Forgiving someone

[Koldo]

Forgiveness is something we have control over. We do not have control over the color blue. Forgiveness is a choice.

So that choice becomes do we hang onto it, or let it go? This is where purpose and function come in. If we are choosing to hang onto it, why? What purpose or good is it giving us? We don't do things for no purpose. Forgiveness and unforgiveness are choices.

I see the act of forgiving, or not, as relating to a feeling. And I don't find it proper to think of feelings (or colors) on terms of telos.

Which is why forgiveness is important. Unforgiveness is a poison. It feeds the negative. And the negative has an effect on the health of the body and the mind.

I completely disagree. It is entirely possible for unforgiveness not to have a negative effect on the health of the body and the mind. It only becomes poison if you center your life around it.

 

[Koldo]

Holding someone accountable for their actions, and you hanging onto unforgiveness, are two entirely different and unrelated things.

But why would I want to hold you accountable for something that I have forgiven you? What do you have in mind for 'holding accountable' ? Do you mean as in merely regarding someone responsible for something or that this person must make ammends?

 

[stvdv]

And that gets to the deeper realization that so very much of what we do in judging and condemning and blaming others, is actually a projection of our own self-condemnation. When we judge another, we are already judging ourselves first.

That's why we do it. If we can blame them, then we are the victims in our minds. Which means, if they are to blame, we can project that blame onto them and away from ourselves. If they are guilty, we are innocent, so our irrational minds reason. The more guilt and shame we feel about ourselves on the inside, the more critical and judgmental of others on the outside we become. It's all a distraction.

I was not talking about judging, condemning and blaming. Just about "not let others cross the line".
I had a cat, and she loved to cross the line. But she knew she was naughty. When I just looked at her, she quickly stepped back.

It all has to do with respect. Respect for others, but also for yourself, and for Dharma.
Dharma protects those that protect Dharma. Allowing others to hurt you, is not Dharma IMO.

When I know someone is disrespectful, I will not befriend that person. As simple as that.
This way, I do not create the situation for him to behave Adharmic to me.
This way, I do not get irritated or judgmental. You only get irritated when go against Dharma.

 

[Windwalker]

I see the act of forgiving, or not, as relating to a feeling. And I don't find it proper to think of feelings on terms of telos.

I see that our feelings, our thoughts, and our bodies, are all one interconnected whole. To either place feelings at the top or the bottom of some imaginary hierarchy is unreality. Unforgiveness is something we hold mentally, experience emotionally, and manifest physically. It's not 'just an emotion', but a whole package deal.

I completely disagree. It is entirely possible for unforgiveness not to have a negative effect on the health of the body and the mind. It only becomes poison if you center your life around it.

I don't agree with this. It's there having an effect, whether you consciously are aware of it, thinking on it, dwelling on it, obsessing over it or not. Repression is well known to have negative effects. This is where the Shadow lives inside of us, that dark stuff we don't want to own, such as resentments and unforgiveness.

All that crap has an effect upon the whole. It does affect us. It is still a poison, whether it's fast acting or slow acting.

 

[Windwalker]

But why would I want to hold you accountable for something that I have forgiven you?

Forgiving someone for their wrong actions, is not excusing wrong actions, or not holding them responsible for them. Forgiveness is about what you are holding in your heart in your attitudes towards them. Living with love in your heart, does not mean you will accept them harming others.

What do you have in mind for 'holding accountable' ? Do you mean as in merely regarding someone responsible for something or that this person must make ammends?

If a neighbor got angry and shot my dog, I can hold him responsible for his actions, while not holding onto my negative feelings about him for having done so.

 

[stvdv]

On that i agree, the difference is you claim you can forgive your sub human abuser, i dont.

Wait a moment, I did not claim I can forgive others. Tigres I could forgive (because I know it's their instinct). And when I see those inhumane beings as worse than tigres (just to not downplay the tigre), it gets easier to let go for me.

I decided to avoid disrespectful people, and that way I do not get irritated. When damage has been done, it takes more time (lots of time sometimes)

 

[Windwalker]

I was not talking about judging, condemning and blaming. Just about "not let others cross the line".

judging, condemning, and blaming, are signs of unforgiveness.

It all has to do with respect. Respect for others, but also for yourself, and for Dharma.
Dharma protects those that protect Dharma. Allowing others to hurt you, is not Dharma IMO.

Letting go of anger, resentment, etc., through forgiveness, does not mean you are a doormat that others can take advantage of. There is a deep misunderstanding of what love and forgiveness means in the world. It does not mean you accept everything as good or right. Not even remotely so.

