how to forgive

[roger]

You have to know that it's best for YOU to forgive others.

 

Forgive OTHERS for YOUR OWN SAKE.

 

It's very wise to forgive. It's emotionally, and can even be physically, healing.

 

Anger can be a block to one's divine Self; forgiveness releases that block.

 

The key to forgiving lies in knowing that it's SELF-LOVING to forgive others.

 

I'm sharing this not only for everyone here, but because I need to learn it more deeply also.

Edited June 9, 2016 by roger

[thelerner]

To forgive,

 

Yeah, its good but you can't force or fool yourself into it.  Sometimes, often.. it takes time.  Like grief, there are stages.  At times  anger is red hot, leave it alone, don't feed it, don't even try mental games other then distraction and working out.  Red hot anger spreads to every piece of you.   Do not make decisions, promises, threats or plans when anger has a hold of you.   Things done in anger are often things poisoned.   

 

When its not red hot, it can be tinder; dry and waiting.  Waiting for a match, which can be the smallest emotion, thought or trigger.  If you don't want it to flare up, keep away from the area, if you can.   We can attach to anger, using it like a self cutter uses a knife.  It makes us feel powerful while it burns us up, makes us stupid, violent and short sighted.  Moves us away from wisdom.   Hides choices from us.

 

With some time, distance and care you can build a fire wall.  Examine the situation dispassionately.  Create plans and strategy for dealing with the person or situation when it happens again.  Sometimes that helps.

 

With more time, the tinder breaks up, blows away.  As long as we keep gathering it back together.  Though its always good to remember what burned us and what we did that contributed to it. 

Edited June 9, 2016 by thelerner

[doc benway]

It's interesting to realize that when we hold on to bitterness, a grudge, anger, and similar feelings, they only hurt us.

They do not hurt the other person. Someone else wrongs us at some point and we punish ourselves, over and over, as a result.

[thelerner]

It's interesting to realize that when we hold on to bitterness, a grudge, anger, and similar feelings, they only hurt us.

They do not hurt the other person.

hmmnn, that's what stick and stones, fists and bones are for. 

To make sure the other person hurts like we do. 

[roger]

hmmnn, that's what stick and stones, fists and bones are for. 

To make sure the other person hurts like we do. 

 

Of course, you're only kidding, not being serious. But unfortunately, many people really do think that way.

 

Revenge, not only in big ways, but more often in small and subtle ways, is many people's way of dealing with their anger.

 

Revenge is probably the LEAST wise solution a person could possibly use to handle anger.

 

Just now I was going to explain why I believe that, but I'll just say that I feel very strongly about it, and I think with some contemplation and reason, it's easy to see.

 

Probably no Ph.D. psychotherapist  would recommend to a patient who has anger issues to seek revenge.

 

It seems somewhat comical to me to imagine a good psychotherapist making that suggestion to a patient.

Edited June 9, 2016 by roger

[WisteriaWinds]

Its easier to forgive when you realize you're not required to forget.

[Junko]

This is very difficult thing to do for everyone. Today even divine nature is learning how to forgive.....

[thelerner]

Of course, you're only kidding, not being serious. But unfortunately, many people really do think that way.

mostly.. more so now that I'm older.  Sadly I do know anger, its heat and passion.  That seeing red is not a metaphor.  It is.. seductive.. natural.. to be stayed away from. 

 

My wise sensei told us though, in a fight- if you're angry be angry but don't feed it and don't pretend to be something else.  Course the founder of our style Koichi Tohei was known for his combat smile. 

[C T]

How to forgive?

 

Imo... 

 

For every time a type of resentment seeps into consciousness and sparks an emotional reaction, counter this with an act of selfless kindness. 

 

Having difficulty doing this towards another human due to traumatic experiences? Start with domestic animals. Fish. Birds. Earthworms. Insects. Any sentient being that one may come across that is seen to be out of its comfort zone, bring some ease to it.

 

Love thy neighbour as themselves first before learning to love them as yourself because for some of us we really detest our own company to quite a harmful degree, yet we can be quite unconditionally open to the presence of say a cat, a dog, a horse or even a hedgehog. Practicing kindness unreservedly to any being in any of the realms generates the same merit regardless if its human, ghost, or a caterpillar. 

 

By making this into habit it will eventually transcend all of the probable situations in life that will potentially create the need to even have to practice forgiveness. Your inner being will experience a kind of expansiveness, gentleness and softness that is so empowering that you or anyone for that matter can know heaven in an instant - and knowing it for an instant is the same as knowing it for eternity. The taste is unforgettably without any distinguishable difference. 

 

My tuppence. 

[RiverSnake]

 

 

My wise sensei told us though, in a fight- if you're angry be angry but don't feed it and don't pretend to be something else.  Course the founder of our style Koichi Tohei was known for his combat smile. 

Lmao! Combat smile, love it.   

