Was talking about something vaguely related to this earlier, and thought I'd share some of my random thoughts that I have had on this subject.
It's a part of what I perceived as a tangible benefit to many of Christianity. Forgiving someone for something seems to me to be A Good Thing. Now, I know that some people like to hold on to these things, but, each to his own.
I remember someone telling me once that it frustrated them that they found it difficult to forgive some stuff, when her hubby would just be like... fine, ok... nice and chilled. Which I think is potentially good, dependent upon your reasons - I think some stuff actually should be difficult to forgive, it shouldn't be a simple click of the fingers, everything's fine sort of job. You need to appreciate really what it is you're forgiving, and I suspected that perhaps it was more a case of one cared about it more than the other. But that's just me being a suspicious bugger ;)
Hmm. Having said that :) I have always found it fairly easy to forgive things - often to the point where it's so easy that it barely even occurs to me that there is anything to forgive.
I mean there is stuff that hurt, but, I don't hold it against her. It is a little odd to be around her now not because of that, but simply because of how close things were, versus how close things now aren't. Which is more just a little weird than anything else in particular :)
I was aware that it was last July that I began making really significant posts to my blog. It is amazing to think... One year and one week today, since I made what felt the most significant.
That was so hard, so hard at the time to write.
It is much easier now. Ok, still kind of embarassing, but easier. Indeed, I even ended up summarising the whole thing to someone "out loud" the other day, like, properly talking to them and everything ;)
Hey, I even mentioned it off-hand when they said something about honesty - "Hey, you don't need to drink to be honest - I told you I haven't had sex in five years, remember!"
At which point it was pointed out that actually I'm 27 (and-a-half), which makes it six-and-a-half years. Ah. Well. Yes. Thanks for that ;) Nah, I didn't even mind that :)
It is so much less important to me now, in the Grand Scheme of Things. Ah, I've lost my thread now. I've ended up going at tangents, combining multiple blog ideas into one. That's what happens when you have too many vague ideas ;)
Forgiveness. So. I can only really remember one thing I chose not to forgive. It was about ten years ago, regarding an online incident that I can't be bothered to detail, but it hurt me at the time, and I wanted to be angry about it.
To be honest... A part of me almost enjoyed it... To actually focus my efforts and humour and be mean to someone... I don't recall having done that before (or since), and it was interesting to realise how much of a bastard I could be if I really wanted to be ;)
But, again, to be honest... After a short while I actually felt quite guilty about it and I almost had to struggle NOT to get over it ;) (This wasn't like a BIG thing, as I said, it was only online, and only went on for, I don't know, a couple of months or something)
I think the time I struggle most to be able to forgive something is when I can't understand it. Then it's normally more difficult. Fortunately, I can manage to understand most things after a while ;) Especially once they're explained. To the best of my recollection, I have been lucky enough that I think anything that's ever happened to me that has hurt, I have been able to understand, or to at least come up with potential explanations for. And if I can understand it, I'm probably over half-way there...
And in the end, I can find reasons for a lot of things that did (or didn't) happen, and I can understand them, and I can forgive them. I mean the most recent 'big' thing was a few months back when I realised she'd been reading my blog. And once she'd explained why... I could see why she'd done it - I just wish she'd have told me. Certainly, I learnt enough times over the last few months that there just is never a good time to say some things, but that doesn't mean you can leave them left unsaid. Just have to grit 'yr teeth and get on with it :)
Oh, I could go on to 100 more tangents from here... And I have completely lost my original thread, I'm sure I was headed somewhere but I got too distracted both by myself (as I wrote) and the things around me (one of those days, phew!), so I think I'll just hit the Publish button and let this unstructured mess go ;)
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Heard a helpful thing once and it has stayed with me - that forgiveness isn't for the other person, but for you. It's a gift you give yourself, a letting go of a perceived "right" to be angry - because that actually doesn't do you any good. It doesn't have to mean putting yourself in a position where they can do it to you again, and some healthy boundaries can be put in place in order to prevent that. It may mean full reconciliation, it may not. But it does mean that you choose not to feel angry about that person any more each time you think about them.
ReplyDeleteForgiving someone is not about whether "I can forgive", it's about whether "I will forgive". It's a choice.
Something I notice though - often people are angry and unforgiving towards another person, when in fact it's themselves that they are actually really angry with. Being angry with the other person can actually effectively mask that anger with oneself, that deep deep feeling that we should have known what they'd do, should have seen it coming, shouldn't have let it happen to ourselves.
Tolstoy said that the reason for our rage is always inside us. In other words, it's actually about us, not about the other person.
Interesting......
I don't find it hard to forgive - mainly because I grew up with a mother who held such grudges, had such bitterness inside her about so many things. I saw the damage it did to her; I experienced first-hand the damage it did to our relationship (and her relationship with everyone). It was aversion therapy for me.
For me it's not about rationalising or understanding what the person did - though that can help. For example with my mother - I had already decided to forgive her for the physical and emotional abuse in my childhood (and early adulthood, if I let her), but finding out about her own dysfunctional childhood helped me work through the letting-go and making sure it was complete.
People do the best they can with what they have. Of course that depends on what they had to start with. And besides, they are free agents. They don't have to behave the way I want them to, I don't have the right to control them and make them behave as I want them to.
Forgiveness is a gift that you give yourself. It's not a long process, it's an on/off switch. It really is as simple as that. I choose to give that gift to myself every day. It's liberating.
Zeb.
I tend to suffer more with the guilt of a situation - coulda/shoulda/woulda. Sometimes it's about forgiving yourself. that can be harder than forgiving other people. Other people make mistakes but we expect so much of ourselves to be the right whatever it is, that we are little pots of guilt when we inevitably fail.
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