|
What is Forgiveness?
"Giving up my right to hurt someone who has hurt me." submitted by Barb To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover the prisoner was you...
"Forgiveness is not: 1) A sense of false humility that makes us better than somebody else, 2) Condoning ignorant or harmful behavior, 3) Any one specific set of "right" behaviors, 4) A 'spiritual' evasion of real grief work.
Forgiveness is: 1) A deep psycho-spiritual process capable of honing our wisdom. 2) An attitude that sets us free, so that we are not continually revictimized by our wounds. 3) A way that replaces fear and isolation with love and connection. 4) A dramatic action we can take to improve our health. 5) A way to live in beauty and in balance -- without judgement or expectation toward self or others.
"Forgiveness isn't about letting them off the hook......it's about taking the knife out of your own soul." "God wants you to heal more than he wants you to forgive." THE TOP 10 STEPS TO FORGIVENESS ------------------------------------------------------------------------- For many people forgiveness is one of the hardest steps of all in our progress toward freedom of spirit. Yet it is essential. For as long as we are unable to forgive, we keep ourselves chained to the unforgiven. We give them rent-free space in our minds, emotional shackles on our hearts, and the right to torment us in the small hours of the night. When it is time to move on, but still too hard, try some or all of these steps. (Note that these steps are appropriate for events resulting from an ongoing relationship with anyone. They may not all be appropriate for the random act of violence from a stranger.) 1. Understand that forgiving does not mean giving permission for the behavior to be repeated. It does not mean saying that what was done was acceptable. Forgiveness is needed for behaviors that were not acceptable and that you should not allow to be repeated. 2. Recognize who is being hurt by your non-forgiveness. Does the other person burn with your anger, feel the knot in your stomach, experience the cycling and recycling of your thoughts as you re-experience the events in your mind? Do they stay awake as you rehearse in your mind what you would like to say or do to 'punish' them? No, the pain is all yours. 3. Do not demand to know 'why' as a prerequisite to forgiveness. Knowing why the behavior happened is unlikely to lessen the pain, because the pain came at a time when you did not know why. Occasionally there are times when knowing why makes forgiveness unnecessary, but they are rare. Don't count on it and don't count on even the perpetrator knowing why. 4. Make a list of what you need to forgive. What was actually done that caused your pain? Not what you felt, what was done. ( Steps 5 and 6 are addressing adults, not our "child's" abuse. A child is not responsible.)5. Acknowledge your part. Were you honest about your hurt or did you hide the fact that the behavior hurt you? Did you seek peace by reassuring the perpetrator that it was all right? Did you stay when you could or should have left? If so, then you, too, have some responsibility. (Here you start to move away from being a victim.) 6. Make a list of what you gained from the relationship, whatever form of relationship it was. Looking back you may be focusing on the negatives, the hurts. Yet if they were repeated, you must have stayed to allow the repetition. You did not remove yourself. Why? There must have been some positives if you chose to stay around. What were they? 7. Write a letter to the person (no need to mail it). Acknowledge what you gained from the relationship, and express forgiveness for the hurts. Allow yourself to express all your feelings fully. Do not focus only on the hurts. 8. Create a ceremony in which you get rid of your lists and the letter, so symbolizing the ending of the link between you. You may choose to visualize placing them on a raft and watching it drift gently away down a river. You may prefer to burn them and scatter the ashes. You may invent some other form of ritualized separation. 9. Visualize the person you are forgiving being blessed by your forgiveness and, as a result, being freed from continuing the behavior that hurt you. 10. Now that you have freed yourself from the painful links and released the pain, feel yourself growing lighter and more joyous. Now you are free to move on with your life without that burden of bitterness. Do not look back in anger. About the Submitter: This piece was originally submitted by Diana Robinson, Ph.D. , Professional Life Coach, Writer, Editor, Counselor, who can be reached at Diana@choicecoach.com, or visited on the web at http://www.ChoiceCoach.com
"When we are forgiving, we attempt to forgive those who wrong us for the specific harm they have caused. But incidents of wrongdoing can never be made right. Forgiveness cannot come by addressing a particular incident alone. It can only come by forgiving the character of the person who did the wrong. The character is the sum total of all the person's behavior. We forgive persons for being who they are. We forgive them for not being totally reliable human beings. Such forgiveness is possible only when we have accepted our own character flaws." "We are usually unable to forgive and allow ourselves to be fallible human beings. Because of this harshness, we are not good at forgiving others. The more we pressure ourselves with our morality, the greater our self-condemnation." "Religious morality cannot help us forgive because it imposes an idea of forgiveness that does not come from the heart. 'I forgive you because God expects that of me.' "Forgiveness was never divine. It has always arisen from the innocence of heart which gives permission to be fallible." "Since I could never live up to my expectations of myself, there was nothing left to do but allow myself to make mistakes and learn from them all along the way. I found I became more accepting of my mistakes when my intention was to learn from them." "We own our mistakes without condemnation because we are interested in self-growth, not self-abuse. Forgiveness flows easily from ourselves to other people because our hearts are not involved in any internal conflict." Lessons From the Dying by Rodney Smith
Applied to other people, forgiveness is a process through which we seek to free ourselves from the bondage to another person that is maintained for as long as we stand in judgment of them. Forgiveness is not the misguided act of condoning irresponsible, hurtful behavior. Nor is it a superficial turning of the other cheek that leaves us feeling victimized and martyred. Rather it is the finishing of old business that allows us to experience the present, free of contamination from the past. Joan Borysenko, Ph.D., Fire In The Soul Are you able to forgive those who have crossed your path? To find out how good you are at forgiving, take the self-test at Spirituality & Health online. Healing Power of Real Forgiveness Gary Zukav, Seat of the Soul, on forgiveness
05/27/2001, "Here is a definition of sorts about forgiveness by
Alice Miller from Seven
Seventy Times Seven : The Power of Forgiveness The Unburdened Heart : 5 Keys to
Forgiveness and Freedom
|