[Jenn1fer82]

How do you learn to forgive the people you care the most in your life. I'm having such a difficult time moving on in life when I still such resentment and anger towards those who have hurt me and abandon me. Regardless what the issues may be I know I should forgive for the sake of my happiness but I just dont know how to start. Please tell me what others have done to help you move on in life.

[Junerain]

This is what I have found..

You are right, you forgive for YOU because it eats at YOU if you do not..

It is as if your family the ones closest to you the ones who have hurt you, it is as if they owe you a debt for what they have done to you, to your life...then in order to forgive (not reconcile! just forgive..) you stamp with a rubber stamp debt forgiven!! On the debt they owe to you...then you pray for them, you take them off your 'string' and tie them instead to God's string, for God will punish in His own way and time..

You do not make their problem, your problem..

You may have to keep a healthy distance from the ones who hurt you, enjoy their 'other' qualities, while maintaining a certain emotional distance.....

But forgiving is about YOU not them do if for YOU it may not be bothering them do not let this eat away at _you....

[madisgram]

jen, jme, but i pray for that person. it may not help them but for some reason it does help me. have no idea why this works but it does. another thought, when we keep the resentment, its not hurting the wrong doer but only hurting ourselves because our spirit if not at peace. try not to give that person that much power over you. they are going on with their life and could care less probably. i don't understand either how ppl can hurt others the way they do. it's troubled me since a child. my conscience would bother me so much i'd have to right the wrong but not all ppl are like that.
so the person you need to treat kinder to is yourself. if there is no resolution forthcoming let it go and hand it over to a hgher power, jme. we cannot change the past even tho it might be a better world if we could. so the present is the only thing we've got to deal with. let your life be a shining star . hang with ppl that respect you and value you as a person. keep a healthy distance emotionally from those that have harmed you. this will protect you from their ways. you're not running from them, you choose to surround yourself with good ppl with your value system. you sound like a nice person. stay that way and don't allow others to tarnish your spirit. hugs to u. i hope this helps in some small way.

[Mouse_]

I think one of the things we worry about is that by forgiving someone, we are saying, oh well perhaps it wasn't that bad after all. This is an obstical I have struggled with. I think its important to remember that because we forgive, we are not saying we were never hurt.

[SeptemberMorn]

There is a video here that someone posted. If you have trouble following the link, let me know and I'll work around it.

HOW to forgive? Literally, the person who has hurt you is tied to your back as long as you don't forgive them. You need to emotionally and mentally CUT THE CORDS that are binding them to you (picture having them tied to your back) and "let it go, release it/them." You don't forget so that you don't step into harm's way again, but you cut the cords of anger, pain, resentment and any thoughts or ideas of getting even. You're not so much cutting them free as you are cutting yourself free from a heavy, cumbersome load. Like Madisgram said, it helps to pray about it, too.

[yeronimo]

YOU SAID YOU HURT, AND WE ALL KNOW THAT IT IS AN UNHEALTHY EXPERIENCE AS A WHOLE PERSON. bUT THEN WE SHOULD MUST NEVER FORGET THAT IT IS ONLY AN "EMOTION" IT IS ONLY A FEELING. WE SHOULD MUST NEVER FORGET TOO, THAT WE ALL HAVE "MINDS" AND SOMETIMES WE FORGOT THAT OUR MIND IS MORE POWERFUL THAN OUR EMOTION. YES, IT IS A POWER, WE MUST CONSIDERED IT AS A POWER AND NOT JUST ONLY A "FUNCTIONAL ORDINARY ORGAN". IF YOU DECIDED THAT YOU WANT TO FORGIVE THAT PERSON THEN THAT IS ONE OF THE BEST THINGS THAT YOU HAVE DONE IN YOUR LIFE, THE BEST TIME TO FORGIVE IS TODAY AS LONG AS YOU ARE IN PROPER MIND, I MEAN YOU ARE UNDOUBTFUL. PERSONALLY I WANT TO FORGIVE WHEN I AM (DRUNK, SICK OR IN THE MID OF 3:00 AM) IT IS PROVEN TO ME, BECAUSE IT WILL LESSEN MY DOUBT OR SHYNESS. BUT THEN IF YOU FORGIVED THAT PERSON MAKE SURE THAT YOUR COMMUNICATION IS HEALTHY EVERYDAY, TO HEAL YOUR ANGER OR YOU MAY ALSO "IMAGINE" THAT HE OR SHE IS YOUR "THE MOST IMPORTANT PERSON IN YOUR LIFE AGAIN LIKE WHAT YOU USED TO DO BEFORE (EVEN NOT)." "TIME IS THE BEST CURER OF EMOTIONS" I THINK MAYBE AFTER 8 MONTHS OR MORE, YOU AND HE WILL BECoME OKAY AGAIN (WELL!! IT DEPENDS ON YOU Jennifer)

Good luck, Take care, love you!!!!

