[Nina]

perhaps for me it's semantics...I don't have, for myself, a goal of 'forgiveness'...my goal is for 'acceptance'...what happened, what choices (or compulsions) were meted out is what happened...I think that it's my way of letting go of wishing things had not happened...or trying to figure out what (and it's almost always nothing) I could have done to prevent events, or what I might have 'done' to cause them...

I am, often to my detriment, able to really Understand why people do harm to others...how their own injuries drive them to act out in the ways they do, etc...I also know that someone with the same kinds of woundings can choose Not to impose harm on others...(that is simplistic I know)...

my challenge is just accepting the truth of things...not getting stuck in wishing...not getting mired in self-pity...not giving up on struggling to move through the effects of being broken in ways which could keep me paralyzed...I find that when I am able to look at things and not have an immediate reaction which leads to self-destructive impulses, I have achieved a freedom from the past and move in the present and into the future empowered...

as for forgetting....I never forget, and I don't want to...all the experiences of my life are just that--all the pieces that make up the Whole of My Life...I strive to be able to remember by conscious choice and not by having tapes running on a loop...but I want to have the strength and grace to hold all the memories of my life...

that's what I work for and on and somehow forgiving just isn't the right fit for me, or what my internal filing system is all about...

n