40+ Something L&D - Maintaining Relationships (7/10)

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indeed romantic attachments past or even present is a class which may push buttons harder
but still resentments do no one any good so far as I can tell.
easier said than done yes
but wallowing takes energy too.

just my opinion - today

Indeed I must admit that in the past some of my springs were weak, possibly from getting pushed repeatedly very hard and/or over use of said button. Some of the springs were just the wrong spring installed in the improper position and some were just wound too tight.
I have since rebuilt myself so that I no longer have overactions to certain buttons being pushed, They no longer stick and I have also installed limit switchs to prevent overtravel.

Limit switches to prevent overload / over use of drama are most handy.
Trouble is that I had to learn where the limits were by saying "I think I should have stopped somewhere back there."

as for the quote in my booklet I was being Ironic (if that is the right word) in essence I was very much like that and I would have denied it all the way to the wall.
(which I would then smash into)
the way that set of booklets is formatted:
I more or less use the first triplex to give the disease/dysfunction a voice hopefully providing elements which can be identified with.
Later on I try to ease into "my message" of the day.

and again I am often wrong

Todd

Wisdom is always hard won!

This post would serve well in the Lessons Learned thread well. So simple but so true!

I'm not very big on forgiveness either. But part of the tricky bits about discussions like this is that different people mean different things by forgiveness.

Forgiveness as a process does not figure very prominently in my personal lexicon. I do forgive, when I think it's appropriate. I don't think it's always appropriate.

It goes like this...

If you and I have some agreements, spoken, unspoken, or social, if you violate one of those, I'm going to hold you responsible for it. If your violation was an accident, or if we have a miscommunication over the boundary or agreement, or if there were considerations and shared values involved of which I wasn't aware, then we need to sort that out. At least one of us it likely to end up apologizing if we're going to continue with our relationship as we have done so far.

If not, say, if someone doesnt' respect my boundary or our agreement, then no forgiveness is necessary, imo. Instead, I need to use whatever anger/annoyance/betrayal I have outstanding to change the nature of our relationship, my attitude towards it, and my expression and defense of the questionable boundary. Only when I've done that in exactly the right amount with those feelings abate. And those feelings are my compass for whether I'm done, whether I have more to do, and if so, what and where. In that sense, I defend myself and create my own level of security unilaterally. My feelings provide both the direction and the motivation and energy for the change. And in that sense I completely agree that forgiveness isn't always necessary.

I think this is different from forgiveness. Forgiveness to me is about dropping those useful feelings without making any changes. While it feels better than experiencing the uncomfortable feelings, and it decreases the amount of conflict in the world, it doesn't necessarily bolster your integrity at all. And doing this too much leads to a total lack of boundaries which will, in turn, lead to the overforgiving person trampling other people's boundaries as well, all due to a lack of healthy boundaries.

When there is nothing else to do, I think forgiveness is fine. Like, if the transgressor is dead. Or if we've already discussed the issue and you've agreed to make a change. Vigilance might be warranted, but it might not. Partial forgiveness is also useful, like, if there's nothing else for me to do about it right now, it would do me no good to obsess on it. Instead, I should do what I can and then set those feelings aside until it's time to continue whatever change I need to make.

I think my approach is also different from holding a grudge. IMO, holding a grudge is more like maintaining the anger/annoyance/betrayed feelings without doing anything different on my part. And yes, I think that's just foolish. That leaves me with the unpleasant experience as well as leaving my boundaries underdefended. At least with forgiveness you get to drop the unpleasant feelings.

YES! Oh my goodness, SOMEONE GETS IT! Thank you, teamnoir.