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How do you forgive others and how do you forgive yourself? This is a question that is asked alot. It seems simple to be able to turn it over to God/Creator and let it go, but is it that simple? Do we make it hard to forgive and to forgive ourselves? This is something that seems to confound many of us and makes us wonder if we might be doing it wrong? I have trouble letting it go alot of times and I worry and worry over it, until I realize that I have to let it go or it won't be resolved so I can move past it. Deep down I have this ingrained, inherited urge to hold grudges, so I have to fight this in times of needing to forgive someone or even to forgive myself. It is very hard to let it go when big emotions have gone wild when being angry at someone and then being upset and angry at myself, so it is hard for me to just pray and forgive someone and ask forgiveness for myself also and turn over to God/Creator. How do you think of this and what do you do? Love in Light and Peace, Winds of Change |
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Dearest Winds, It is a good question, forgiving someone else, for me is easy, but forgetting is the hard part, so then a question just came to mind, do I really forgive? The hurt lingers, guess until it's buried so deep. I just act like it never happened. That's me. But, if something happens again with the same person, that old feeling comes back to life. So I don't know if I'm truely forgiving someone. Forgiving myself is another subject...I'm harder on myself than others. If I know I've done something to hurt someone else, I just think and think on it. I get mad at myself and yet something else I must bury. I do pray for forgiveness and have spoke to others I think I have hurt in someway and apologized. That's all that I know to do. We know that we must move past it, giving it over to God, but that's not all, we must also pray for healing. For the hurting. Love in light, Dearheart |
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Hello winds and everyone : What a great topic .. I believe that forgiveness is one of the hardest things we have to ever do.. I also believe that forgiving ourselves is much harder than to forgive others.. at least for me it is .. I don't know about anyone else .. To me forgiveness comes in stages .. by this I mean .. you might forgive someone today of a hurt you have recived only to have that same issue come back later and bother you .. so I think forgiveness is a prosess.. and it's ongoing .. its a decision you have to make every time you think about the event .. you have to choose to continue to forgive or not .. I personally see forgiveness as a choice .. the main thing I can say here is that forgivenss is not really about the other person but you .. when we forgive ourselves or others we are releasing that person and ourselves from the event .. and I have to look at myself in every event and remember the things G-d has forgiven me for .. and there are many. I am not sure I have a 1-2-3 approach to this .. it is something I just decide to do and than the process happens in natural coarse of time .. I ususaly start by saying I choose to forgive .. ( name ) for this hurt or pain they have caused me or I have caused someone else .. and name the event and pray for that G_d would help me to forgive them or myself .. I know how far I have progessed when I think about the event and see how much pain I have left ..or how I feel emotionally about the issues .. and some events takes only once, some have taken years .. some I am to admit I am still working on.. however remember when you chose not to forgive you are allowing someone else to control you and your feelings.. its totally up to you to make a conscious effort to forgive or not.. but with true forgivness comes freedom.. I guess I have rambled on enough and hope this answers your question about how I forgive..myself and others .. shalom .. blessings and much love DawningStar  |
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Winds of Change,
Your question has often been in my thoughts for a few days. It has been weighing heavily on my heart and soul so I feel guided to respond. It is very simple to let go, but it's not easy. We all make this difficult on ourselves because we need to be reminded of who we are and why we are here. There is no right or wrong way. These are just judgments that we make based on a dead past or imagined future not who we are right here, right now.
Firstly, holding a grudge is really just silly and self-defeating. It's like taking poison ourselves and expecting the person we are mad at to die. If for know other reason, forgive just because it makes us feel better.
Secondly, forgiveness for someone hurting us implies that we are separate. We are all of the same source, sharing an experience. Our ego contains our true self in an illusion of separation by promoting and protecting our self. These limitations don't allow us to see the world as abundant and full of potential. Our emotions lead us to believe that we might get ours or afraid of what others may think of us. Ego gains its strength from maintaining and expanding this illusion of separation by fearing something that, in truth, does not exist.
Next, we need to come to the understanding that we are responsible for our own experience. We have free will and have chosen and continue to choose all of our experience. Sure there are things "outside" us that affect us but we still choose our perspective of how we see them and how we react. The hardest thing about coming to this truth is how we have hurt ourselves in so many ways. The Tibetan Buddhist have a saying, "It's only through our pain and suffering do we find the need and motivation to become enlightened." So, we should not only be forgiving but we should also be grateful for being offered this opportunity. We choose the perspective of how we see the world.
