Hurt people hurt. We know that now.
So, there's a push for how to teach ourselves and teach our society to forgive. Not easy, after decades of Freudian psychology with its obsession on our woundedness.
But, we can sure try. And in her second book "Resilience," Elizabeth Edwards provides some compelling lessons. As we know, there are few better-equipped teachers than Elizabeth whose husband cheated on her while she was suffering with cancer. Because of her warmth, high intelligence, and confidence - I spoke with Elizabeth on the phone during her husband's presidential run - she just might be able to free us at least just a little from our collective chip on our shoulder, as well as our individual ones. [There are boulders on my less-than-five-foot-high shoulders.]
Public humiliation is tough. It's tougher when you're a national figure, as Elizabeth was and is. And it's even tougher when you have a fatal disease and fear leaving your children with the legacy of a philandering father.
But, in "Resilience," Elizabeth explains that no transgression against the self is unforgivable. At the end of that progress of letting go of resentments the door could be thrown open to new kinds of joy.
Of course, this shrewd woman could and probably does have a hidden agenda: Restoring the good name of and the career possibilities for the father of her children. They deserve that. And she could and likely will make that happen. After all, if The Wife can forgive John Edwards, why can't the nation?
But that doesn't undermine the power of this upfront look into not holding on the wounds of the past. In conjunction with "Resilience,"another useful read is "Stuck" by Anneli Rufus.
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