[liminal_luke]

To forgive others, I find it useful to think about my own failings.  Fortunately, I have a large number of failings available for possible contemptation, so I never run out of material.  When I can generate a feeling of compassion for myself for not having achieved this or that, I find I´m more filling to give others a break as well.

Edited June 11, 2016 by liminal_luke

[Marblehead]

To forgive others, I find it useful to think about my own failings.  Fortunately, I have a large number of failings available for possible contemptation, so I never run out of material.  When I can generate a feeling of compassion for myself for not having achieved this or that, I find I´m more filling to give others a break as well.

I just spoke to a similar concept elsewhere although I did not speak to your last sentence.

 

The reason why I have distress is that I have a body.

If I had no body, what distress would I have?

Lao Tzu

 

No distress - no one to forgive.

 

 

[3bob]

what ray of light could succeed in attacking the sun - that the sun would have to forgive?

[Astral_butterfly]

Forgiving is not an action it is a state of being. When you realise that people are instruments in your life. Even when it is gratuitous and very cruel, just the act of surmounting the trauma sends you to new heights of understanding yourself. Everything can become a gift and we come to a point where we say thank you for everything including the worst. Sometimes, especially the worst. When a certain understanding happens, one can detach one's self from seeking either reward or protection from new relationships. You also realise people are wired just as they are and you encountered them and you triggered each others' weak points. They are who they are. It is not personal. Whatever we need to work on gets served to us on a silver platter. Always be grateful and you will never need the action of forgiveness.

[Marblehead]

I'm not there and likely never will be but I did like your post.

[roger]

Forgiving is not an action it is a state of being. When you realise that people are instruments in your life. Even when it is gratuitous and very cruel, just the act of surmounting the trauma sends you to new heights of understanding yourself. Everything can become a gift and we come to a point where we say thank you for everything including the worst. Sometimes, especially the worst. When a certain understanding happens, one can detach one's self from seeking either reward or protection from new relationships. You also realise people are wired just as they are and you encountered them and you triggered each others' weak points. They are who they are. It is not personal. Whatever we need to work on gets served to us on a silver platter. Always be grateful and you will never need the action of forgiveness.

 

Based on my understanding, this is definitely one of the best things I've ever read here on this website.

 

I agree.

 

One can achieve a state where forgiveness is unnecessary because they understand that there wasn't a REAL "attack."

 

Love is all there really is.

 

This is what ACIM calls "the real world," where everything is seen as perfect and one no longer believes illusions are real.

 

Thanks so much for your post, Astral_butterfly. I needed to hear what you said.

Edited June 13, 2016 by roger

[3bob]

I don't think a warning would be out of place along these lines such as:  to exercise or be of unconditional love takes great wisdom and matching strength and unwavering power of being - without that one could be exercising idealistic projection which could bring complications...

[Astral_butterfly]

Based on my understanding, this is definitely one of the best things I've ever read here on this website.

 

I agree.

 

One can achieve a state where forgiveness is unnecessary because they understand that there wasn't a REAL "attack."

 

Love is all there really is.

 

This is what ACIM calls "the real world," where everything is seen as perfect and one no longer believes illusions are real.

 

Thanks so much for your post, Astral_butterfly. I needed to hear what you said.

 

 

Thank you very much Roger.

 

 

My background is that of the ultimate victim snowballing one persecution after another. Sexual abuse for example followed me from childhood. Culminating in a brutal and highly traumatic experience in 2009 that resulted in 3 months of hospitalisation for severe PTSD. In a foreign country with no friends or family.

 

 

Looking back now I can honestly say that this event was the turning point in my life. Everything I was before was defragmented and rebuilt.

 

 

I look back at the person I was before that happened and I can hardly believe it is me. And this is a very good thing. It is incredible that something so horrendous has been the single best thing that has ever happened to me.

 

 

Of course I am not condoning assaults but I do believe everything we are exposed to is a result of what we are trying to improve on or an opportunity of some sort. Some of us never recover and need intervention therefore we can never say all suffering is useful to everyone but on the whole everyone who has hurt me in my life has addressed something I needed to deal with or detach from.

 

 

I look back on people I used to cry over, people I gave my best to and "took me for a fool" and now I see them as being just like me, souls on a rough path trying to reach for the light. Even one who was borderline psychopathic.

 

 

It is amazing to no longer regret having done my best and I can say with conviction that whatever you do with love honour and respect is absolutely never ever to be regretted. Never stop giving but use your experience to gage when enough is enough as you cannot justify depleting yourself (I love the saying "if your compassion does not include yourself it is incomplete").

 

 

The hardest is definitely the forgiveness of the self but that happens when you start having true love and compassion for yourself and respecting your own journey, caring that you come out whole at the end of it all. You cannot be healed if you don't look back on your old self with compassion, like a child you are bringing back to your bosom. Give him/her à safe space to return to and re-integrate. Because you need back that innocence and candour.

[silent thunder]

This is such a potent experience for me in the last few years.

 

My experience of forgiveness has been indescribably empowering and in the space left vacant when resentment, judgement and bitterness are released, clarity, compassion and love manifest naturally, effortlessly.