By being hurt, we often place judgment on the situation. These judgments are based on fear of possibilities that seldom occur or on something in our past that is totally not related to right here, right now. Being in the present, in the eternally now moment offers the opportunity to express our truest selves, from our Source of who we really are. That expression is manifest as Love. GOD/Creator is Love. Love lifts the veil of illusion of separation. All That Is Love manifest of God/Creator regardless of what perspective we choose to have of it.
The best reason to forgive is to be an example. Shine our light of love. People need to be reminded and in these turbulent times, we need to show people the Way. Be the miracle that is the essence of who we truly are and share with all that we give the privilege of our attention and the honor of being observed. We can't change the world but we can change our minds. The real magic is changing the world's mind.
The real beauty in life is in the redemption.
Thank you for allowing me to share my thoughts and for a wonderful question.
LOVE and LIGHT,
Brian
BlueLuxuryPhone
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That which offers us pain is only putting us back on our path.
http://WWW.BIGDREAMPACKAGE.COM/
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Dear Dearheart, DawningStar and BlueLuxuryPhone, Thanks for all of the great responses to this question. I like that each of you has a different way on some things about forgiving and how you do it. I agree that forgiving is a very hard thing to do when you try to let things go and forgive others for things that have happened between us and someone else and also to forgive ourselves. I have often had the same thing happen to me, Dearheart, where a later meeting someone whom I thought I had forgiven the old hurts rose up momentarily and I had to deal with it to try to see if I could truly forgive them and let it go. I did learn one good lesson in this, though. At times I thought I had forgiven someone, but didn't know what to do when the old feelings of hurt and maybe even anger were rekindled and I happened to walk past the tv one day while doing things around the house and I heard "We not only have to forgive the person, we have to forgive what caused us to have a reaction." In other words with me, one thing was I had to forgive all my ex husband did to me while I was in an abusive marriage, not just him. And when I truly thought of it, I forgave all of those hurts that kept popping up and turned them over to God/Creator and it worked. Every once in awhile, I find one I didn't let go and forgive it and let it go. That was my key to getting past things. I agree very much with you DawningStar that it is always a choice. I also agree that forgiveness comes in stages as we realize that maybe we don't quite have a grasp on forgiving something or someone or ourselves at that time. I seem to find that more lessons come my way in this instance, maybe to show me in person what I am forgetting to do or feel. I agree BlueLuxuryPhone, that a grudge is not the way to go and that is why I said I fight it to keep it out of my decisions when forgiveness comes into the picture. I am not sure how I feel about your statement that forgiveness for someone hurting us implies that we are separate.. well, we are separate in many ways even though we are connected. I am sure that a woman or a man does not walk up to an abusive partner and hold their face steadily to them so they can be hit in the face with a fist or object or beaten near to death and then not feel that person hurt them or to be mentally abused so that they are isolated and made to feel like a nonperson, they have to forgive that person for hurting them and forgive the person themselves when dealing with the after effects of abusive contact with another person, in many more real cases of life than some want to believe. I am sure I don't want to share an experience in that type of situation again. Yes, we are all interconnected, but even though we can love all of humanity and all that is around us, we do not have to interact and like what some are like and stand for in all aspects of life. I do agree with most of what you said, but that one part stood out to me. You are correct there is not a right way nor a wrong way to forgive, but forgiveness is necessary in many cases without it being separation or an illusion of it. If we relate totally to the here and now and don't let the past influence us at all, then we will be having the same problems over and over, so the past was necessary to make us who we are now. God/Creator is the Light of Love, but we are still given free choice with assistance if we need it in situations that do not turn out to be roses in this world. Optimism is the best part of unconditional love, but we still have to recognize the flaws that are yet present in order to relate to those we wish to share the light with. Suffering still exists and forgiveness is still the way to letting go of those hurts and the pains that often leave deep scars. I am sorry if I went off the deep end on your answer to the question, but I do see the goodness in most of your message, except that one part steps on alot of people healing. Thanks for sharing the goodness of God/Creators Love in your message and you insight to forgiveness. Love in Light and Peace, Winds of Change |
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