Definition Of Forgiveness

[shiraz]

My journey with ‘forgiveness’ has been a rather difficult one. I have ‘forgiven’ – completely and honestly believed in my ability to forgive, only to find years later that I still harbor resentment and bitterness. So I came to accept that I will probably never find a way to forgive honestly.

However, I recently found this very interesting definition of ‘forgiveness’ which I find to be true and honest and I think if I apply it, it might bring an end to my forgiveness journey and allow me to move forward with my healing.

“Forgiveness is the willingness to free yourself and others from the role of abuser in your life. When you forgive someone you are not condoning their actions, but you are releasing yourself from perpetuating the energetic pattern that has caused pain.
In every situation where forgiveness is necessary, there is an abuser role and a victim role. You have chosen one or the other of these parts in order to learn a certain set of lessons about the polarities of the dynamic that is being played out. The only way that you can release yourself from the part that you have chosen is through forgiveness of yourself and the others involved.

This simply means that you release them from having to play their role for you any longer. When you have released the other players from their parts, you will find that the play itself changes very rapidly.

To enter into the state of forgiveness, you need only affirm, ‘I release you from playing this role for me’, each time you find yourself resenting another. When this is said each time the circumstances or emotion arises in your mind, you will very quickly break the cycle and release the pattern from your life, enabling you to move forward on your path. “ Naisha Ahsian
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What do you think? A good definition (or perhaps just a non issue for you)?

 

[Mina]

That's really good, Shiraz. I never thought about it like that.

Another definition I like - the first one which actually made any sense to me - is:

Making a choice not to continue to give power to the memory of a past hurt.

Perhaps in releasing that person from playing the role of abuser, we take away the power that past hurt has over us.

 

[Ursa]

Shiraz,

I have a really hard time even thinking about forgiveness. In my case, this was pushed on me like it was my obligation towards my main perpetrator, and I grew up with this. Feeling guilty for not being able to do my job.

Because of this, I believe that forgiveness is a way to let perpertrators get their way out and put the victim/survivor in a spot were they have to take all the responsabilities toward the abuse... one more thing to work besides all the work that has to be made towards healing.

Yes, I can see forgiveness also as a way to just "let go". Free my own mind from the heaviness of thinking about people that don't deserve any of my attention. But sometimes I ask myself if that is what forgiveness is really about or if this is just part of the healing process and has nothing to do with true forgiveness.

I know a lot of people think differently from me. But at least now I am allowing myself the right to not forgive. This is not my obligation, it was my perpertrators obligation not to hurt me and protect me in the first place. If they have done their job, I would never have to think that I have to forgive them.

 

[Fortress]

I also have a really difficult time conceptualizing forgiveness.

There seems to be such a huge gap between SAYING that someone no longer has power over you/no longer plays that role, and having that be true.

Maybe I am too early in my journey to really grasp this. The thought of forgiving the people who hurt me evokes anger, like I would be betraying myself or trying to deny that something happened. I know this isn't really rational, and it also isn't what I think you were trying to say...so again, I think this is just beyond me right now. :dontknow:

I am slowly beginning to forgive people who unintentionally hurt me because neither of us understood at the time that I had PTSD and was being triggered. I don't know that I can apply the same definition of forgiveness, however, to somebody who hurt me on purpose and caused these problems in the first place.

 

[This Ends Now]

Forgiveness And Empathy

Shiraz,

Excellent topic for a thread! :thumbs-up

It seems that the definition of forgiveness you stated is almost exactly like the definition I use in my own practice. Yes it is very hard, especially with some specific people who hurt me, but it has freed me from more pain than I can describe. I am not all the way there yet, I still have a long way to go, but I have been working on it for quite some time now.

One large and important component for me is to separate forgiving and forgetting. The two do not always have to go together. It is entirely possible to forgive the person who harmed you without condoning his/her actions or forgetting the lessons you learned from surviving the trauma. Another way I have heard it phrased is "you can hate the sin and not the sinner".

I have found it helpful to realize that most people who are abusive or otherwise dangerous have had very hard lives themselves. It is easy for me to fall back into hating my father when all I see at the moment is the abusive adult that hurt my brother, and my mother, and myself. When I look further back in his life, I see the wounded soldier who never received the proper medical treatment for his combat related trauma. Going even farther back, I see the little child he used to be... the boy who was kicked with army boots and had sticks broken over his back... sometimes taking the beatings to protect his sisters. Its much easier to forgive Donald as the little abused child, or even the wounded soldier, than to only forgive Donald as the abusive father who hurt me. Since all three are the same person at different times of his life, I can view Donald as a tragic case of dysfunction passed down from one generation to the next, and allow myself to forgive him as a person. I have seen this same pattern in many people who grew up to become abusive adults or even criminals. With this understanding I can infer that those I do not know very well but have hurt me very badly are deeply suffering and probably have been for a long time. :think:

With those people whom I am not yet ready to forgive, I find that empathy is a reasonable step towards inner peace. Empathy does not even need to include forgiveness, just an understanding of how the person thinks and how he/she responds to situations. This is a good practice step and it builds the foundation not only for forgiveness but all forms of victory. Empathy is something most successful world leaders can agree on regardless of their "goodness" or objectives. Buddha, Christ, Sun Tzu, and Robert Macnamera are just a few examples of world leaders who promote the use of empathy. All four of those people have unique cultures, objectives, and value systems... but empathy is one thing they all agree on.

