Editor’s note: The following article refers to spiritual concepts. Please read Lovefraud’s statement on Spiritual Recovery.
This is the second in a series of 6 postings on spiritual healing that will attempt to Make Sense of these encounters with sociopaths and present the process that literally turns these painful experiences into Miracles of Healing.
“There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all arguments and which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance – that principle is contempt prior to investigation”
-Herbert Spencer-
The Bridge of Hope
Forgive is one of the most misunderstood words in the English language. In fact, many people recoil at the very thought of forgiving someone that they believe has harmed them. The act of forgiveness does not release the perpetrator or sociopath from responsibility for their crimes, nor condone the behavior. Forgiveness is about Letting Go, a process that releases US from another’s destructive hold over our lives.
Refusing to be open-minded about the “possible” healing power of forgiveness only strengthens the sociopaths hold over our lives and poisons every relationship that we are in.
Based on previous experience, some will find this particular reading extremely difficult to accept and understand, but open-mindedness is all that is needed to learn the Truth.
Many of us understand why forgiveness is important and the profound affects that it can have on our lives and the lives of those around us, but few know how to do it. Most, however, know very little about the sometimes devastating physical illnesses and damaged relationships that are caused by our inability to let go of the past.
For most of us, the real meaning and power of forgiveness (letting go) is completely foreign. We “think” we know, but we do not. True forgiveness is Divine. Grace is promised to us all from our Creator.
If we are to begin to understand the miraculous healing power of forgiveness, we must first be willing to at least entertain this idea that our creator can help us with this process. A simple willingness to believe is all that’s needed to begin.
God is either everything, or he is nothing. This is the question that we all must answer for ourselves. For many, this step becomes the first real attempt to answer the question of God within themselves. You will not need anyone else’s opinion of God for this exercise, only an open mind and willing heart. He will do the rest if you ask, and then you will know.
We often use our very denial of God as proof that He does not exist. We have little or no real Faith in God’s power, then, we use our experience to convince ourselves he does not exist. Or worse yet, that He does exist, but doesn’t care about “me”.
Wherever there is despair, depression, anger, resentment, and fear, you will find a lack of Faith. We are not talking about the surface Faith that pretends to believe in God, but the deep peace that comes from trusting God. Faithlessness is not the result of these human difficulties, but rather the cause.
The Truth is in us, and when we hear it, we recognize it as Truth. We may choose to deny Truth, but our hearts will always know. This process helps us begin to trust this inner Devine wisdom and allows us to be guided through the healing process that results in a relationship with God that we never imagined possible.
Seek and You Shall Find, Ask and It Shall be Given You, is one of the promises. God will never deny us Truth, but if we avoid asking the question, we can deny the answer.
Freedom from the past requires that we first surrender to what already is. Then, we must become willing to acknowledge that there is a power greater than ourselves that can free us from this suffering.
This can be a difficult task for those of us that believe God has “allowed” a sociopath to harm us. If we are refusing to let go of something and judging it as wrong, while claiming to believe in God, then we are conflicted, and in most cases, secretly blaming Him for whatever we think has harmed us.
For most of us, we must first recognize that we have begun to view God as the enemy, before we can become willing to see Him as the answer to the problems that we “thought” He was causing.
This is a question for quiet prayer and meditation. A willingness to do this will give you the answer to this question. An unwillingness to try this exercise will also answer the question prior to asking. The Truth will always be revealed when we ask. Failure to ask is simply a reflection of unwillingness to seek Truth.
If you are not yet convinced, you may want to sit quietly and ask God in prayer if He loves you, and if he will help you with this process before moving on.
Find a place where you can be alone uninterrupted for a few minutes. If possible, find a place outdoors that is peaceful and quiet, or, try to imagine a beautiful, lush green garden surrounded by trees. Sit peacefully in the middle of the Garden. Try to quiet your mind by focusing on your breathing. Ask God for help as you take nice, long, deep controlled breathes through your nose deep into your body while you attempt to clear your thoughts.
Ask this question or one similar.
“Father, do you love me and are you here to help me overcome my difficulties?”
Sit as quietly and as long as you possibly can, or until the answer is felt to your satisfaction. This may only take a few minutes, or it may take longer. When your mind wanders, simply ask the question again.
