Editor’s note: The following article refers to spiritual concepts. Please read Lovefraud’s statement on Spiritual Recovery.
Forgive, as a word, and as an ideal, is very misunderstood in our world. Not only is the idea misunderstood, but the word itself is often intensely disliked.
The act of Forgiveness does not release the perpetrator 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. It is not about accepting, trusting, or increasing future suffering. To the contrary, Forgiveness is simply releasing pain from the past in order to end future suffering.
Ultimately, forgiveness is not about someone, or something else. The idea that we must forgive someone else is only a step in learning the real Truth about letting go. This step helps to teach us where the real suffering of unforgiveness is experienced”¦in us. It is ourselves that is released through forgiveness, and until we forgive, we are likely to repeat the past.
Forgiveness is how we let go of the resentment that is harming us, and I speak from experience. In fact, the only way to I know how to help others is by sharing my understanding through my experience. Personally, I receive very little benefit from people that offer advice and opinions from a perspective that does not include actual personal experience. All of the healing that I have experienced in my life has come from God, and those that have personal experience with overcoming difficulties through faith and forgiveness.
Most people have their own understanding of forgiveness based on where they are in life and this article is in no way meant to criticize another’s perspective. I do not ask others to do, or believe what I write. That is up to the reader.
I am not sure how to say what I need to say without sounding like I am taking credit for something that I had very little to with, but feel the need to use my own personal experience to show an example of what Forgiveness in action looks like.
It is God’s Grace, faith, and forgiveness that changed my perspective, and with it, my life from hell, to heaven.
My dad is a serial killer. He abused my mom, used me to help him destroy evidence so I would not go to police and has threatened to kill me. I know what evil looks like. I’ve been to hell.
I also know what unforgiveness looks like because I have experienced that as well. Unforgiveness looks a lot like hell to me. It causes physical and emotional illnesses, including migraine headaches, chronic back pain, nightmares, sleep apnea, drug addiction and many others”¦all of which I have personally experienced.
Holding on to resentment is like drinking poison, and hoping the other person dies. It is toxic both physically and mentally. This is a medical fact as well. Many studies have been done on what resentment (or unforgiveness) does to our bodies, including raising one’s blood pressure when simply discussing someone they have not forgiven.
Forgiveness is not a lack of responsibility or action. It does not mean that we are to be passive and perpetual victims. To the contrary. Forgiveness requires great courage, faith, and action.
Yes, forgiveness does require action and the results may surprise you”¦it did me. I thought forgiveness was for sissys, but I was wrong!
Next week, in part II, I will write about how forgiveness gave me the courage to face my fears, my father, break the cycle of abuse, right the wrongs of the past, and what it looks like in action.
Sky, I had actually considered those particular co-workers as friends. The one who originally stabbed me in the back was a very close friend. However, after that, I decided not to be close friends with co-workers.
Star,
I’m sorry you experienced that from someone you thought was a close friend. It’s disgusting to know that someone will befriend and betray you.
You made a wise decision to set aside resentment because you need to go to work each day.
It seems so long ago now, and I have no bad feelings toward any of them. I think whatever you call it – forgiveness, acceptance, or whatever other term – as long as you feel released and at peace, and that it doesn’t hurt you anymore, that’s all that matters. I was miserable when I hated them so much. It was not a pleasant way to live. I realize how futile it is now. I understand why they did what they did. It just comes from their own dysfunction and really has nothing to do with me.
My job, all the difficult relationships, and the simple fact of having to get up, put my make-up on, and go to work each day no matter what has taught me so much. I am so grateful to this job for teaching me how to be happy no matter what. It’s ironic that a job that made me so miserable in the first several years ultimately taught me how to make myself happy.
Star – What you said pretty much sum’s up the quote from Mia Angelo [ Forgiveness is letting go of the hope that the past could of been any different ]..yes they just do what they do, thats how they survive.
And yes those of us that enjoy our work are very blessed
i have been wanting to post lately, but haven’t had the time to deal with the pain of opening the compartment of hurt that is associated with my present job. it’s been a devalue and discard, and i feel very rejected. it’s very hard.
i went to a 12 step meeting today and shared about it. and it helped a lot. there is another very feisty atheist in the room and the last couple of week s we have had a good connection. we will talk this week and i am looking forward to it. She suffered some pretty severe institutionally sanctioned abuse as a child and she fought it in the press as an adult. it’s good to be in the room with someone i can relate to. all the god talk always confused me in program, muddied the core messages for me – good that she is their talking a language that i relate to.
i sat between one woman who was knitting and one who was crocheting during the meeting. it was pretty great to watch them. I have been wanting to knit, but i don’t think my hands would put up with it – but crocheting looks possible.
hi 1steprs….:)
I think that the anger and hate are neccesary (spelling) to let us know that bounderies are being breached. It is our own reactions telling us the truth.
I also think peace comes from the acceptance that you are never going to change that person and it is only yourself that can change.
Being able to see the dysfunction objectively helps. It places you in the position of the decision maker. This empowers.
I to am very guarded in my dealings with people. As GIS said–I too have only a limited amount of emotional reserves and I keep it for those I hold dear.
I just can’t spread myself too thin in this area as it leaves me exhausted.
As been said- it really doesn’t matter how we get to peace within ourselves and a discussion around this helps open up possibilities that there are a number of ways to achieve it.
That’s why I love LF
Peace to all and healing
STJ
xxx
God grant me the serenity to accept what I cannot change
The courage to change what I can
And the wisdom to know the difference
I think in the beginning when you are coming out of denial, anger is absolutely necessary to help set boundaries and take action. After that, however, holding onto chronic anger and resentment only hurts the person doing it.
For me, I really just want to be happy. I spent the first 40-something years of my life being unhappy. It’s been kind of a catch 22 for me that I’ve had to let go of all my righteous anger in order to get there. Believe me, I tried every other way first. None of the other ways worked, as long as I still had resentment toward those who had hurt me. I was very angry that I never got justice, that no one (not even a government program) stepped in and helped me, that no one paid my dental bills for the dental damage my mother caused me through her abuse and neglect, that no one ever rescued me, that I wasn’t entitled to any kind of funding to help me recover as an adult, that my parents never went to jail……it goes on and on. Life is incredibly unfair sometimes. I finally had to give up that feeling of entitlement and being a victim. It wasn’t getting me anywhere, NO ONE was going to rescue me, and it just made me feel alone and unhappy. Once I turned 50, I figured out that I was going to die like that if I didn’t do something. It took me a long time to get the message.
When you think about it, forgiveness is the ultimate selfish act and the final revenge against the perpetrator, especially if they are the kind who want you to suffer. I think my mother would be very jealous of me if she knew how I’ve moved on and how well I am doing, how young I look and feel, about my trips to Costa Rica, etc. But the irony is, I don’t need her to feel jealous. I no longer need for her to suffer. I don’t care anymore.
For me, it’s a matter of vanity, too. Chronic anger and resentment accelerate aging and contribute to disease, which I really don’t need.
I am going to qualify this, because there was a time in my life when if someone said these things to me, I would have wanted to stomp them.
I read this morning a great quote:
If one fights the devil with the devil’s weapons, one becomes the devil.
I personally need to remember this every time I am tempted to backspath my spath. I need to just accept what he did, and move on. Otherwise I become him.
Athena
Very well said athena…..