forgiveness is..?

"'Forgiveness' is giving up the hope that the past could've been any different."  Forgiveness is giving up the hope that the past could've been any different.  So you don't hold on to wishing that you'd had a different kind of brother, a different kind of mother, a different kind of family.  You let that go and you move forward with the grace that God has given you.  From this day on, forgiveness is giving up the hope that the past could've been any different." ~ Oprah Winfrey

Yes Oprah Winfrey. I wanted to focus on the task at hand. This quote helps me work towards forgiveness.

The quote is really inspiring and whatnot, but I'm really not ready for forgiveness towards anyone who's done me wrong. Maybe its because my wounds are steel bleeding. Or maybe because I simply dont WANT to forgive.. But That quote is a nice thing to hear. Maybe someday I will though.

Likewise in my situation. I'm not ready to forgive. I have heard many questions about what forgiveness is and how do you forgive someone that has done something so awful and I can never come up with a good answer for anyone or my self. So I decided to Google it. And Google gave me this quote. I know what you must be thinking, Google can't possibly have all the answers..of course not. I'm not very religious at all for one, and this is just one aspect of forgiveness I believe. And until I fully understand forgiveness I will have to keep it on my check list of things to do. Thanks Google for the insight.. but its a long journey.

I dunno. Google does have the answer to a lot of things. Lol. But all joking aside, I agree. It will be a long journey. Considering I'm still my suggestive household and what probably caused my biggest split only happened a few years ago. I hope that one day I might be able to at least put all of this behind me, and maybe forgive, but as of now, I honestly doubt it...

I think part of me wants to forgive certain offenders in my past, but most of me is not ready to embrace that idea right now. I do try to think of forgiving as something that is a gift to myself, more than it is a gift to those I would forgive, because it would release a certain power that they hold over me. It would be another step toward becoming a thriving survivor rather than merely a powerless victim. I try to imagine how it is that my offenders got to the point where they did what they did - what kind of suffering brought them to behave in such ways? I suppose that is also me trying to make sense of the world by wanting to believe that people are not cruel *just because* and without some sort of background to explain it. But I haven't convinced all of myself of this yet.

Sweet n Sour wrote:I think part of me wants to forgive certain offenders in my past, but most of me is not ready to embrace that idea right now. I do try to think of forgiving as something that is a gift to myself, more than it is a gift to those I would forgive, because it would release a certain power that they hold over me. It would be another step toward becoming a thriving survivor rather than merely a powerless victim.

Well said, and also more of the other aspects I believe forgiveness is all about. I dont want to be a victim forever, but I am not yet sure what else I need to do to shed this mentality.

I think that on the level of the conscious act of forgiving, I have forgiven. When each of my parents died, I was so relieved. Both of them died due to long illnesses that lasted for years, and they had had more than their share of suffering. My mum also asked me to forgive her past mistakes and wrongdoings. Of course I forgave. Besides, I had forgotten a lot by then... or so I thought.

I've always survived and managed my life by not focusing on the past, especially not the difficult parts. Forgiveness has always been very easy for me as a genuine gesture that settles things and makes it possible for people to move on and not to dig up the old mistakes and accusations time after time. Growing up in a house where people did that every day and experiencing what it feels like to be the target I saw it's not right.

While forgiveness has been the way I've dealt with things, the consequences of what happened in my family have started to gradually cause me more trouble in my life after the immense insecurity and tension created by my parents first seemed to go away with them. Actually it didn't go anywhere, only now I've realized how scarred I am. Moreover, not every member of my family has passed away, I still have to do something about my conflicting feelings about them too. As for my parents, neither of them became saints during the time they were terminally ill. They both were unfair even then, and they both hurt my feelings as if it was something they were naturally entitled to do.

When I went to psychological counselling earlier this year, the psychologist pointed out that I have alternative stories of how things could have been if the members of family and later my spouse only had chosen to act differently. I had never noticed how big part of my thinking these narratives of a better life are. They have grown larger regardless of the fact that I've consciously forgiven everyone. At this point in life, I've finally started to see myself as the victim. After all these years of forgiving and trying to forget I'm still trying to survive with my mind.

Aecy: Forgiveness for me is letting go of that hope, or that feeling that somehow, by holding on to it, you can change how it happened. Forgiveness is moving on. Forgiveness is often private, too.

But never forget that forgiveness does NOT mean letting the one who hurt you hurt you again, or not being upset about it, not hurting, or not getting angry every so often. It just means you don't stay in that state; forgiveness is knowing when to move on and stop hurting yourself by holding onto something that'll hurt you more by focusing on.

I think it also includes an element of hoping for the future instead of fixating on the pains of the past. Forgiveness is knowing when to say "I'm upset, It hurts, but it's in the past. Tomorrow can be different. Let's try not to let yesterday keep us from a better tomorrow, if we can make one."

Malice: Yeah, 'bout right, though more flowery and effing bass-awkwardly sentimental.
Forgiveness is knowin when to move on. I forgive for my own freaking sake, not for anybody else's, because at the end of the day most people don't even WANT to be "forgiven." It's not saying what they did was right, either, or giving them a free pass. I think you can forgive someone and still take em to motherfreakin court and rake their arses over the coals hard-core, as long as it's not driven by fear and a desire to hurt them MORE than they hurt you or whatever.

Not that I don't want to freakin put my parents through mothereffin hell and then some, but it's not really productive. Usually I go through a few visualizations and then more the eff on cus it don't freakin help anybody and it makes me feel worse after a few times.

So... Whatever. Forgiveness to me is knowing when to say "Eff you, b-tards. I'm not going to worry about your goddarned mothereffing bullcrap anymore. I've got my own life to live and I'm not freakin letting your bass-awkwardism eff me up any more than I have to now that you're out of my motherfreaking life.", giving them, and the abuse, the mental finger, and moving on to fixing the crap that's wrong instead of fixating on said bullcrappery.

Ayame - Mom never forgaev. We don't wanna be like mom. so we gotta forgive if it kills us, cus we sure as hell ain't gonna maek dat mistaek, yah know? >.>; Yah kin learn a lot frum bad examples n $#%^, so that's what we kinda wanna do. ^-^; We've seen too much of what not forgivin can do, so we know bettar than ta let ourselves do dat. D: Dunno how I'd survive if I couldn't let $#%^ go n move on n crap. Couldn't function n $#%^. ~Shudders~ notafunthoughtatall. Notatall.

This post made me think...

Please be gentle with me here. It's not something I've looked at before. I hope that this is an appropriate place to write, and ok to write. It's a bit rambly.

***triggering bit***
To forgive there has to be something to forgive.
[Stuff happened]
That's something to forgive, right?

Do you have to have been angry to forgive?
upset? frightened?
What emotion do you have to feel?

I'd always thought I had forgiven. But reading these makes me think maybe I never thought there was anything to forgive.

Sorry...
C - perplexed.

Lovely quote though

VoyageOfDiscovery wrote:This post made me think...

Please be gentle with me here. It's not something I've looked at before. I hope that this is an appropriate place to write, and ok to write. It's a bit rambly.

***triggering bit***
To forgive there has to be something to forgive.
[Stuff happened]
That's something to forgive, right?

Do you have to have been angry to forgive?
upset? frightened?
What emotion do you have to feel?

I'd always thought I had forgiven. But reading these makes me think maybe I never thought there was anything to forgive.

Sorry...
C - perplexed.

Lovely quote though

Yes. Though sometimes, YOU are the one who gets upset, so you are the one who needs to forgive yourself.


If that makes sense? o.o Least that's what I got from yer post.

`Ayame