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

Re: Questions about the idea and usefulness of forgiveness

[rampling.livejournal.com]

1. "forgive and forget"

Yeah, that one I'm against, in the case of huge grievous incidents. Y'know, "fool me once...." I wanna remember and learn from my mistakes, and sometimes those mistakes are people.

I will do "forgive and (mostly) forget" for the common sorts of lesser offenses. With the exception that I will remember the incident solely for the purposes of discovering if there's some sort of disturbing underlying pattern.

And, for me, to manage the "forgive" part I (usually) need to hear two things:
(A) "I'm sorry." (stated explicitly or implied)
(B) "I understand now why that hurt you and I will do my best to avoid doing such a thing again."

2. deciding the other person wasn't at fault or somehow isn't a bad person

To me, deciding the other person was at fault, in some intentional or egregiously selfish way, is occasionally quite important to me. It means, to me, that such a person will do such things again. I label such a person "a bad person" (actually I'm more likely to label them "dangerously bad trouble") in at least that particular way, and is the extremely rare sort of person that I'll actually warn others away from. I currently have 3-5 (a fuzzy boundary) such people on my list, and hope never to add any more. These people go way beyond ordinary problems or breakups or bad incidents.

3. relaxing my own grip on the pain and hurt

Yeah -- I was trying to get at that, by saying that I need to respect the effect this pain has had on me, how it's changed me, and let that be a part of the me that goes on. When I no longer obsess or am overly paranoid about similarish sitiations, I feel I've "moved on" enough. But I don't see this as "forgiveness".

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

So I see the first two you've listed here as "forgiveness", and I don't see them as always desirable, don't think they're appropriate for the few big worst cases. But I don't really see the third as "forgiveness", but more as "moving on" or "letting go".

My concept of forgiveness is that it's something you usually *give* to someone else, some sort of absolution. Which includes giving them something like amnesty for the offense, perhaps writing it off as a learning experience or an unintentional mistake. You can continue to have a positive friendship or relationship or even post-breakup friendship with such people whom you've forgiven -- I think forgiveness is essential for continuing healthy friendships and relationships.

When I decide to "move on" or "let go" of a hugely bad and blameworthy incident, that's for me -- I still feel that the person in question remains as blameworthy as ever, and should stay convicted (in my head) of that crime. As I've said, I save this sort of continued blame only for especially egregious deeply-trust-destroying incidents or behaviors.

I guess I'm writing so much about this, because in a couple of the cases of the 3-5 people I've not forgiven, people tell me I should forgive them. And I don't agree, pretty vehemently. So when the topic of forgiveness comes up, I still wonder why it's such a good idea for all cases. Why "forgive" a huge grievous offense?

Re: Questions about the idea and usefulness of forgiveness

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Ah. I see "forgiveness" as something I give myself. If someone else wants it, that's their problem, not mine; I can choose to say the words, perhaps, but I don't believe I have an obligation to do so. But getting to a place where I don't see myself as wounded and angry any more, that's a win.

I agree that 1 and 2, as stated, are not always good things and can have bad side effects. 2 perhaps, if it could be done fully and authentically, would be good -- but I'm not at the level of spiritual growth where I can do it for big or even middling-sized situations.