Home→Forums→Emotional Mastery→Have you been able to forgive completely and let go?
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July 25, 2018 at 9:06 pm #218745PrashParticipant
Hi Anita
Thought I had place it here so that other readers can also have their input.
So what does it mean to me to be able to forgive completely and let go?
I guess it is about the ability to overcome hurt and resentment. When I think of someone who hurt me in some way, I can feel some resentment. This does not feel good to me. So I look at how I can feel better about it. When I think like that I am able to imagine that maybe if I was in the same position as the person who hurt me, I may also have done the same. and maybe the other person is also miserable because of his/her guilt. In this way I feel compassionate about the other person who is also in pain. In addition it is about me and about what I can do.
Feeling that way I am able to let go of the hurt feeling, realizing the importance of moving on and progressing with my life. This is how I let go.
July 25, 2018 at 10:23 pm #218769AnonymousInactiveForgiving and letting go was the best thing I could do for my trauma because it helps me forgive myself for my own mistakes. I also have the same feelings about whether or not the person who abused me feels tremendous guilt and I sympathize with that (your mileage may very, but that’s how I am.) Letting go saved me also from intense anger which was crippling me.
July 26, 2018 at 2:10 am #218783AnonymousGuestDear Prash:
You wrote, “When I think of someone who hurt me in some way, I can feel some resentment… So I look at how I can feel better about it”- we all want to feel better. But I don’t think any which way for the sole purpose of feeling better because that will work only temporarily. Instead, I look at what is true to reality. Long term mental health is about seeing things as they are.
Then you wrote that when someone hurts you in some way, you empathize with the person who hurt you, feel compassion for that person, and as a result you are “able to let go of the hurt feeling” and move on. My input is that it depends on the nature of the hurting (a friend forgetting to return a phone call is different from a friend (?) calling one names, yelling). It depends on the age the hurt has taken place (young child/ adult) and whether it was a one time event of an ongoing situation. It depends on whether the hurting party tried to correct their wrongdoing and changed his or her ways or not. It also makes a difference whether the hurting party is still doing the hurting in the present time or was it all in the past.
It also matters if the person doing the hurting is a stranger or a child’s own mother, or father, the person the child looks up to for protection, trusting, loving.
And so, the thinking and behavior that may work for you to forgive and let go in the context of, let’s say, a person pushing their way ahead of you in line, as you wait in front of the supermarket cashier, is not likely to work for you in the context of having been abused for years as a child.
anita
July 26, 2018 at 2:56 am #218797PrashParticipantDear Anita,
Thanks a lot for your input.
“True to reality””Seeing things as they are”. Aren’t these dependent on who is seeing and under what circumstances they are perceiving it, their background. Won’t these things color that reality and affect the way it is seen. What do you thing could help a person override any undermining influences and see things truly for what they are?
I ask this, as when I am practicing mindfulness, I feel sometimes as if there is no reality – everything is transient, comes and goes. There doesn’t seem to be anything permanent. When I go to sleep it is like a death and then I wake up again – a new day a new life.
- Nature of the hurt – relatively harmless vs harmful
- Age the hurt has taken place – adulthood vs childhood
- One time event vs ongoing situation
- Hurting party corrects and changes vs not doing so
- A hurt in the past vs a hurt in the present
- A stranger vs a trusted person
I agree that definitely the approach will be different and so will be the priorities in each of the situations.
Maybe keeping the mind fixed on one’s own healing and ensuring that the path is always directed to that irrespective of the approach or methods used will help in giving a direction to move forward.
Looking forward to hearing from you.
Appreciate your perspective.
July 26, 2018 at 3:19 am #218801AnonymousGuestDear Prash:
You asked if the nature of reality is dependent on who is seeing it and under what circumstances they are seeing or perceiving reality. You shared that when you practice mindfulness, you “feel sometimes as if there is no reality- everything is transient, comes and goes… When I go to sleep it is like a death and then I wake up again- a new day a new life”.
