Learn How to Truly Forgive – and Truly Heal (wakeup-world.com)

I joined PACES in February.  Thinking I had a handle on the Seasons of my Life so far.  But there is no handle to grab hold of for comfort or for safety once a person goes in deep into the memories that are sure to show up when we start remembering and investigating our lives.

What do we do with the guilt, and the shame, and the wanting to blame and the wanting to get vengence for those family members who are still suffering and have never ever talked about what they went through and are still going through today?  How do we stop hating and start healing when not everyone is healing or even wants to.

I have a lot of questions that I have had for over 50 years.  And there are those too that have not even shown up yet. 

MM

I came to this subject late, and yes there will always be strong emotions, but that does not mean we cannot understand someone else's pain and heal from our own.  As a non religious person, there is no one to come and take my experiences and pain away.  I have had to work on that since childhood, sometimes alone, sometimes with a therapist, but I don't really think that there was a "Forgiveness" moment per se in my case.  I went through the early stages of self pity and why me when I was a child, and then one day I realized that the man who tried to kill me was mad at his wife and used me as a tool to get at her.  His actions had nothing to do with how he felt about me, or how I felt about me, therefore there was nothing to forgive, I was in the wrong place at the right time, and learned after that to be a little more vigilant about my surroundings and circumstances.

Some people ask then why am I still in therapy, even after coming to grips with many things about my life so far.  Its because everyday I am alive is a great day to learn something about love and peace and treating others as I would like to be treated...I think this in itself is a full time job.

MM

This is a topic that always evokes strong emotions, and rightly so.

I am coming to terms with the principle that forgiveness is an act on my part that does not require the prior demonstration of remorse by the other person. It is challenging emotionally to deliberate on this as I believe many of us prefer to see some form of contrition before we forgive.

Another aspect surrounds how to engage, if at all, with the other party thereafter. On the one hand, it may appear that to forgive means to be willing to trust and to engage with them. However, self-preservation is something that keeps me from being trusting, especially in the absence of remorse. On the other hand, I desire that those who I may have hurt engage with me to whatever extent in the respective instances.

This issue is as broad as it is deep: Is forgiveness a decision? Is it time-bound? Is it a process? Is it mandatory? What action does it entail besides the heart shift? Are there consequences for not forgiving? If so, what are they? Should we concern ourselves with consequences?

Coincidentally (or maybe not), I am reading this post on Good Friday - the weekend we commemorate the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. This, I believe, is the epitome of forgiveness and sacrifice for those who did unspeakable wrongs and had no remorse.

As readers can tell, I am still working through a lot of the details here from a deeply personal perspective, not an academic one. I believe if emotions were not involved things would be easier - but they are, and can cloud decision-making on my part.

Please forgive me for rambling on. I did not intend for this to be verbose. However, the subject matter is important and needed to be given some thought and commentary.

Have a wonderful, reflective weekend, everyone!

Thank you for the courage to post this @Dana and may we engage in meaningful and respectful discussions on this topic.

This is such a power article! It is such a liberating feeling to be brave enough to forgive others and to understand that our diversity to some degree places us into situations of becoming victims of abuse. What makes it even more hard is the fact most perpetrators are family members, friends or in some circumstances acquittances.

Thanks for sharing.

This is a sad statement and a false statement for many of us who have found Joy, Peace and Love without forgiving our perpetrators. - "When we refuse to forgive, we put ourselves in a prison cell of our own making. We rob ourselves of true joy."

This writer did not walk in my shoes and has no comprehension of what I and others have suffered and endured at the hands of others.

For those who want to forgive, great...and for those of us who don't want to, great.

There are some evils in the world inflicted upon others with the implicit intent to destroy a human being that most of society have no comprehension about....

I have forgiveness for those who have hurt me inadvertently, differences of opinions, mistakes, etc...and I have made amends to others when I made mistakes and hurt people. But there is evil committed upon children and adults by fellow human beings who have no regard for their humanity what-so-ever and all they want to do is destroy that life spirit.

I do not have hatred towards my parents and their equally brutal and sadistic pedophile friends...I have compassion for who they were as children and what was done to them. But they did not break the cycle, heck, they increased the level of violence and sexual depravity.

Was the writer of this article trafficked by his parents? Did the writer of this article lose two brothers to suicide who could never forgive themselves for what was done to them as children?

Take care, Michael

Always worth talking about forgiveness