My friend had a very elderly dog who was demonstrating they were in some pain and losing their quality of life. My friend was faced with the impossible decision of whether it was time to put her beloved pup down. She and her husband went to their vet to discuss all the options for their dog and the vet offered them a list of questions about the dog’s quality of life to help guide the conversation as to what direction would be best for pup. She told me later, that seeing the list of questions it was very clear her dog’s quality of life was very low and as much as they worked to keep pup comfortable, some of the things may not have been making the impact they hoped. After much conversation, my friend and her husband went ahead and put their beloved pup down.
I witnessed first-hand all the love they had for their pup and the love they still have for him, years later. And when they shared the process with us, the list of questions we discussed at some length. Not the questions themselves, but as a tool to determine what path is the right one. And she admitted the list was helpful for them so they could remove some emotion and really make the best decision for their dog.
As the final part to the forgiveness series, I wanted to leave it a little open-ended so you can have space to create a system for yourself. I never want to imply this is a one-size-fits-all because human nature doesn’t work like that. We are sometimes tasked with making decisions based totally on how something makes us feel. Logistically, it can be really difficult because it might bypass reason and we accidentally gaslight ourselves and the genuine nature of our feelings. I found my own process to evaluate through personal inquiry, time and looking at old patterns. It’s the questions we ask ourselves and take the time to answer which lead us down the path that works the best. And in some cases, it’s the questions we never thought about asking that can create profound awareness.
What if each person had a list of questions to allow themselves to see the incident from another perspective? I think people have created smaller versions of these, like the 5×5 rule (if it’s not going to matter in 5 years, don’t spend more than 5 minutes thinking about it). But what if we had something that we worked on over time to create a healing tool for ourselves?
In the previous post, I offer the list of questions I put together in writing this series. It is in no way complete, and I imagine it will evolve over time, but it was the breakthrough I needed to discover my own way of processing forgiveness. I hope you find it helpful as you explore yours.