Please, help me forgive.

Post Reply New Topic

These realizations alone can help you to begin that release, as seeing that any feeling is useless will at least weaken it ever so slightly.

I think it also requires the epiphany that resenting others can't accomplish anything without tarnishing it with suffering on their behalves, which fails to help them. You need learn to love and respect and try to understand others, even when they do not do the same for you, or even themselves. Empathize with others' plights, and forgive them of their wrongs, and try to help them, if they will accept it, and it will not hurt you. It is truly helpful to really get into the spirit of love, and try to approach others from that view as much as you can.


There is a difference between accepting injustice and forgiving those whom cause it. I don't think it requires religious faith. I have always been an atheist. It simply requires you to understand that people are all fallible, all emotionally damaged, and all flawed and in need of love. You don't have to dote over them, or act all lovey-dovey all the time, but it genuinely helps to just try to love humanity, however you can manage it, down to the last pathetic moron, ignorant jackass, and manipulative bastard.

i know, i know. it took me decades just to get to this point. a tough road i would much rather have detoured altogether, but here i am.



you are correct, but it is at least a start, and we all have to start somewhere, at our own initial footsteps towards grace. i am a rank amateur beginner at this stuff myself. all i can do is take one small step at a time, sometimes falling several steps backwards but still trying every day. or at least most days.

Forgiveness? Vlech.

I deal with it by imagining that person's face on the heavy bag when I'm in martial arts class...

Yes, and seeing that about ourselves can be most difficult! We can be quick to think only of ourselves and about how we should have been thought about (loved) rather than harmed, and we can be slow about realizing other people are at least just as imperfect as us. So for me, and while hurting as badly as I was (and often still am), the question became whether I was going to continue demanding things other people could not give or begin trying to love (think about) others just as much as I was already loving (thinking about) myself.

The rewards are few, but at least now the sickest people on earth no longer consume all my mental and emotional energies. For example: Two plumbers hurt be badly inside by doing some very sloppy work a couple of days ago, and I was able to "forgive them" in the sense of realizing they could not have done any better ... and them I simply called and dismissed them from ever again doing any work here.

Give up on forgiveness. It's an artificial construct created by religion.

Forgiveness is silly, and in an intelligent, free thinking brain, it's impossible.
Accept what they've done, and move on. Keep their actions in your mind, so as you are better able to know their nature for future uses and judgements.

If the action that you struggle with, is enough to shun that person in the future... then you should.
If the action just makes you mad, but isn't sufficient for shunning, then just add it to a mental list of things that that person is likely to do/can't be trusted with etc.
Of course you have to keep a "good" list along side of this list.

I want the same thing. I've been having the same problem for the last five years; my mind constantly circles round the same old thoughts, the same dead memories. I know the path to inner-peace lies in not thinking about bad experiences from the past, but they just come out of nowhere and spark my anger before I even realise it. Sometimes all it takes is a scene in a film/TV show that reminds me of a bad experience; the demons from the past affect my whole thought process.

Having said this, I have managed to develop some resistance. Sometimes I can muster enough self-awareness to say to myself, "No, I'm not thinking about this anymore", and this clears my head for a short period. Special interests can help as well.

I read a book a while back about Dying. (I work as a nurse in Long Term Care and palliative care is a big part of my work).

The book was entitled "What Dying People Want" by David Kuhl, MD. This doctor worked in St. Pauls (here in Vancouver, BC) mostly with people living and dying with AIDS.

Anyways, I am pretty sure it was this book that described a patient who needed forgiveness for some really horrifying things that he had done and/or witnessed. There was no way he could apologize in person (he didn't even know the person's name or if they were even alive). The doctor asked him to visualize asking for forgiveness.

Now, I (Canadianrose) am not a fan of airy-fairy new age nonsense. I respect peoples beliefs and even see the benefit of ritual in ones life - but I am pretty level headed.

Notwithstanding my healthy skepticism, I tried this exercise. However, I changed it a bit. I visualize forgiving people who wronged me (either in reality or just in my perception of things). I found that I physically let out a deep, releasing sigh when I did this for each person. I was letting go of past hurts and moving on. I found the exercise very comforting and helped me to forgive.

I recommend this book.

The thing is - we are all "palliative" - we are all dying. For some of us - this may be very literal in that we are living with a life-limiting condition. For others of us - we may have 10 years, 20 yeas, 30 years, 70 plus years. In the words of Harrison Fords' character in Blade Runner - "Who the hell knows?! !!"

It is interesting hear the stories and feeling of people facing upcoming death. They have the opportunity to consider and think about things, put their affairs in order (financial, emotional and social). I recommend reading Kuhl's book hear the stories of real people who were in a position to prioritize. Interestingly - I don't recall any of these patients having any real desire to hold onto anger or exact revenge - they mostly seem to want forgiveness, to forgive and have closure.

It would behoove all of us to take this opportunity while we are full of life rather than realize it as we face death.

Well said.

It's important to think practically, but that doesn't preclude you from forgiving others. I am hardly a child of religion. I was raised by a Unitarian Universalist father, and an atheist mother, and I tend to scoff alongside my mother at Christianity as a whole, despite outwardly trying to show respect for the large parts of the institution that aren't doing much harm. =/

You don't have to be completely brainwashed to forgive others, and you don't have to give them leeway they aren't due. It simply helps settle the continuous disruption of held grudges in your mind. You yourself aren't telling anyone to "hold grudges on people you'll never meet again". It's better to forget about that. The only way you can really forget about it, if the cut is deep enough, is to forgive that person, I think. It's kind of important.

It's also important to realize the difference between punishment and revenge. Punishment is meant to deter a crime, not get revenge on the perpetrators. Punishment is useful. Revenge which goes beyond punishment ultimately does more harm than good.

That makes no sense whatsoever. Religion didn't invent forgiveness, and there's no reason it's impossible in a free thinking intelligent brain. Unrealistic and difficult in many cases, but that's stupid to say it's impossible.

From my experience there are things that can't be forgiven. At least I can't. Those that stab once, are most likely to do it again, if given the opportunity. However for your own sake it's crucial to leave the past behind, not to chew on old cud endlessly and not to be a prisoner of the past. Ignoring can be a very powerful weapon - of those that can be potentially be harmful and our own thoughts as well.

Perhaps trying to use an objective approach with dealing with compulsive thoughts might be useful - regarding them as chemical impulses, which they are, just the energy in movement. Thoughts are basically nothing, just a hurdle of (usually) subjective memories, distorted and projected into future, but can be very powerful if one gives power to them. Past is long gone, present is all that matters.