Forgiveness
Today I woke up with the scariest thought. All night I had dreamed about the demise of a person who caused me great joy, then great pain. Just before I woke up, in the dream I was told that he had committed suicide. Now it was just a dream, but the feelings that it brought up in me were of sadness, guilt, shame, and strangely relief. In real life I had been betrayed and violated by this person, and so when I made a life altering decision to remove him from my life by most all extensions, I began to feel better about life and about myself. I am wondering though about that sensation of relief. I don't want to be one of those people who has had someone hurt them, and becomes bitter and selfish and UGLY inside and out. I want to forgive. My problem though may be that I have not forgiven myself for allowing him to violate me and my family in the ways that he did. How can I ever forgive him? How can I ever forgive myself?
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Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Lily on
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By forgiving him you will free yourself from him. May I recommend Louise Hay book "You can heal your life"? It will tell you why it's important for YOU to forgive.
Much love
Lily (Yaron's Mom)
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Permalink Reply by Tannur on
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Hi Lily, thank you so much for the advice. It's so funny that you mentioned that book because I recently moved, and in the house where I'm staying that book happens to be on the bookshelf. My mom used to read that book to us first, before administering any first aid, or medical care (emotional and physical). She always wanted to address the root causes of our problems. You are right, maybe it's time for me to get back to the root of the problem. Thanks, again.
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Permalink Reply by Yaron Fishman on
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Thank you for sharing this Tannur. I think you have a lot of wisdom to be able to recognize how important it is to forgive yourself. Through experience, I've realized that when I was unable to forgive others, it was directly connected to the struggles I've had with forgiving myself. What I've learned is that forgiveness comes through Understanding. When I can understand myself, I can be more accepting of myself and others. When I can understand myself, it is much easier to understand others and why they do things. In my lifetime I've experienced what it is like to hurt others so that I could feel better about myself, and although I haven't taken that to the same destructive extremes as some people, I can understand the fear, the insecurity and thirst for power that led them to their actions. I can see that each person is doing the best they can given their current understanding of the world. I've realized that any feelings of anger, jealousy or hatred that I've ever felt were a result of my own fear. I was afraid of losing power, I was insecure, and seeking to be more powerful (in a shallow, egotistical way). Although I'm still working on it, these days I'm much more confident because I'm able to see my life as a continuous evolution, and I realize that true power is in the ability to share inspiration, love and compassion.
My suggestion to you would be to keep learning about yourself, understand yourself, forgive yourself, accept yourself and LOVE yourself. When you can do that with Yourself, it is much much easier to do it with others.
Again, thank you for sharing this Tannur....we've been friends for many years, and I'm very happy you are here :)
Love you Sista,
Yaron
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YYYYYYYAAAAAAAAAARRROOOOONNNNNN!!! Thank you so much for responding. I am working on this self love thing. You know, it's easy to love yourself when things in life are going well and there are no problems. It's so hard though, when your mistakes stare you in the face. That's where I am right now. I know though, that I have placed myself in this semi-solitude for a reason. A good reason. Here we go... I'm about to find out about myself. This ought to be interesting.
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Permalink Reply by MiraCulous on
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After a bitter quarrel, some resentment remains.
What can one do about it?
Being content with what you have
is always best in the end.
Someone must risk returning injury with kindness,
or hostility will never return to goodwill.
So the wise always gives without expecting gratitude.
One with true virtue always seeks a way to give.
One who lacks true virtue always seeks a way to get.
To the giver comes the fullness of life; to the taker, just an empty hand.
79th verse Tao Te Ching~ Wayne Dyer's interpretation from the book 'Change your thoughts, Change your life-Living the wisdom of the Tao'
In every verse, he explains it, then there is a "Do the Tao now" section....here is what this one notes..
Silently recite the following words from the prayer of Saint Francis, "Where there is injury {let me bring} pardon." Be a giver of forgiveness as he teaches: Bring love to hate, light to darkness, and pardon to injury. Read these words daily, for they'll help you overcome your ego's demands and know the "fullness of life".
~~~Hope this helps : )
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Permalink Reply by Popxart on
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i would imagine that the best way to do it would be to see him as you, yourself, manifest in another vehicle, and do everything you can to treat him how you would like to be treated, as a soul. this would include not allowing that vehicle to violate those others so that you all have even more to feel guilty about. maybe it was a cautionary dream to prevent such an outcome on the physical. maybe it was memories of previous lifecycles when that sort of thing would happen to you when you were at that point on that particular turn of the spiral of life and the relief was the fact that you woke up from it. maybe he was symbolising your own lower nature which had destroyed itself in that moment. maybe you will dream another dream where he represents the prodigal son. anythings possible bro.
with love.
ps...i need all this too =)
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i wrote my reply without looking at your profile and realise now that i should be calling you sis instead of bro. the reply remains the same though which proves that its not about gender so thats cool. but yeah. bless those who curse you. i wish i could. and our wish is loves command =)
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Permalink Reply by Shimona on
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I saw your post and had to write a comment back. Though I cant really add to the advice everyone has given you, I can relate entirely and I wanted to tell you that you arent alone, and it does get better. Even easier. Positive affirmations can help tremendously. Sometimes days are so bad, you have to tape them to your mirrors, but they work. Over time, you will get to a point that you will be able to take a shoe box or something and put all your memories, feelings, thoughts from that time in your life and put it on the top shelf, and then leave it there. Good luck moving forward and on your journey to discovering you. I bet you like what you find.
Shimona :)
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Permalink Reply by caterina on
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It is better to forgiven then to hate and i agree with yaron's mom forgiving him will free yourself from him
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Permalink Reply by Angela on
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well in my opinion, you can forgive him. give him a second chance, but do not trust him and befriend him anymore than you would a ordinary person in a hallway. smile, say hello, how are you. thats it. If he hurt you like its sounds the way he did, there is no need to feel ashamed for protecting yourself from being hurt again. the only thing is, people make mistakes, and maybe, idk but maybe, to put youself and the person at ease, just do the right thing by you. forgive but dont forget.
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"It's easy to forgive people who have never done anything to make us angry. People who do make us angry, however, are our most important teachers. They indicate the limits to our capacity for forgiveness."
—Excerpted from A Return to Love: Reflections on the Principles of A Course in Miracles
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Permalink Reply by Rich Buckley on
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It may be beyond human capacities to perfect the process of forgiveness. But it remains within our capacity to continue to practice forgiveness.... and that may be enough.
Rich
Peace and Conflict Resolution.Org
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