Forgiveness

[dark_crystal]

Originally Posted by apocalipstic

My goal in life is to be as different from my abuser as I can be. Thank you for saying what you did because many of us make it our life's goal to be different, to break the cycle.

i know you are going in a completely different direction with this than i am going to talk about, but this statement struck a tangential chord in me that i wanted to share:

During my adolescence and young adulthood, my mother and i went through a massive power struggle that was very damaging to me...it is not a new story but her personal issues with perfectionism and security meant that she clung to her authority for its own sake, and was never able to see past the insult of my questioning her and actually listen to me. She had a scorched-earth policy on any questioning of her and this meant that there was nothing too horrible to say in an argument if it meant she would win. Eventually i was hospitalized for three months for depression, substance abuse, and self-mutilation.

i spent my twenties trying to escape the hold of those damages by doing everything i could to be the opposite kind of person she is. Then i got to my thirties and realized that the persona i had created in doing this bore no resemblance to my authentic self, and that my authentic self is actually a lot like her. My forgiveness process has consisted of accepting her in me, and learning to value those qualities objectively

Now i mostly feel like what happened during my youth was extremely unfortunate, but mostly inevitable due to the way she herself was raised and the demons she struggles with that are totally about her and just spilled out all over me in a damaging and dangerous, but not malicious, way

Originally Posted by softness

I have recently contacted most of my exes in preparation to do my ammends.

aargh i am terrified of step nine. This is probably why i am spending so much time on step three!

Forgiveness in general is a very fraught issue for me. My mother's scorched-earth tactics, described above, have been echoed by a succession of similarly abusive partners. I am pathologically afraid of conflict and confrontation, because my experience has always been that questions and complaints start arguments that will quickly escalate out of all control.

To avoid this i automatically "forgive" everything. I have just learned that taking any even the most minor stand on an issue means gambling everything- my partners always learn that if they just escalate any issue to the point where they threaten to break up with me i will fold- even if i feel passionately about something, when they put it into the context of "either you buy me a playstation or i am leaving" i will think "i don't want to buy the playstation but it seems a trivial thing to break up over" and hand over my wallet.

But why do i take that onto myself? If they go to that place over a playstation it is them being trivial, not me!

But i can always see how they are not going to stop until they get their way and they are always willing to go lower than i am...and i am a very peace/security/comfort loving person and i just want the argument to end so i can crawl under a rock out of their way somewhere.

This looks like forgiveness because i have stopped complaining but it isn't really. And being so afraid of conflict means i never complain, and i end up with so much stockpiled hurt that there gets to be no way to possibly address it ALL, and the only thing to do is leave. I think i have left relationships that could have been saved because of this (my most recent ex was not abusive, but i was so traumatized by the time we got together that i was practically a robot. i started feeling unhappy 8 months into the relationship. if i could have told her we could have worked through each issue as it arose. i did not and they piled up and eventually there was that straw...)

in terms of becoming an offender i am facing this about myself, too. My self-esteem is LOW. In the past i have used relationships and sex to fill that hole. Also i am very concerned with security and safety and having a "daddy" to hide behind always seems like a route to safety.

This means that i have gotten into relationships because i need to be in a relationship and not because i truly love the person. Many times i have been willing to accept anyone who likes me because it is so unbelievable to me that someone could like me, i feel like i can't pass on any opportunity because i may never have another one.

This means i have used those people. I have not loved them for who they are, i have loved them for what they represent. I have not been able to see who they are because i was afraid if i looked too closely i would see something that didn't fit with what i needed them to be

This is me abusing them. And their awareness of how badly i needed to be with someone, anyone, is how they knew how to control me. And their subconscious awareness that i was using them made it that much easier to abuse me...and it has been a cycle that repeats endlessly. I need to forgive myslef for abusing them, and i need to forgive them based on how my using them set us both up for dysfunction.

i have recognized it though! After my last breakup i swore to stay out of relationships for at least a year so i could unpack all my baggage and stop doing this to people. That year was up last Saturday. Unfortunately i didn't actually start therapy until 8 months into that year so i probably still have another eight months to go AT LEAST

and who knows how long it will really be, because right now my thinking any time a potential relationship glimmers is "IT'S A TRAP!!!!! RUN!"

ok i see that i have rambled on about a lot of stuff besides forgiveness

forgive me?

[Venus007]

Originally Posted by dark_crystal

My forgiveness process has consisted of accepting her in me, and learning to value those qualities objectively

Oooh I needed to hear that little part right there. For me that has been one of the hardest things, to move forward enough to embrace the objectively good qualities planted in me by my family members who have wronged me. I WANT to throw the baby out with the bath water, it is so much easier.
As I integrate the parts of myself that I see are similar and formed by my abuser AND objectively valuable it helps to bring peace to the process, at least for me.

Thank you for saying this

[Venus007]

What are your thoughts on forgiveness?
Forgiveness is very tightly tied to the idea of acceptance. There is nothing I can do to change the past or the things I perceive as negative that happened to me. I can only accept that they happened, attempt to integrate them into myself and move on. This is a process and in some examples it has and does take many years in my life to process and to move to acceptance. I have to practice mindfulness and to consistently put down the anger, resentment, bitterness, etc that being harmed has caused me, it is something I have to do daily, hell hourly in some cases. I have to return and return and return to opening my hand, to not clinging to my ego and my ego’s pain, I am strong enough and expansive enough to release the pain of my harm and forgive my antagonist.

What does forgiveness mean to you?
Releasing to verifying levels of success, the anger and resentment surrounding instances where in my estimation I have been wronged. Forgiveness does not mean condoning the behavior that occurred, nor does it necessarily mean that the individual who wronged me will be allowed back into my life if they are toxic.

