Forgiveness—person-to-person—is a one-way street. Best to expect nothing in return from the wrongdoer, for that is what you often get. But if the intent is truly sincere, and if thought of from the perspective that both parties are divine, then it’s one of the most holy acts of contrition/faith you can engage in.
And I believe as someone’s evolution accelerates, the act becomes more and more natural.
In addition to your words, which are a mature truism few discuss outside of religion, my life lessons could add this:
Forgiveness has become fuel into the proverbial fire of too many sadists, narcissists, and other abusive personalities. It resulted in more than corrupted companies, spoiled online meetings, and stalkers. By forgiving people whom it made encouraged to repeat or outmatch their crimes I found that forgiveness is for SINS, not for crimes, and neither a therapy-trick to make the mentally ill feel back in control of their life. Damn, you always make me … I would like to add some charming and cheery comments, too, you know? ;-(
I totally agree. And sometimes, if I may take advantage of our calm and rational discourse, the most helpful course of action for someone involves their temporary discomfort, their injury, or even their death. With these wayward entities, I believe they should be addressed by stopping their capability to threaten, then given the opportunity to change (under a vigilant eye, of course) but once that’s addressed, forgiven. I think if you look at it on a micro-level, forgiveness is actually independent of taking corrective action. The best corrective action comes from a mind that knows the evidence and acts accordingly. You can already have forgiven someone for their wrongs while actively trying to kill them. That’s pretty advanced though, and like I said, I’m taking advantage of the luxury of our non-stress-threaded dialogue. We’ll see though…the future holds many possibilities!
Haha! Now moving from the theory to application, we encounter the entanglement of politics! Absolutely agree with your point—doesn’t every tyrant start with good intent? I think it’s rare that somebody truly thinks of themselves as a bad guy or selfish. In their mind, it isn’t the intent that twists their actions, it’s that their perspective was twisted in the first place. (IMHO)
Thanks for the Musing, DirtySciFiBuddha, and I want to comment on the comment above. I view forgiveness in a very different way than most people do. Unfortunately, I believe that too many people suffer under the one or more of the many, many misconceptions that abound about what forgiveness means, why it’s useful, and how to do it in ways that are healthy. These misconceptions are perpetuated at various times by among others, well-meaning religious people, simplistic new-age peace and love types and also by perpetrators or predators themselves (as alluded to above),
One of my primary missions in life has now become sharing and teaching about Empowered Forgiveness and emotional education. Emotional Education very simply teaches a set of useful perspectives and tools that will allow people to understand and interpret the experiences of their lilves in personally responsible, healthy and serving ways.
The misconceptions I see embedded to some degree or another in the comment are:
1) Forgiveness is for the benefit of the other.
2) Forgiving means condoning someone’s actions or choices or making them okay.
3) Forgiving means that you will not or cannot hold someone to account for their crimes or hurtful actions.
4) In order to forgive, you have to forget, go back to the way things were and set yourself up to be victimized once again.
My primary point here is that forgiveness is something that you would do to set yourself free of the toxic burden of anger, resentment, blame, victimhood, guilt and/or shame. It’s the gift you give yourself, it’s really not about anyone else – certainly not about setting yourself up to be victimized repeatedly. Here are links to a few of posts from one of my blogs that address some of the misconceptions:
http://forgivenessclub.com/2012/11/forgiveness-its-all-about-you/
http://forgivenessclub.com/2012/12/relieving-the-burden-of-being-a-victim/
http://forgivenessclub.com/2013/05/forgiving-is-not-condoning/
I’ve also written an entire book to help dispel some of the most common misconceptions (if you’re interested, it’s “The Forgiveness Handbook: A Simple Guide to Freedom of the Mind and Heart” and is available through Amazon or via the website: theforgivenesshandbook.com.
Thanks for considering this input! I welcome any responses or feedback.
PS DirtySciFiBuddha, I would agree with your claim “You can already have forgiven someone for their wrongs while actively trying to kill them.” Forgiveness does not equate to passivity – especially when it comes to protecting yourself and those you love.
Wow, Thank You for the in-depth comment! With my musings I try to capture the spirit of a teaching from someone much smarter than I without losing the audience in the minutiae of the layers. But I applaud you Cliff—every one of the great masters’ wisdom instinctually speaks to that deeper part of ourselves which sparks enthusiasm and energy, but so many fail to take advantage of that enthusiasm and energy by not investigating the layers of the teaching, and you seem to be dedicated to doing that! Nice to see a Fellow Investigator! I’ve skimmed your links and the theme you emphasize—looking past this petty tit-for-tat-what-can-I-get-in-return mentality and realizing forgiveness is just about personal freedom—is AWESOME!!! I’m pretty busy right now, but when things cool down (honestly, it’ll probably be a while) I’d like to give your stuff a more in-depth read and return some input. Thank You again!!!
DSFB, first, thanks for being an investigator and for what you’re doing here and in your book by offering ‘evolution-oriented’ ideas, teachings and musings. Collectively, we need a lot more of that through multiple media channels!
Thanks also for the response and the validation of what I’m up to. I appreciate the encouragement because it so often seems that I’m shouting into the wind in trying to educate people about the benefits of forgiving for the purposes of self empowerment and liberation. I’ve actually started referring to forgiveness as the “F-word”, 😉 in some of my posts and talks, because so many people seem to have so much negative baggage around the word itself.
By the way, I found this post of yours as a re-post on the blog of Wanda Luthman, a recently gained friend and colleague. I’m doing a guest post for her blog soon, with a working title of “Why I Love the F-Word and Use It Liberally – Maybe You Should Too.” I’ll put a link here in the comments once that’s published.
I often think that I forgive too easly, but that is not true, I may let it be but I never forgive. I have never forgiven a single soul who did me wrong and I like to take pity on myself for the wrongdoings I fell victim. They never ask for forgivness, I think I totally would forgive them if they did. It must be nice to just feel clean, or just have that one come up to you and say “Yes, I did you wrong. Can you forgive me?”
I too have a natural tendency toward fairness, justice, and on the flip side, vengeance and comeuppance. But in order to progress (just me, not sure about others) I’ve had to learn to forgive. I’ve gone that way because my number one thing that I love is progress. Good luck with your path, and I wish you the best! 🙂
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