Next week we’ll discuss how to begin to Trust this new relationship and process.
Thank you Travis. I know that as I was going through my own personal nightmare with the sociopath, I begged, pleaded and demanded answers from God. Why did this happen to me? I did not deserve it!
The answer turned out to be, as you state, letting go. It took some time, and some serious emotional processing, but after the releasing all that happened, I was able to find true peace, love and joy in my life.
Travis, I agree that forgiveness is instrumental to our complete healing. Having been taught though, that forgiveness ALSO meant that we had to “pretend that the injury never happened” or that the person did not intentionally harm us, even though we knew otherwise, and even if the person continued to harm us.
Gaslighting at its worst!
However, once I was removed from the false teaching of my egg donor’s “forgive means pretend it didn’t happen” I realized that even the Bible does not teach the “pretend it didn’t happen” doctrine.
Taking the story of “Joseph of the coat of many colors” as an example, it shows that restoration of TRUST does not necessarily go along with forgiveness.
Joseph, sold into slavery by his jealous brothers as a teenager, had grown into a man in Egypt and had risen from being a slave to being second in command in the entire kingdom, second only to the pharaoh. During a famine, his brothers came to Egypt to buy grain, and as the man in charge of all the grain sales, he recognized his brothers, and he had already forgiven them, but in the decades since he had seen them, he didn’t know what kind of men they had grown to be, so decided to TEST them before he revealed himself to them as their brother.
Because he had absolute power in Egypt, he had evidence of theft planted on them and then had them searched and the false evidence found, he required them to return home and bring back their youngest brother to confirm their story of having a younger brother at home. That brother, Benjamin, was his only full sibling and was since his own “death” years before the only child left to his father from his mother.
The hunger eventually drove the brothers back to Egypt with the younger Benjamin in tow, and again they bought grain and again Joseph planted evidence in Benjamin’s grain sack that showed theft, then sent soldiers to find the evidence. He pretended to be angry and was going to “imprison” Benjamin. The other brothers, knowing that the loss of Benjamin would send their father to his grave in sorrow now, instead of being Jealous of Benjamin, offered to become a slave in his stead.
Now, Joseph knew that his brothers had matured, and that they had repented of the evil they had done when they had sold him into slavery, and showed his blood soaked coat to his father as evidence of his “death.”
Joseph had long ago gotten the bitterness out of his heart toward his brothers for what they did to him, and as it turned out, it ended up being a blessing for the family to save them from starvation during the long famine. Joseph surprised his brothers and told them who he was, and sent them back to fetch his father and their families with wagons and food, to bring the entire family to safety.
Reading this story without the prejudicial teachings of my egg donor, let me see that the Bible did not demand that forgiveness also be restoration of trust without proof that the trust was justified.
That enabled me to truly LET GO of the pain of the injury, to get the bitterness out of my heart, though with most of these people I would never be able to restore trust to them again, or have a loving relationship because, unlike Joseph’s brothers, they had not changed. They had not repented. They were not sorry for what they had done.
Holding on to bitterness is, I think, like drinking poison and expecting someone else to die.
IMHO… the reason people have trouble forgiving unconscionable aggressions is because it “goes against nature”.
I DO NOT think it is natural to forgive EVIL. I do think it is beneficial to “let go” of the hurt. You can “let go” of the hurt without “forgiving it” by understanding it. I think (I know this is very controversial) that a belief in god just complicates everything.
The truth, “as I see it” is:
1)There are EVIL people who desire to target us for harm.
2)They were successful.
3)We learned about EVIL.
4)We are now smarter (i.e., learned) and recognize signs to help us avoid EVIL.
God is not a part of this equation!
Ox Drover – I agree with the trust issue. Many people “think” forgiveness is trust and that is incorrect. Thank you for sharing that story.
and to Sarah999 – it has been my absolute experience that when God is part of the equation Miracles happen.
My dad being a serial killer led me to ask some very scary questions about what exactly evil is and whether I can be protected from it. I noticed that I had other sociopaths in my life BECAUSE I was attracted to them as they were me. When I sought help from Our Creator I found the courage that I needed to change, let go of the past, and no longer attract sociopaths into my life. That tells me a lot about evil. If I work on the inside, with the help of God and my fellows, a miracle of healing happens and not only am I no longer vulnerable to this, but now helpful to others that are. I am not capable of doing that on my own.
