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Originally Posted by ScarletPimpernel
I don't know if I've forgiven her yet. I'm not even sure what that looks like. I'm so used to being disowned or disowning a person. This is so new to me. I want to say I've forgiven her. Maybe I have? I've kind of flipped the switch and am now trying to protect her and soothe her. I have this intense desire to make sure she's okay, that she knows I love her and choose to be with her. Is that forgiveness? Or is that me trying to dismiss this all because it hurts? Is it still allowed to hurt if you forgive the person? I truly see that this mistake is not her core-self. She, herself, is not bad. And even though breaking my confidentiality is bad, I doubt it will ever happen again. Both her and I are working so it doesn't.
And I still feel hurt. I can't help it. I just feel it. But I'm not letting the hurt control my choices. So I think I'm doing good?
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I'm glad you and L are doing well (it really sounds like you do - I think it's bound to take time, and the best you can do is trust yourself that you'll make it to a safer ground, going as slowly and carefully as you need to).
My experience with forgiveness is that it's not an all-or-nothing thing and has a bit of an ebb-and-flow ... what I sometimes do is try to find the place where I felt the anger coming from (not always easy) and see if anything changed. But there's also a natural fluctuation with parts coming forward or withdrawing, so might be better to just wait and see and roll with whatever comes, than to actively probe the hurting part, at least while it's so fresh.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ArtleyWilkins
Yes, you have handled this well. To me, forgiveness is something I do for myself. It is a reaching of that place where I choose to not let the anger or hurt or resentment have a hold over my life.
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I see this expressed a lot, and it never fails to confuse me. To me, it feels the other way around - when I get to a point where an event stops having a hold on my life (by re-affirming or increasing my fears/shame/sense of helplessness)
then I can decide whether I want to forgive. Whenever I tried to make myself (out of mis-guided belief that this is the 'right' thing to do),
at best I failed, at worst I succeeded in fooling myself and then had it backfire. Also, I kind of don't want to believe that full forgiveness is necessary (as I understand it) - there are things I'm not sure I'd ever want to be able to think back to without getting at least somewhat angry. Just not so angry as to have it override my better judgement. Same with self-forgiveness vs regret. BTW
Quote:
Originally Posted by Waterbear
I'm curious as how too let feelings go, as someone says? I'm new to feelings, I was cut off for a long time, and I don't wish to derail this thread so maybe this is a post for elsewhere, but now I feel the feelings, how does one let them go? I wondered whether you just feel them, acknowledge them, accept them but go with the rational logical bit anyway? Curious to see how others 'choose' to do this?
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Yeah, this too. The sense I'm starting to get is that when people say things like this, that make it sound so simple, they're doing so from a place that some of us have yet to reach. Like, it might be a choice, but you might have to make a bloofy long list of smaller choices and (and make them again and again until you can mostly stick to them, maybe), until you get to a point when you're even ready to make
that particular choice. But that's really just my best guess, based on my experience and the limited progress I've made. Might be just wishful thinking, because otherwise - what does it tell about me if people keep insisting that I can do something, but I don't know how to, and also don't know how to try any harder than I already do? I want to trust that it's because I'm missing something I need, insight, skill, support, whatever, that I'm not just being ... don't even know what, a living anomaly?