Forgiveness

[cjsmith]

I'd be happier if I learned to forgive old hurts.

Sometimes I find it easier to forgive if I can put myself in the other person's shoes and understand a little - what pressures that person was under, what might have been meant but not said, what might have been said but not meant.

Sometimes I can forgive if I just don't give two hoots about the other person at all. It's incredibly freeing to hold someone in (let's be honest here) such low esteem that I don't care what they think of me. Sadly, or perhaps gladly, this one's rare for me.

Sometimes I can forgive if it's been long enough that I'm not the same person I was. I care less what was done to that CJ, or I now see how I set myself up for it.

Often times, an apology (particularly an indication that hurt wasn't intentional) is all I need. Then it's over, done, gone.

Those are the easy cases. They're so easy it's almost cheating. Real forgiveness... no, I don't think I'm quite so good at that.

Comments

[melanie.livejournal.com]

I really usually need to understand, at least a *little* bit, before I can forgive. If someone walls me off to the point that I can't ever get a crumb of perspective on what the hell was going through their minds that led to Action X, then I can't seem to let my guard down around them again. Probably ever.

But then, I'm not completely sure that my version of "forgive" is all that thorough. I've had instances where I felt that I'd forgiven someone, but as soon as I saw old patterns coming from them again, I'd resume packing the machine guns as if I'd never stopped being angry at all.

Dunno. My experiences with forgiveness have not gone well so far in this life. All the people I've attempted to forgive and start over with have gone on to do the same things to me all over again (and sometimes, a third or fourth time), which turns it into an abortive attempt in the long run. :\

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

All the people I've attempted to forgive and start over with have gone on to do the same things to me all over again

Ohhhh yes, this is a big element of it all too.

I think -- or at least I hope, for my own future happiness and sanity -- that there's a distinction between "forgive" and "let 'em do it to me all over again". I would like to forgive AND hold firm boundaries. I guess that means letting go of the hurt and anger that poison my own system while remaining aware that the events occurred. I'm not good at it.

[datagoddess.livejournal.com]

The difference between forgiving and forgetting, basically. I can forgive a lot of things. Forgetting and letting that person do it again, well, sometimes I do and sometimes I don't. Depends on the person.