Keep up the good work everybody,

Liz H.

 

[Deleted member 541]

I had to let go of the anger, resentment, hurt, ect ect. It was beginning to eat at me, and I was locked into the hatred so much, that I could not move forward. It was at this point in time, that I needed to learn forgiveness....

Do I still have some resentment??? Yes.... I don't think I will fully ever let go completely, but from where I was with the hatred, and anger, I have come a long distance. I do not condone what my abusers did. It's not about that for me, it was letting go, so I could move forward......

 

[cragger65]

I think if they had to pay for what they did to me, if they were held to answer for their abuse, it would make it so much easier for me. I've tried in so many different ways, as you say Shiraz "thought" I'd let it go foreve, only to have it all come back to me later on. I guess it's a measure of how much you let it re-enter your thinking and how much energy you allow yourself to give to the hate and anger. That's a tough one, for sure.

 

[shiraz]

A Few Conclusions On Forgiveness

I love this Mina;

“Making a choice not to continue to give power to the memory of a past hurt.”

It makes a lot of sense to me that by not feeding the memory with continued negativity, I strip it of the power it has over me, and could therefore move forward in healing. I think that is what Dave is saying about the difficulty of not allowing it to re-enter your thinking and giving it energy over and over and over again.

I think I have had the same battles that Ursa has had, that I have felt obligated to forgive out of some sense of duty. I only realized recently that I had given myself permission NOT to forgive. I think Fortress is right in suggesting that it is all about ‘where’ you are at in your healing journey, I am beginning to feel that forgiveness is actually a non issue. It serves no purpose for me as I have broken the relationship with my parents, which means they no longer have control over me or a hold over me and because of this, I have effectively removed them from playing the role they played for me as abusers and I have removed myself from the role I played as victim. This is a very important point for me as I feel that the PTSD occurred out of a sense of powerlessness and inability to ‘act’ on the circumstances. Now, I take back the power and control and I stop playing the role the abuse set me up to play.

Like Cat, I don’t condone what they did, but moving forward now seems all important so that I don‘t give my abusers any more power over me. The best revenge I can have now is for them to see me rise up and flourish and become the confident and powerful being I know I can be. ‘This Ends Now’ makes the suggestion of finding the hurt person in the abuser at different stages of life, I used to do that all the time and found that it trapped me in allowing excuses to exist for the abuse. It is why I waited so long to confront my abusers; my empathy for them was too inflated. I felt their pain too deeply and excused their behavior because of it. Not to say that this approach is not appropriate and useful, but for me it just backfired in my face and isolated me further.

Perhaps saying that forgiveness is a non issue for me really means that I have found a way to move on without holding onto the past ….. I don’t know, I guess time will tell. These things tend to keep popping up on the healing journey anyway – like they come back to test our resolve and courage to stick with the conclusions and decisions we have made which allows us to re-evaluate and re-direct if necessary.

Thanks for all the replies. It is nice to hear what others think and it helps me more accurately define my own thinking as well.

Any more ideas? I'd love to hear them.

:Hug_emoticon:

 

[TLight]

I've begged a higher power to help me to forgive simply because I wanted to end my own suffering. I've written repeatedly, chanted in my head, sent away their energy from my being..........boy, every thing you can think of thinking that if I was able to really forgive, that I wouldn't hurt so much.

It never worked. The only thing that has helped me is someone hearing, truly hearing my story, validating what I went through, eliminating my own shame for being 'damaged'.........therapy.

Then, it seems as time lengthens......I just truly don't want to give my abusers much thought. I am tired of the emotions that overwhelm me when I think about them.

I think I'm just getting plain tired of being angry.

Now, when the idea of forgiveness comes, well, sure, I forgive. Whatever........what happened happened and there isn't a darn thing I can do about that except try to feel better, feel less fear, feel less tied up inside........the anger keeps me tied up....

Forgiveness......well, it's just a form of letting something go.........I guess for me, its letting go of the injustice of it all, what it did to me and my life, how much was stolen from me.
I think its about letting that stuff go. Nothing I can do about it now. Forgiveness of them or what they did? Well, I'd have to say probably never. But it doesn't matter anymore........perhaps that's forgiveness.

 

[This Ends Now]

I love this Mina;

“Making a choice not to continue to give power to the memory of a past hurt.”

Like Cat, I don’t condone what they did, but moving forward now seems all important so that I don‘t give my abusers any more power over me. The best revenge I can have now is for them to see me rise up and flourish and become the confident and powerful being I know I can be. ‘This Ends Now’ makes the suggestion of finding the hurt person in the abuser at different stages of life, I used to do that all the time and found that it trapped me in allowing excuses to exist for the abuse. It is why I waited so long to confront my abusers; my empathy for them was too inflated. I felt their pain too deeply and excused their behavior because of it. Not to say that this approach is not appropriate and useful, but for me it just backfired in my face and isolated me further.

