Forgiveness is something that I have struggled with for most of my life. It is something that everyone with a troubled past needs to deal with. If you don't, it will grow like a cancer inside you.
My main issue over the years was that there was only one way to forgive. You had to forgive in the traditional sense of 'turning the other check' so that they could hit you on that side as well. If you could not, you must be a terrible person and you could not get on with your life. It did not make sense to me to forgive things that the other person wasn't truly sorry for. To me, forgiveness implied that what the other person did was okay. I had to learn to let go of the destructive anger inside me, but still felt that what happened was wrong.
Several years ago, I read a book that was helpful to me, I can't remember the title or the author but I remember the advice. I read so many books that it becomes impossible to remember them all. The book had a chapter on things that are forgiveable and discussed how one could be a "moral unforgiver". It discussed the difference in circumstances and the types of situations when to forgive would cause damage or harm. For example, forgiveness in some situations would be tantamount to "colluding in creating a false reality" that can allow future abuse to continue - both for that person as well as others.
As a general principle, I am in favor of forgiveness. I would not think of not forgiving someone who was truly sorry for what they did wrong. My problem comes in forgiving people who either will not acknowledge that they did wrong or people who are not sorry and have no plan to stop what they are doing.
The most interesting concept that I gained from this book was that children who have no validation and no protection become prisoners mentally as well as physically. Not forgiving is a recourse they can only create as independent adults; a way to free themselves from years of being coerced to agree that hate is really love. Under the pretense of promoting family harmony, parents who need to deny one child's viciousness and their own negligence often try to force the victimized child to be "mature" and "rise above it". Later in life, 'good' siblings continue to make the same demands of themselves. Their willingness to accept bad treatment, to feel they deserve it, or to define it out of existence then extends beyond their families and damages their later lives. Even those in less extreme circumstances tend to absorb parental values as an unexamined template for their own responses, making it difficult for them to distinguish what they truly feel from what has been imposed on them. Forgiveness as defined by a family with something to hide negates a daughter's right to think and feel for herself; what they consider healing would in fact be self-annihalting. False forgiveness allows evil to be excused and perpuated, but people have to be held accountable. My parents were not abusive or neglectful in any way, but the environment of alcoholism left them to only dwell on their own personal demons. They loved us the best that they knew how; they were both from the same type of environment. I think that this is especially true of children of alcoholic parents. My best friend and I have discussed this at great length since we both come from the same type of background. In summary, I believe that forgiveness involves the action of not wishing the other person harm.......of no wanting vengeance; as we say forgiving a debt owed us and not expecting payment. We must not dwell on it, continuous thoughts will poison your mind. You can forgive, but you cannot forget, that I am still working on...................................
No comments:
Post a Comment