 

They weren't kidding when it was written that to follow Tao, we don't add something each day, we let go, lose and release what we realize is not our nature.  And by far, what I am most grateful for losing is my desire to punish, or lash out in retribution, or to harbor resentment over past slights.

 

This does not mean I allow myself to be a victim, nor that I could sit by idly while others are harmed.  I still firmly and without any conscious choice or hesitation what so ever, will immediately subdue and isolate anyone harming another if and when it's in my power.  But once the perpetrator is isolated and the threat is diminished.  I no longer harbor and replay and feed the beast of outrage that I used to revel in for months and years.  I no longer have any desire to lash the perpetrator with foul and justified assaults.  Merely to isolate them, so they cannot do further harm, then if possible, heal all parties involved.

 

But really, I let it go.

 

I think perhaps it's one of the benefits to being rather amazingly lazy.

One day, I realized as intensely as is possible for me, that I only have so much energy and I had lost the impulse, desire and fortitude, to continue to feed energy into fighting things. 

 

I simply realized, I want to spend what energy I do have, on nurturing the things I love, rather than chasing some selfish ideal of personal judgement and justified punishment or retribution.

 

Of late, the most terrifying word in the English language to me, is 'justified'.  As soon as one feels justified in a course of action or punishment... nearly any atrocity is permissible.

 

To forgive is an act of self love, or for me, of realization.

Realization that I have no more energy to devote to fighting what I hate.

I want to spend that one nurturing what I love.

[Astral_butterfly]

This is such a potent experience for me in the last few years.

 

My experience of forgiveness has been indescribably empowering and in the space left vacant when resentment, judgement and bitterness are released, clarity, compassion and love manifest naturally, effortlessly.

 

They weren't kidding when it was written that to follow Tao, we don't add something each day, we let go, lose and release what we realize is not our nature. And by far, what I am most grateful for losing is my desire to punish, or lash out in retribution, or to harbor resentment over past slights.

 

This does not mean I allow myself to be a victim, nor that I could sit by idly while others are harmed. I still firmly and without any conscious choice or hesitation what so ever, will immediately subdue and isolate anyone harming another if and when it's in my power. But once the perpetrator is isolated and the threat is diminished. I no longer harbor and replay and feed the beast of outrage that I used to revel in for months and years. I no longer have any desire to lash the perpetrator with foul and justified assaults. Merely to isolate them, so they cannot do further harm, then if possible, heal all parties involved.

 

But really, I let it go.

 

I think perhaps it's one of the benefits to being rather amazingly lazy.

One day, I realized as intensely as is possible for me, that I only have so much energy and I had lost the impulse, desire and fortitude, to continue to feed energy into fighting things.

 

I simply realized, I want to spend what energy I do have, on nurturing the things I love, rather than chasing some selfish ideal of personal judgement and justified punishment or retribution.

 

Of late, the most terrifying word in the English language to me, is 'justified'. As soon as one feels justified in a course of action or punishment... nearly any atrocity is permissible.

 

To forgive is an act of self love, or for me, of realization.

Realization that I have no more energy to devote to fighting what I hate.

I want to spend that one nurturing what I love.

 

It is what I call "outcomes-based behaviour". No use doing anything unnecessary, just focus on the result of your action or inaction. What Lao Tzu would call "moving like a cat". Basically saving your qi for what is absolutely necessary and not applying it to waste, like a cat who only tenses the correct number of muscles. Fantastic point.

Edited June 13, 2016 by Astral_butterfly

[3bob]

...and who would or could be an instrument of impartial karma or law acting without attachment anyway, (?) for karma may be impartial but it  comes home personally.

 

also a warriors quandary may arise not unlike that of Arjuna on the battlefield in the Bhagavad Gita...(although on different personal levels or scales)

Edited June 13, 2016 by 3bob

[Astral_butterfly]

Basically at the core we are all spirals of love, source qi moving as one and the peaceful waves smooth out the stormy waves or otherwise get influenced by the storm. The point is to shed what we think is our personality which is often a bundle of coping mechanisms acting like mini storms and become more aware of the peaceful inner core in others no matter how far and deep it may glimmer from.

[silent thunder]

verse 31 rings out particularly strong on this point...

 

Weapons are the tools of violence;
all decent men detest them.

Weapons are the tools of fear;
a decent man will avoid them
except in the direst necessity
and, if compelled, will use them
only with the utmost restraint.
Peace is his highest value.
If the peace has been shattered,
how can he be content?
His enemies are not demons,
but human beings like himself.
He doesn't wish them personal harm.
Nor does he rejoice in victory.
How could he rejoice in victory
and delight in the slaughter of men?

He enters a battle gravely,
with sorrow and with great compassion,
as if he were attending a funeral.

[roger]

Everyone, your posts on this thread have inspired and empowered me. I've learned a great deal from reading them, and they definitely speak directly to my current circumstances and where I am.

 

Thank you!