I spent most of my adult life believing that God did not exist and had much pain, misery and suffering. A simple willingness to open myself to the possibility, and a few steps that allowed me to let go of the past, and now my life is full of Miracles.
Yes, people have trouble forgiving. That is one of the Miracles of this process…because he will teach us and then we know for ourselves how He feels about us.
Hi Travis,
I think we are always attracted to sociopaths . . if they are good at their craft (i.e., manipulation,charm,deceit . . spinning a dream etc) . . it is normal to be attracted to them. We have learned to:
1) spot signs
2) wait . . . wait . . . and wait some more
3) research them
4) not make excuses for them
5) acknowledge our vulnerability
which makes us smarter, so that we are NOT taken in
by their manipulation (charm, deceit etc).
In my case anyway, god was not involved.
A miracle is just something we don’t understand at the moment. (Years ago cell phones would have been considered a miracle)
i just told myself when i was going through the abuse he did to me that god was testing me to see how strong i was. and that it was for a good reason. and he would reveal why he tested me so hard, eventually.
A Miracle is an expression of God’s Love. They are always a correction, and do for us what we cannot do for ourselves.
I am not capable of taking an experience with a serial killer father and turning it into something that helps others heal. My dad murdered 4 people and was captured in the act of attempting to kill two more. I was his “confidante” and witnessed hell up close and personal (like most of us on this site).
Now, I know all the families of the victims, end every conversation with the son of the woman my dad murdered with “I Love you”. That is a Miracle. I have personally witnessed more people helped by this story than were hurt, and it is not of my doing. I only sought to learn the Truth about God, and these events happened.
For me it came down to this question, as I cannot speak for others.
I had to have faith in something…what was it going to be? Either way it is Faith that I was going to rely upon.
Faith that we are wandering aimlessly, from nowhere, headed nowhere with no purpose, or…
…Faith in the idea that it is possible that there is a source that created all of this and maybe He knows more than I do. I realized that I had a very limited view of the World, the Universe and all creation. I no longer felt qualified to judge everything and decided to seek out this power with prayer, meditation, books, and became willing to listen to those that seemed to have peaceful, happy lives and gave credit to God.
That was the invitation that changed these murders into miracles.
Sarah999- I ALSO agree that forgiving evil goes against nature. For me, the hardest thing about my experience was the fact that my S “got away with it” and no justice was done. I tried a couple of revenge tactics but just as everyone here on LF said, they came back to haunt me and I was made to look like a petty, vindictive, jilted woman. I am a firm believer in God and I do believe miracles can happen; however, it’s just hard for me to swallow the fact that while I’m living on this earth, people can be so evil and justice may not happen…but possibly in some afterlife. Right now I am trying to convince myself that my experience will make me a better person and I’m trying to come to grips with the fact that I played a big part in my misery. It’s just that I’ve become very bitter and I pray that I’ll revert back to the person I use to be, but I know that takes time. Anyway, just wanted you to know that you presented a very logical argument 🙂
Thank you Sarah999 for your honesty and sharing your thoughts and feelings. I am grateful for your comments. If you continue to search for the good and meaning of all this, you will find it.
It is not for me to tell someone else how and when to do that…I only share my experience. I felt the same way when I realized that I “chose” to be around my Dad when he was killing people. It made me sick to my stomach so I hid from it.
Now it has become the light of my life and brings me great joy to share with others. I have forgiven myself, I am free and seem to only attract good in my life now. No more dreams of darkness and fear of people. I trust love and that is what I see today…everywhere, including in darkness.
I appreciate your courage. Thanks for coming here to post and heal. Peace
I think, when we leave them (i.e., No Contact) we have gotten even. We have taken away their nourishment (us), and their control, and they are forced to look elsewhere to satisfy their demented desires.
They will not pine, they will just go on to make someone else miserable. It’s the most we can hope for . . . but . . . consider this . . . they have no soul, they are incapable of love, all they have is WINNING (i.e., power,control). . They are empty shells without love or conscience.
They have already been punished, but they’re too disordered to know it. But we know it, and we can strive to go on to live a good life with love and compassion, and the knowledge of EVIL and how to steer clear of it.