What does it feel like to you?
Sometimes forgiveness feels like a betrayal to my ego. Sometimes it feels like a bitter, hard thing. Sometimes it feels like a release of a weight pressing down on me. Sometimes it doesn’t feel like anything.


Do you have methods or rituals of forgiveness?
I have a few as out of necessity I have had to practice much forgiveness in my life.
One is to write an event that I experienced that I need to extend forgiveness for down from my antagonist’s eyes. This helps me see what they were experiencing.

I also say “I forgive you” to people who apologize to me. I am trying to move away from the nondescript and relatively meaningless (to me) “that’s okay” because sometimes it is most certainly NOT ok. To use the words in a formal way helps me process, saying “I forgive you” or “I grant you forgiveness” adds a gravitas that sometimes is called for.

For big things and deep past wounds a formal ritual I practice for viewing with compassion for the person who wronged me is to visualize the person who wronged me as a child before life and time corrupted them and caused them to harm me. I do this visualization while looking into the flame of a white candle for many nights starting at the new moon and lasting until the full moon. Then I write a letter to the person who wronged me expressing my forgiveness and compassion (even if that forgiveness and compassion is small, hard and rudimentary). I then take the candle, the letter and anything else I think I need to include and throw it into a moving body of water and walk away without turning back or I burn it completely.


Do you feel there are times when forgiveness is not an option?
I feel that there are times when my ego throws a fit about the harm that came to me because it doesn’t want to release its pain, but ultimately I must practice forgiveness for myself. If I choose not to forgive and to hoard the wrongs against me I am poisoning myself. In order for me to move on and not give those who harmed me any more power in my life I need to remove them as they harmed me from my mind and from my heart, I must let them go from me. They are not treasure to be kept or goodness to be savored but rough lessons to be learned. By choosing not to forgive I am allowing those who harmed me continuing power and pain in my life and to me that is not acceptable.

Do you forgive frequently or rarely?
Frequently

Do you forgive yourself?
This is a hard one for me. I have to practice letting go of things that I am inclined to be unforgiving of, daily, and hourly. I must practice the same compassion and unattachment for myself that I extend to others, this can be a pisser.

Do you seek forgiveness for things you regret?
For things I regret I try to make amends and I express to the individual I have wronged my apology. I cannot cause someone else to confer grace or forgiveness to me, I can only (and am only responsible for by the way) being honest about what I did to them that hurt them and being sincerely remorseful or regretful about the wrong doing. It is their business to choose or not choose forgiveness for me and I cannot cause that to happen.

If you have kids or have young people in your life, what do/would you teach them about forgiveness?
That although it is hard it leads to freedom from past injuries and that to refuse forgiveness can make them soul-sick. I would also teach them any techniques that work for me.

Any other thoughts on forgiveness?
Forgiveness is not the same as condoning what then individual did to you that wronged you. There are ways I have been harmed in my life that were empirically wrong and could be called evil. My forgiveness does nothing to diminish that, it only releases me, my soul, my ego, myself from squirreling away the resentment and ongoing pain from that injustice so I may move forward and not define myself by the ill that happened to me but by the substance of my life that is greater than an event (or series of events).

[dark_crystal]

Originally Posted by Venus007

For big things and deep past wounds a formal ritual I practice for viewing with compassion for the person who wronged me is to visualize the person who wronged me as a child before life and time corrupted them and caused them to harm me.

i use this strategy a lot, and not neccessarily for forgiveness- i work with some really dysfunctional people and it helps my aggravation level with them when i superimpose their adult behavior on a mental image of them as a child. Sometimes the only way i get through supervisors meeting is by turning the entire board room into a nursery

[Soft*Silver]

there is a difference between holding onto a resentment and not forgiving someone.

I wont hold onto resentments anymore because frankly, I dont want to drink. I drank over resentments and none of them were worth the price I paid. All my fault. I knew better.

But forgiving them for what they did to me? No. Not going to happen. Small matters, yes, no problem. I can forgive almost anyone for anything, because frankly, its all small shit in the course of a lifetime. But every once in awhile, there is a Big Thing. I can analyze it, understand why they did it, pray for them, but I still will not forgive them IF forgiveness is not warranted.

sometimes forgiveness is NOT warranted.

I grew up in an era where we were told to continually praise kids, award them ribbons for showing up, give them parades for ordinary conduct to boost self esteem. We ended up with a generation of self indulgent narcissistic lil monsters.

Same with forgiveness. You know, sometimes people do shit that is just NOT right. Earlier I read in another thread about teens who bowled over an octogenarian war hero...punks. Oh boy. I need to forgive them for being assholes. Really? And this makes them a better person because they have my forgiveness. Maybe I can understand why they did it. So friggin what? I can have compassion for them over why, but honey, I am not about to forgive someone who does that to an old man.

and while I agree with Princess Belle about forgiveness being a gift I give myself, I hold firm to the gift I give those I dont forgive..and thats natural consequences. Hurt me until my soul spiritually bleeds and I will never forgive you. I wont carry a resentment around forever, but I wont forgive you. Live with what you did to me forever. If you earned it, you deserve it. What you did is about YOU, not me and i wont get eaten up by it, by not forgiving you. Your asshat behavior is yours. Its not my toxins. Its YOURS>

Again, most of the time, 99% of the time, I forgive people. But some blacksouled people will bear eternally their natural consequence to who they are and what they did to me.

[Nomad]

forgiving others isnt difficult. forgiving myself isnt easy. i've lived down to plenty of sub standard standards in my un-better self days. i find that i'm likely to need forgiveness more than any amount of forgiving i've done or could do. fortunately for me everyone grows up eventually, if for no other reason than to engage in living the rest of life without causing so much pain.