Hi Matt,

i.] See to it this way, in reality,  if you were experiencing the same kind of thoughts, feelings, emotions, belief systems, upbringing, state of mind that your mother was experiencing you would have exactly done the same thing too.

ii.] As per the book (The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom), the 2nd agreement refers that –

“Don’t take anything personally! Nothing others do is because of you. What others say and do is a projection of their own reality, their own dream. They are in a completely different world from the one we live in. When we take something personally, we make the assumption that they know what is in our world, and we try to impose our world on their world. When you are immune to the opinions and actions of others, you won’t be the victim of needless suffering. There is a huge amount of freedom that comes to you when you take nothing personally. When we really see other people as they are without taking it personally, we can never be hurt by what they say or do.”

Yes I can understand you were experiencing physical violence too. Refer back to point no i.

iii.] Realize deeply that not forgiving is hurting none other than you.

So you have to do it anyway for you own sake.

– When you do not forgive a person, it is like you drinking rat poison and expecting the rat to die.

– Forgiving someone is like setting a prisoner free and then realizing that the prisoner was you.

~VJ