Forgiveness

[Angelmist]

I'm struggling at the moment with much of my repressed stuff as many of the women out there will understand there are certain times of the month when the walls that hold stuff in or down suddenly become transparent or disappear. So after 24 hour of futile attempts to try and pick a fight with my partner and much unfortunate screaming at my poor son i'm ready to deal.

Gone are the days when i told myself that my anger had no source. I have the answers now, i know the cause. My question is...Now What???

Not interested in forgive and give a chance to hurt again. But am interested in forgive, let go, be free.

I am very visual and i would like a guided meditation that gives an opportunity to release the pain and practise forgiveness. I am hoping that someone can point me in the right direction. Am desperate for support just now, hope i'm asking in the right place. I humbly ask, please send me some love, i want help to get through this, for real. To put the old to rest.

angelmist

[XANTO]

Not interested in forgive and give a chance to hurt again. But am interested in forgive, let go, be free.

The greatest single misunderstanding about forgiveness people have is that they think "forgiving" is for the purpose of excusing the actions of whoever has offended you. Toss that idea out. "Forgiving" and "Excusing" are not the same thing.

We don't forgive someone for their benefit. Our forgiveness does little or nothing for them. We forgive for our own benefit. Anger, bitterness, resentment, frustration, hatred... These are all toxins we carry around within us. Just as your negative feelings of anger, hurt or frustration in and of themselves do not exact retribution upon those who offend you, so your positive feelings of forgiveness do not convey any reward upon those offenders. The negatives hurt only you. And the positives benefit only you. I know on some subtle level our feelings, both positive and negative have some impact on those around us, but what I'm referring to here is that gross, outer level; the level at which we commonly tend to think and act in our ordinary day to day life. And on that outer level the only one who benefits or suffers from either your anger or your forgiveness is you.

Here's one of the most extreme examples I can think of. I watched an interview once with a young Jewish girl who got sent to one of the big Nazi concentration camps of WWII where she suffered for several years until the Allies came through and liberated the prisoners. The camp was located adjacent to a town. Most of the prisoners had nowhere to go upon release so they just kind of hung around the town. This would sometimes be very dangerous because, as you can imagine after the way they'd been treated, they were not fond of the local German townspeople who had surely known something of what went on in those camps. Trouble often broke out as the former prisoners would form groups who would find German people and assault them.

One day this Jewish girl was walking in town and she saw a young German woman pushing a baby carriage. A group of former camp prisoners had gathered and surrounded this young German mother. They were calling her names, screaming at her, pushing her, making threatening motions towards the baby in the carriage. The young Jewish girl stepped into the middle of this mob and tried to calm them down; to shield the young German mother and her baby.

She shouted to the crowd, "How do you know this woman isn't completely innocent? Maybe she knew nothing about what went on in the camp, but if you hurt her you will be doing the same kind of thing that our Nazi jailors did to us!"

But the mob was not swayed by her plea. About that time a US Army chaplain drove up in a jeep. He listened for a few moments as the Jewish girl tried to reason with the angry mob and then he stood up in his jeep and ordered the crowd to disperse.

After they'd broken up and gone their ways the chaplain said to this young Jewish girl, "Sister, after all you have suffered at the hands of the Germans, how is it that you have preserved this great love in your heart?"

The young woman answered, "Oh, no, Father, you have it all wrong. Throughout my captivity it was not I who preserved love, but the love in my heart that preserved me."

This girl had forgiven those who had incarcerated her; starved her; forced her to work; tortured and murdered those around her. She was at peace inside. In no way did this excuse what had been done to her. In no way did it absolve any of the perpetrators from the responsibility of their actions. Whatever justice had yet to be dealt out to them was something they could not avoid, even if everyone they'd mistreated forgave them.

It was of no tangible benefit or advantage to those SS guards that she had forgiven them. Those who still lived were going to pay the price of justice. But her forgiveness healed her own heart and her own wounds and left her a whole person instead of a beaten husk, filled with rage and hatred.

When you hear that old saying, "Forgive and forget," it's often used to imply that you should forget (excuse) what has been done to you. That's not at all what it means. It means to forget (release) the pain and negative emotions the actions have caused to build up inside you. You will always have the memories of whatever has happened to use as guides for your future conduct. The secret is that you use those memories, you don't let the memories use you.

Does the difference between "forgiving" and "excusing" make sense to you?

I don't have any guided meditations to offer but the way I learned to forgive is to first behold the God within me which I feel in my heart center, warm and glowing. Doing that, I feel stronger, and if I need to, I ask for healing for myself. This makes me more able to forgive. Then from that heart place, now lit up with radiance, I behold the other person's higher self, also seen as light. Sometimes the person's light is obscured by negativity, but nevertheless it is that which I behold and that which I forgive. Everyone has some good in them, even those who may behave horribly so I feel I can do that. I turn them over to God - our Higher Power - and pray that healing will come to them so they will never harm anyone else again. And I release them.

There are infinite variations, depending on whether the person is someone you have to see again or not. But as Tatsuwa said, we don't have to excuse the person's bad behaviour. Nor do we have to punish them since Karma is a universal law, ie, as you sow, so shall you reap.

xanto

[Monaro]

Hi Angelmist, I have a guided visualisation that could help you. It was given to me about 3 years ago and I have in the past used guided visuations to great effect ...let me know.

Monaro

[TELA]

Great post xanto .

Forgiveness is the end stage of healing ,it is the part that arrives after all the other emotions are experienced also forgiveness does not only happen once in our lives it happens over and over but with each new experience the forgiving comes faster. First we need to forgive ourselves for all the times we have allowed friends , family or foe to hurt us , it also breaks the connection to the person or persons , when you break the connection you feel like a new breath of fresh air has washed over you , the controller of your anger etc has no longer got power over you . To forgive is to heal ones own spirit .

[marianne 50]

to forgive is something that you do for yourself , it does not mean that you must forget what happened, it means that you let it go. it just means you have made peace with the pain and are ready to let go. i am sending my love and prayers towards you my dear sister !