Forgiveness

The process of forgiveness is and has been an arduous task for me, but one well worth the effort. Forgiving myself for my frailties and defects is even a more difficult adventure for me.

There are many misconceptions about forgiveness. These articles provide some insight into what forgiveness is and is not:

Understanding forgiveness | This Emotional Life
Emotional Competency - Forgiveness
What is Forgiveness? | Psych Central
How Do You Forgive Yourself? | Psych Central
How to Forgive Yourself: 9 Steps (with Pictures) - wikiHow

Anger and shame have been onerous impediments during the process of learning to forgive myself and others. The process is ongoing. There still remains days with inappropriate anger, self-righteous indignation and the disconnect of shame. Even so, I do believe I have finally come to accept I have the sole responsibility for my well-being. Forgiveness has been a key.

Some express strong feelings of outrage at the thought of forgiving one who has wronged them. What do you think? Is forgiveness viable for you?

What is of concern to me is the concept of forgiveness as it related to the perpetrator. I have had this conversation with quite a few internet friends. I maintain there are some acts so heinous forgiveness of the self, by the perpetrator, is inappropriate.

In such a case the best that can be hoped for, or worked toward, is acceptance... to be able to accept that one has done what one has done & then move on with a determination not to repeat a similarly heinous act. Those who were victimized may forgive if they so choose. They have that right. But for the perpetrator to forgive him or herself, in these types of more serious actions, is simply a further aggravation of the original act.

Beyond that, the concept of forgiveness is, for me, tied too closely to the idea of a god & concepts of right & wrong to be useful to me as an atheist.

From wikipedia.
Easier for me to grasp than poetry. For me it's difficult to achieve permanence in forgiveness, towards myself at least. I may not ever get that right.
I had to achieve a certain level of maturity and wisdom to forgive others. My parents... it took me a while to understand that they had parents as well and things that they needed to forgive.

I'm with The Skeezyks. There are some actions that are so horrible I don't believe they can or should be forgiven. Again like The Skeezyks I think more in terms of reaching some level of accveptance about some things that have happened. For me, forgiveness smacks of not holing the perpetrator responsible for what they did. I can not agree with that.

In terms of forgiving myself, for the most part I have done this. There were things in my past that I had to reframe in order to forgive myself.

The articles all confirm that forgiveness does not mean condoning or excusing.

If I feel betrayed by someone, I have a very difficult time giving that person my trust back. The relationship will never be the same. I may decided to keep the relationship to some degree with caution..
Others I just let go.

I guess I am not worried about the word forgiveness. I work on not keeping a grudge (if you want to call that forgiveness). I understand that person could be harmful to me in the future. With their actions - I could learn to to let them close again.

If I have done something to another person that I am ashamed of, I have apologized for bad behavior on my part - those that know me well, know I'm a sincere person. At the same time I understand that they may never feel that same way about me again. If this person is very important to me, I will work to regain/re-establish the relationship.

I can usually forgive pretty easily. I mainly just want to get along with people and have no dischord. What is hard for me is that it seems I forgive people over and over again, but they don't change and things keep happening/I keep getting hurt. After our fire in which I lost my 10 cats that were pretty much like children to me (I do have one human child, too), several of my in-laws attacked me so to say on facebook a few weeks later, saying I didn't need any more cats or trying to dictate how many I should have, etc. After I came back on them, they ended up removing their comments and one of them unfriended me. I left things alone and carried on to later make a post about grief probably a few more weeks later and was again attacked by a sister-in-law via personal message this time, calling me a hoarder and telling me how "nasty" my house was - and of course I wasn't just mourning my cats but my house as well and still am. I'd do anything to have it back no matter how "nasty" to her it was. It really hurt. But yes, I forgave her. During the process of getting our new house in, she was around, so I tried to get along and have no hard feeling now, and I've started answering the phone again when she calls. The thing is, it's very possible something else could happen with her, and the same happens with my own family members. I have no hard feelings after the hurt is gone, but I seem to get hurt time and again by the same people.

I don't have a problem with forgiving others because if I keep those ill feelings inside me I feel like they are in control of me. Karma helps me feel like they will get what is coming to them and I don't have to be a part of it. I guess I still have a vengeful side! lol! I have had a harder time with learning how to forgive myself. I am still a work in progress so thanks for posting the articles.