Akhtar Ul-nisa
Forbearance is the ability to respond to a situation of failure, disappointment, pain or conflict with understanding and composure. It is bearing the physical, mental and emotional pain with strong and steady faith without lamenting or worrying. It is all about self regulation and patience. Forbearance is the capacity to forgive the offender without expecting any apology or repentance. It is the capacity to forgive offender before he or she repents.
It is defined as a stance that involve choosing not to respond to other’s harm or injustice with anger and vengefulness. It is tolerance based on conscious acceptance situation of pain and hardships. When one learns to separate the anger from the angry person, he or she is able to drop all the grudges against the person and get the strength to forgive abusers. . It is a natural expression of compassion which is key to greater well being.
The three pillar of forbearance are tolerance, patience and forgiveness. When one choose to becomes mindful in a difficult situation, one tends to be peaceful and happy, instead of being right. This is when forbearance comes into practice and we start believing that our patience will achieve more than our force.
Cultivating Forbearance
Forbearance is best cultivated under adverse circumstances, and therefore it is better to welcome hardships instead of regarding them as problems. Perhaps the first step towards practicing forbearance on a daily basis is by focusing on ourselves and our situation than on other people. Be mindful of every hassle be it slow traffic or a long queue, so that these small and everyday things may not allow us to lose our mental balance.
First we should practice it with people with whom we do not have strong emotional attachment. We can then practice this in our family where we have to interact on daily basis and extensively and also because our identities and emotions are closely attached with theirs. It is the most challenging area of our life where we ought not to become reactive. When in our family we go through a difficult situation we undergo a lot of unhappiness, anger, hatred, fear and similar negative feelings. At such time we should recognize with awareness that these feelings will intensify the problems and effects our inner well being as well as our relationship.
Forbearance is directly related to will power. Our capacity to bear the inevitable ups and down of life and is proportional to the strength and purity of our will. The will is usually held captive by desires in the mind. To free it to grow strong and pure we need to
be regular in our spiritual practices and assert our independence from the desire in the mind. It needs patience, presence, grace and focus.
Significance of forbearance
The quality of forbearance is of the highest importance to every human being. Forbearance and nonviolence are manifestation of inner strength. Reactivity and retaliation make us to lose precious energy, forbearance on the other hand strengthenes our character as well as our capacity to do good deeds and get inner peace.
We always use the word ‘because’ for excuses or to justify our behavior. Forbearance help us to divide the word “because” into two parts ‘Be’ and ‘cause’ to make it beneficial for us. Be refers to being involved and cause refers to good work. So, forbearance help us not to use the word because to give excuses, but instead use it to empower ourselves.
BE A CAUSE in creating a change.
BE A CAUSE in keeping people happy.
BE A CAUSE in making this world a better and peaceful place to live in.
In a conflict especially in an intimate relationship where emotional investment are high if either of the two parties- are able to bring more forbearance into their interaction, they have an excellent chance of insuring that difficult exchanges not to spiral into an exchange of reactivity. Generally in close relationships where both the sides take care for each other, there is a lot more room for people to bring their best through patience and understanding.
Forbearance helps us to face the difficulties and adversities of life with optimism grit, determination and contentment. A forbearing person didn’t whine, groan or complain and always has good faith on God for the positive things to happen. A successful person is one who can lay a firm foundation with the bricks that other throws at him.
You must have heard of an oyster a small mollusc who produce pearls and it lives in sea. Occasionally, a grain of sand enters the oyster shell and starts irritating the sensitive tissue .But, instead of complaining that ‘the sea did not taken enough care of it and the nature has not closed the shell properly, the oyster take responsibility of the things single mindedly and efficiently engages in the task of getting rid of the irritating grain of sand.
And guess what happens in the process?
By becoming a cause’ the oyster transform a useless, common grain of sand into a rare pearl!
As a human we can learn a great lesson from this activity of oyster that whenever life throws us an obstacle or a challenge, instead of complaining ‘because of this, ‘because of that’ we can simply choose ‘ to be (a) cause’ and convert that adversity into an opportunity to do something better! There are two ways of meeting difficulties. You alter the difficulties, or you alter yourself to meet them.
Forbearance is the attitude of strong, brave and responsible people. Such people are always aware of their stake in any situation and take responsibility to maintain harmony and develop an energetic uplift in the life of people around them. Goodness is the only investment that never fails to return a dividend. May God give us awareness, courage and strength to conquer our mind so that before triumphing over others we triumph over ourselves.
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