A deep and meaningful - forgiveness

[flamingobingo]

What does it mean to you? Is it always possible? Is the same or different from forgetting? If so, in what way?

Who have you had to forgive? Was it for something minor or something really big? What happened?

I have had issues with someone significant to me for a long time. However despite being treated badly and choosing for them no longer to actively be in my life I do still care about them and wish them well. I have decided to accept what happened and let go.

OMG letting go was so HARD but lifted such a weight off me.

For me I always try to think of forgiveness as a choice not a feeling, so It's a decision in my head rather than in my emotions. Of course it can take quite some time for my feelings to catch up with my decision . To be fair (as I do not wish to be flippant) I haven't had to forgive anyone something major. I do think that living with anger, resentment, bitterness or unforgiveness can sometimes be very imprisoning and painful. Forgetting is different and is probably more about time and focus. If you don't continually re-play things in your head which serves to remind you of the hurt but instead make an effort to focus on something else, then forgetting will be easier. Hope nothing horrid has happened to you flamingo that prompted you to post the question.

i have had to forgive someone i love deeply for vacillating over his feelings for me, and being volatile and swinging away from me, then back to me, then away from me all over again, over a number of years and causing untold suffering. we cannot be together and in fact rarely now see each other, but love each other permanently and irrevocably and i have - finally! - forgiven him the pain he has caused me. it has taken years, and much meditation and contemplation. but oh the lightness of heart - as evla says - the weight that lifts from you! he has had cause to forgive me misdemeanours too, that date to long, long ago, and has done so

Forgiveness isn't the same as forgetting. Our life experiences, good and bad, make us the people we are. To forget those experiences would be to lose the value of what those experiences could, and should, have taught us. Forgiveness, for me, is about letting go.

I was in an abusive relationship for a good few years and when it ended I was still very angry, resentful and unhappy. I tried to forgive my abusive ex as I knew the anger and resentment weren't good for me, but I simply couldn't. I felt she didn't deserve my forgiveness.

Instead (and prompted by people who had been where I'd been), I tried hard to forgive myself. I was angry as hell that my ex had treated me the way she had but I realised that I was even more angry with me because I felt I had let her do it. I'd made some spectacular mistakes in believing her lies and in helping her cover up what how she was behaving. It was my anger at my mistakes that was harming me much more than anything about her.

Once I forgave myself for those mistakes, and realised I'd done the best I could with the knowledge and experience I'd had at the time, a lot of that anger and resentment disappeared.

Since then, I still haven't consciously gone out to forgive my ex or forget what happened during our relationship. Instead, what happened back then simply doesn't matter to me any more. I've let go of the resentment about it. What happened, happened. I can't change that fact and to wish otherwise would be a waste of time and emotional energy. I think it's better to invest that time and energy into making sure that I understand the mistakes I made in the past so I can be sure I won't make those same mistakes again.

There's a great line in one of Melody Beattie's books about resentment that goes something like "Holding on to resentment is like swallowing poison and hoping that the other person will drop dead" Letting go of that resentment is a freeing act, and forgiving ourselves is (I think) a very important step in that.