[sky dancer]

Originally Posted by Jenn1fer82

How do you learn to forgive the people you care the most in your life. I'm having such a difficult time moving on in life when I still such resentment and anger towards those who have hurt me and abandon me. Regardless what the issues may be I know I should forgive for the sake of my happiness but I just dont know how to start. Please tell me what others have done to help you move on in life.

I can only speak for myself. I cannot say I've 'forgiven' anyone who has hurt me. I can say that I have found a way to accept what's happened to me. Not every trauma, not every person.

My childhood abusers have died. I'm still working through PTSD, and I am going through some of the experiences--feeling the sadness of what happened which started out with not accepting that the unacceptable happened in my childhood, and that it was as bad as it was.

As that has happened, its not like forgiveness has come with it, but acceptance and peace has been coming, little by little.

If you're a Christian, (I'm not, I'm a Buddhist) then forgiveness means something else to you spiritually--and I'm not the best person to help you address it.

But what's helping me move on with my life is to honor the truth of what really happened to me, and how long standing it affected me, and somehow that has helped things shift increasingly toward a soft hearted feeling.

As a non-Christian I don't think of forgiveness as a 'should'. I think anything that comes with a 'should' is not truth. Truth just is--our shared human condition--

Helen Keller said the world is full of suffering, and it is full of the healing of suffering (or there abouts).

Best wishes for continued healing and peace. May we all find happiness and the causes of happiness, and an end to suffering and the causes of suffering.

Buddhists have a whole technology for working these things through--but there appears to be some limit to how much I can share--some kind of religious restriction here.

sky

[Jenn1fer82]

Thank you everyone who's shared their ideas and time with me.

Please continue to share because it really makes me feeling that I'm not alone.

[coralproper]

for me forgiveness works like a light switch, though I understand each persons character is unquie and with each persons character, situations and circumstances will vary greatly, I am not god or jesus so for me there are still things, that as a human are unforgivable.

I try not to harbor malice & ill will toward nobody inside myself, since it is only like cancer with potential to spread wild

[beutifulxdreamr]

For me, forgiveness has always come secondary to me putting rational thought to the situation. If you are consumed by emotion and can't even think straight, it's likely that forgiving them won't make sense and won't be appealing either.

For me, I have to remind myself that we are all fallible. I reflect back on the things that I have done in my life that would warrant apologies on my part or forgiveness on another.

In cases of family, I have to remind myself that just because they are family, doesn't mean they are above the "normal" standard of what a person is - they are fallible. They will hurt me from time to time, whether on accident or on purpose. So long as my self preservation and my livelihood is in tact, all of that is okay (I know some people don't think of it this way... this is not meant to apply if you are currently in an abusive situation of course. At that point the priority is not forgiveness, it's safety).

A lot of it has just taken time ... and space. I know I will never have the type of relationship I truly want with some of my family. I have to let that be okay, and I have to let other's love be enough for me.

In general, no matter what you are trying to do in life, it's best to take it one day at a time. If today you don't feel like forgiving - then don't. There is a tomorrow, and if the sun for some reason decides not to come up the next day and its the end of the world as we know it, then we really have nothing to worry about any way. We won't be here to regret what we did in life. Live in the present as best you can and let all other matters take care of themselves. Do your best, even if you think its not good enough. At least, that has usually worked for me any way. Good luck

[miray]

Thank you for bringing this topic up Jen1fer! These replies rock!!

[Ellen Ritter, PhD]

I think, for me, one of the pieces which helped me was to realize and accept that the wrongs done to me were done in the past and therefore, there was absolutely nothing I could do to change them. I could hate what happened, I could try to ensure that it wouldn't happen again, but those events were entirely in the past and living is about being in the present and working for the future. That really clicked for me . . . all that had happened made me who I am today.

The other piece of this, for me, was that all the anger and trying to change the past used up so much of the energy I could use now to move on and make my life better. I am not entirely comfortable with what "forgiveness" really means but for me, I realized that those people who had wronged me didn't deserve any of my energy, and that in spending my time being angry, I was continuing to still give them power over my life, something I don't think they deserve. That for me was really freeing -- like I had a choice now, even if I didn't before, and I chose to focus my energy on the present and the future and on myself.

Hope this makes sense.

[Jennifer78]

My way of forgiving is similar to Ellen's. Emotions such as hurt, anger, resentment and disappointment involving other people occur because you have, or had, an expectation that they would behave otherwise. When that doesn't happen you have an emotional response.

In order to forgive I first have to accept that what I wanted to happen didn't happen and probably never will happen (That's when I give a very big sigh). That acceptance is huge in getting a release from the disappointment.

It's tough when you think that someone 'should have done this and should have done that and shouldn't ought to have done that' but not everyone behaves ideally. That's hard to accept, especially when you've ended up on the worst side of the bargain but things in the past aren't going to change. The sooner you do accept that the sooner you can move on.