Any more ideas? I'd love to hear them.

:Hug_emoticon:

Shiraz,

You make an excellent point. I have had the same set backs when I found myself jumping too far ahead or making the forgiveness process about the abuser. Times that I went directly to trying to forgive someone like my father or my uncle backfired for me as well. What I generally suggest is first to channel your anger into productive motivation for cutting the ties that bind you and preventing these people from hurting you (and themselves) even more. Once you have had some time for mourning and the healing process is working and you are in a safe place, then you can safely start on practicing forgiveness in the abstract. Start with people who are furthest from you (the waiter who gets your order wrong, the person who cuts you off in traffic, etc... ) and try to let go of the small things that don't really impact you in a serious way. You must feel comfortable and happy with this conceptually first, then after some time you can begin to work your way in. The next step is still not the people who have harmed you, but regular people you sometimes associate with who slight you accidentally (people you have a very loose relationship with, such friends of friends, and random people at work). You must become adjusted to this level before you can move on to people who you now consider friends and colleges (still not the abusers turn... they can wait). Then you can try out the exercise on some of the most positive members of your family, the ones who did not do serious harm but were occasionally thoughtless about small things (nope, the abusers are not included in this group either). Only AFTER you feel VERY comfortable with this process and the concept in general is it safe to try the exercise on someone who actually hurt you, and even then it should be done from a distance. If it starts to hurt or backfire, go back a step or two and practice some more before you try that person again. It is not a fast process or a quick fix... and I still have a long long way to go... but this is the method I have been using, and it has been worth it for me. It is much like peeling back layers of an onion... start at the outermost layer... adjust... allow yourself to cry... wait to heal... then go to the next layer. The final goal is also not the abusers. The final goal, and the hardest to deeply forgive is the self. Forgiveness is about YOU and your path towards peace, abusers are just annoying layers of an onion.

There are many paths that lead to peace. The one that I find helpful might be harmful to another. All roads eventually lead to the same destination in this journey... so choose the one that is best for you.

I wish you all the best,

Liz H.

 

[Mercy]

Forgiveness and Burden

Forgiveness has so many different conotations for people. Many are on this thread, all worth merit.

In many ways, I feel that if I am the one who is hurt then I have a responsibility for that person, a gift wrapped in sorrow, that I cannot refuse. If I had refused this difficult gift then, I guess, what would have been left of me would have been a bag of bones with a charred soul. These people are real and the harm they did was real. There are just some things that are too big for any of us to handle alone. My belief in a higher power sustains me more than I can say. I know we have many different points of veiw about faith and all welcomed here. I have always had the sense that prayer for them was the work of my life. Now much has changed and the burden is lighter. It is so odd that I can forgive my mother for trying to kill me several times. But I am still PISSED that she gave away my bike, my skates, my favorite babydoll, my skis. Go figure!

Flashbacks can change the way I feel and think about them. When they are over, I can use them to identify a situation I need to ask for help about. I was helpless then, not now.

Yes, I had empathy for my Johns while they were with me. They knew that buying children was wrong. I could see their rage against women, their lust for power and total control. They really seemed happy, joyful when they saw or inflicted pain. Some of them must have been the proverbal fly wing tearers. A torturer only let's you live because he wants to do it again.

The perps had no empathy, didn't even know what it was. The conclusion of the Nueremburg Naxi trials showed that lack of empathy is what allowed otherwise 'normal' perple to do horrendous harm again and again.

It must be agony for those of you who have to be around the people who hurt you. I don't have to get tangled up in family connections and all the suffering, worry, anger and ?doubt? For me, doubt was a great dance while it lasted. I looked and could act sane always hiding my injuries well.

I'll leave you on a light note. My little daughter were walking down the hall in her preschool when she asked if she could carry something. I was balancing her coat, boots, lunchbox and art work. If I had tried to give her anything, all the stuff would have been on the floor. So I joked with her and said she could carry my foot.

We were both giggling and I could hear teachers talking in the hall. OOPS I'm going to get caught being bad- went straight into ah-o mode. Just then, my little one picked the absolutely correct moment to hold my foot higher so that all 175lbs (then..) fell on the point of one elbow. I just fell and rolled right back up without dropping anything. "I'm fine." A few days later, my shoulder, collar bone and neck all felt stiff and wrong.

I saw my Chiropractor who asked what had happened. Then he took the bone on the end of my elbow and started to move it side to side, up and down, around and around. I felt nothing. Nothing at all. The good note here is that I had someone from my present life who verify for me how it was that I could have survived when so many others didn't. I'm not sure where that leaves me with survivor guilt.....but I don't run this flawed and beautiful world.

 

[Nicolette]

I love this Mina;

“Making a choice not to continue to give power to the memory of a past hurt.”

Or, put from a different perspective , perhaps it could be said as allowing yourself to move forward without the weight of the past?