smedes, Enright, Tutu, etc. None of their writings fit with what we were experiencing. I even went to a prestigious conference on forgiveness in Washington, DC - as a guest at the table of well-recognized academics - and I still didn’t find the link that I was looking for.

Their understanding of forgiveness all centered around the offender - we didn’t know who the offender was until 22 years after - yet forgiveness as a process was our survival word.

Recently I came across some new learnings. Apparently, psychology is exploring new therapeutic models that resemble forgiveness or at least the way I understand it.

Another interesting recent development was my new understanding of the quadrants - the body heart mind and spirit. This fits with my ongoing awareness that forgiveness is many layered and needs to be applied to each part of ourselves.

So, at this late date I’ve decided that I’m going to once again examine my unique experience of forgiveness and organize it into a format that would have been helpful for Cliff and I to understand what was happening to us and why it worked for us - way back then.

To do this I’m going to rely on my story as the basis. Each explanation will be begin with my story and then be followed with a description of the step.

The reward of suffering is experience. Harry S Truman

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#4 - Ten Step

6/6/2023

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Wonder Drug

We might not have hospital beds for those with invisible wounds but there is a wonder drug. I call it forgiveness.

The beauty of this drug is that it comes as a complete package..

In forgiveness, we have a treatment plan that addresses the wounded patient as a whole and offers a complete healing - leading right out of the pit of despair to freedom, hope and love.

There is disinfectant “letting go” process that deals with residual resentments of the mind. There is the love medication for the disconnection of relationships and the broken heart, there’s the bandages of encouragement and even exercise programs that act as rehabilitation programs for the wounded body.

Best of all the forgiveness program promises an active founder and sustainer guide who remains on call. We have a therapist, surgeon, trauma-informed God who has a unique interest in the healing power of forgiveness and was dedicated to this program right from the beginning of time.

The one problem is that the forgiveness process can be extremely complicated and often misunderstood. The challenge is how do we make this forgiveness program easier and accessible to the common person - like you and me?

We need the instructions and direction --- that little piece of paper to apply it all. That is important. We need easy steps to follow....

We need ten directional steps.

Directions are instructions given to explain how. Direction is a vision offered to explain why. - Simon Sinek

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#3 - Ten Steps

6/5/2023

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The Pit of Despair

What is this pit? Why does this pit exist?

We are social beings with a matching set of emotional needs that need to be fulfilled as much as our body needs nourishment. When these needs aren’t met, we fall into the pit of despair.

We are also vulnerable to despair when we have been injured by a social, moral or criminal injustice or experienced a relational betrayal. rejection, discrimination, isolation, slander – when we have experienced any of these we can fall into the pit.

And just like body, if we don’t deal with these wounds immediately, these inner wounds can fester - become infected even cancerous.

We know we are in the pit when we suffer uncontrollable anxiety or panic attacks, unmanageable anger or irritability, inability to concentrate because of a cycling brain, unable to function due to a depression and become susceptible to any addiction - emotional eating, pornography, drugs or gambling. All of which are incapacitating. All of this adds to the horror of being trapped in the pit.

I was familiar with this pit when I suffered a depression as a young mother - it was vey dark - something I vowed I'd never fall into again.

We have an entire medical system that knows what to do when we have been injured physically. We have developed an incredible science about our bodies.

But what about our inner self - the unseen self? What if we have been injured inside?

I remember how our support group of parents of murdered children often openly yearned for hospital beds for people with broken hearts.

But we have no hospital beds for such. The multitudes who suffer from these invisible wounds show up in our prisons, psych wards, locked up in their homes or become walking zombies staggering down our streets.

The organizations that are primed to help like counselling - cost money for their services. The churches which really should be on top of this are often preoccupied with other agendas.

It has been said that time heals all wounds. I don't agree. The wounds remain. Time - the mind, protecting its sanity - covers them with some scar tissue and the pain lessens, but it is never gone. - Rose Kennedy

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#2 -Ten Steps

6/2/2023

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The word is “Stuck”

I think it was almost two decades after Candace had been found murdered that I finally had access to a brilliant psychologist free of charge.

Both Cliff and I had never sought professional help.- actually, the thought had never entered our minds. At the time - we didn’t have the money, the time, the opportunity, nor the inclination. We assumed it was something reserved for the elite or those with serious mental illness.

So, I asked this psychologist, "When should a person experiencing traumatic loss seek help?"

His answer was simple. "When they are stuck."

Stuck?

“Are we stuck? Have we ever been stuck?” I wondered aloud.

Together we went through a short analysis of our lives. Apparently – “No.” – at least not seriously.
I decided right then and there that if we could do it – escape the “stuckness” of trauma - anyone could do it. Perhaps I did have an answer – I concluded. At least I had a life time of experience to draw on.

I remembered this conclusion again while listening to the latest feedback - and again heard that underlying question. “How do you forgive?” Except this time, it was more personalized. - “How did you do it?”

So now the challenge is for me to remember my own story and make sense of the path of forgiveness I had taken back then and was still taking - and the courage to tell it.

The truth is that I did fall to the bottom of that black pit of hopelessness - the trauma of unforgiveness, Except for me there was a ladder that lead upward to the blue sky of freedom.

My goal now is to remember, isolate and identify that ten-step process.

“Life is like walking; you take one step at a time.” – Taylor Swift

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#1 - Ten Steps

6/1/2023

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It was at a back-yard book launch. The weather had been perfect; the reading and the Q & A had gone well. We were just about to end the program when a man, sitting in the far corner of the yard asked me, “How do you really forgive? What is the process?”

My inclination was to answer, “I just wrote a book - read it.” But then I took another look at him. It wasn’t an idle question. He was wearing his issues and looked miserable.

In my mind’s eye, I reviewed my book and realized that even though I had written about forgiveness in this book, I had not answered his question.

Actually, I have written about five books on forgiveness and I had tried answering that question in a thousand ways, yet I knew in my hear that I hadn’t really answered it. I had encouraged forgiveness, defended it, defined it, and even critiqued it. I had illustrated it by telling our story of forgiveness over and over again - yet I had not isolated the process succinctly. A process needs steps; What are the steps one needs to take to forgive?

I could feel the man’s pain…. the hopelessness - the reality. Like me, he knew that forgiveness was freedom. Yet he was caught in the bottom of that black pit of hopelessness - the trauma of unforgiveness.

I gave some lame explanation which I knew was inadequate but I vowed then and there again that I would try again. I did. I wrote out an imaginary tower of forgiveness describing it all again. Yet from the feedback on that fun exercise has been even more questions so I know I still have not answered the question.

I must know the answer - I’ve done it a million times. I just have not been able to find the words.

I have not been able to isolate the process.

We might possess every technological resource... but if our language is inadequate, our vision remains formless, our thinking and feeling are still running in the old cycles, our process may be 'revolutionary' but not transformative. - Adrienne Rich

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#7 - TW Forgiveness

#6 - Ten Steps

Quick Review of Background Story

#5 - Ten Steps

Explanation

#4 - Ten Step

Wonder Drug

#3 - Ten Steps

The Pit of Despair

#2 -Ten Steps

The word is “Stuck”

#1 - Ten Steps

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