My answer/input: people’s perceptions of reality are dependent on who they are, their prior life experience, as well as their current circumstances, but reality is the same regardless of perceptions. When you go to sleep, you wrote, “it feels like a death”- that is a perception, based on a feeling. Reality is that every time you went to sleep so far in your life, it was not death. Doesn’t matter to reality that you feel like it is death. In realty it is not death until it is.
“everything is transient” – in reality lots is transient, life itself is transient. But there is something that is not transient, and that is death itself. Once dead, one is permanently dead. Some perceive death as transient, saying there is life after death, in heaven or hell or in another body, or a new earth. That is a perception. In reality once dead, the brain starts decomposing, and the person who was, is no more.
“I wake up again- a new day a new life”. Reality- it is a new day. Perception- a new life. There is newness of life, yes, but there is also a lot of yesterday in the new day.
anita
July 26, 2018 at 8:34 am #218819PrashParticipantDear Anita,
Thank you so much for your response.
There is newness of life, yes, but there is also a lot of yesterday in the new day.
Very true. It never goes away. Awareness of what in yesterday is holding you back and what is not plus a realization that yesterday is gone helps in growth.
Some perceive death as transient, saying there is life after death, in heaven or hell or in another body, or a new earth. That is a perception. In reality once dead, the brain starts decomposing, and the person who was, is no more.
Seems like reality but is it – no sure way of knowing, isn’t it? One of my beliefs is that there are many things in life that cannot be comprehended.
July 26, 2018 at 9:06 am #218825AnonymousGuestDear Prash:
Awareness of yesterday makes it possible for us to live the newness of the new day instead of re-living yesterday as if it was still yesterday.
Regarding your second paragraph: there are lots and lots of things I don’t know or comprehend, of course, things my five senses cannot perceive and my human brain cannot process. But I don’t make up stories so to kind-of explain what I cannot comprehend. Instead, I just say: I don’t know.
anita
July 26, 2018 at 9:30 am #218787AreadneParticipantI have many times tried to forgive and let go. Cant do it. Prash wrote “and maybe the other person is also miserable because of his/her guilt” .I cant deal with that thought on my mind. Dont want to be the reason of the other persons miserability even if at the time, that what happened to me i was only 8years old and for sure not responsible for his “action” .I am sorry for my english its not my mother language and never had english lessons .I am from Greece and German is m second language. I hope you understand what i want to say . Thank you
July 26, 2018 at 9:44 am #218841PrashParticipantHi Areadne
Thank you for reaching out.
You are certainly not responsible for anyone’s actions. That person alone is the cause of his misery. Compassion is primarily for your own self.
I am sorry if my post has caused you any distress. If you feel it will help you, please post about your self in this forum. There are many who will help you. Language will not be a barrier as the communication I feel is directly between souls/inner selves (for want of a better word)
July 26, 2018 at 12:55 pm #218867AnonymousGuest* Dear Areadne:
I am moved by your post. Societal pressure to forgive the abuser has been in the way of my healing from being abused as a child. The pressure to let go of anger, and to feel empathy for the abuser is counter productive to healing. It hindered my healing and kept me stuck in sickness for many years. I would like to communicate with you on the matter, either on a thread that you will start, or you can click my name and post on any one of the threads I started in the past, the one most recent I think is addressed to New Members. Hope to read from you.
anita
July 26, 2018 at 2:56 pm #218883PeterParticipantForgiveness is an Art which is more for the person hurt then the person that has perpetrated the hurt.
I like what Clarissa Pinkola Estes (Women Who Run With the Wolves) had to say about their being Four Stages of Forgiveness
Four Stages of Forgiveness
- To forego—to leave it alone
- To forebear—to abstain from punishing/vengeance
- To forget—to aver from memory, to refuse to dwell
- To forgive—to abandon the debt
Note. Many people hold on to hurt because they feel that as long as they do the one that hurt them will hurt and be accountable. It is important to remember that forgiveness does not mean that the person that hurt us is no longer accountable. Holding someone accountable is not the same as punishing or vengeance or even justice. Accountability is an attribute of Love. If you steal from me, I can forgive you – detach my sense of self from the experience – while holding you Accountable by taking back my key.
http://www.stlcw.com/Handouts/Four_Stages_of_Forgiveness.pdf
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