When I know someone is disrespectful, I will not befriend that person. As simple as that.

Can you forgive them for being that way towards you, and show them love in return instead? I think of one of the Proverbs here. "A soft answer turns away wrath, but a harsh response stirs up anger". Note that there is a response from you, and not simply walking away, or not being friends with that person?

This way, I do not create the situation for him to behave Adharmic to me.
This way, I do not get irritated or judgmental. You only get irritated when go against Dharma.

This is just avoiding conflicts. It doesn't get to the real heart of the matter, pun intended.

 

[ChristineM]

My, my, such hostility. Such anger. No, it's not to suit my ego. You made an argument that did not make any sense, and it still does not. It seems to make sense to you, which is why I tried to show you how it doesn't make sense logically.

There you go again with the misrepresentation. You misrepresented my comment to your own ends and do not expect a response!

Perhaps the argument didnt make sense to you. I live my life by my rules, not by your logic

Why would you bring up them continuing to hurt you, if you forgave them? Please explain your logic. If they are dead, or in prison, or not around you anymore, then why should you hold onto unforgiveness? What purpose does it serve then, if you think unforgiveness means stopping them?

I am sensing here that your past traumas do not really amount to much. Ones brain simply does not say, ok, forgiven. It remembers the hurt for a long, long time.

When people say, "I will never forgive them, but I am indifferent to it now", that is a contradiction. That "indifference" is actually not a resolution through forgiveness. It's burying it out of sight, numbing ourselves emotionally to the pain. That is why forgiveness heals, while indifference merely buries.

No it is not a contradiction. As stated earlier, the brain just does not turn off. You can dump your anger as forgiveness and feel indifference and have no anger to dump.

Of course it makes a difference. Forgiveness heals us. Repression slowly poisons us.

Indifference : lack of interest, concern, or sympathy.

Repression : the action or process of suppressing a thought or desire in oneself so that it remains unconscious.

Note the difference in the words

Correct. One is letting go and resolving our negative feelings, and the other is burying them, which only results in negative consequences.

See above

Yes there is repression involved when it comes to not dealing with feelings of unforgiveness.

See above

Dear god, come on. Seriously? You think forgivenss has to do with giving them permission to do harm? Seriously? How do you figure that? Please explain the logic of that.

Absolutely not, stop making crap up to suit your ego?
So someone invades your mothers home, terrorises and rapes her, you forgive them
They go on to invade, terrorise and rape others
Do you forgive them a second or third time?

And none of that has to do with forgiveness. Holding someone accountable for their actions, and you hanging onto unforgiveness, are two entirely different and unrelated things.

See above

 

[Koldo]

I see that our feelings, our thoughts, and our bodies, are all one interconnected whole. To either place feelings at the top or the bottom of some imaginary hierarchy is unreality. Unforgiveness is something we hold mentally, experience emotionally, and manifest physically. It's not 'just an emotion', but a whole package deal.

I see no hierarchy either. I would frame it slighty different though: We hold it emotionally and experience it mentally.

And yet, I just don't see any point on thinking of feelings on terms of purpose. Why do you?

I don't agree with this. It's there having an effect, whether you consciously are aware of it, thinking on it, dwelling on it, obsessing over it or not. Repression is well known to have negative effects. This is where the Shadow lives inside of us, that dark stuff we don't want to own, such as resentments and unforgiveness.

All that crap has an effect upon the whole. It does affect us. It is still a poison, whether it's fast acting or slow acting.

How do you measure the effect?
How did you reach the conclusion that unforgiveness must lead to repression?
I think you just might be projecting here.

 

[Koldo]

Forgiving someone for their wrong actions, is not excusing wrong actions, or not holding them responsible for them. Forgiveness is about what you are holding in your heart in your attitudes towards them. Living with love in your heart, does not mean you will accept them harming others.

If a neighbor got angry and shot my dog, I can hold him responsible for his actions, while not holding onto my negative feelings about him for having done so.

Sure. But will you insist on them somehow paying for what they have done? I would say that if you do, you have not forgiven.

 

[Hellbound Serpiente]

When someone is unable to forgive another do you think the main reason is because they've never done anything wrong themselves to the degree that would need forgiveness? Not that this should be the reason to forgive someone.

I don't think that's true, me being an example. I am probably the most vengeful person you can come across, I can go as far as saying that I am vengeance personified, but I am very well aware of the unforgivable crimes and terrible, TERRIBLE wrongs I am guilty of. So much so, I feel like I am being eaten alive from the inside out because of what I've done. My regrets are beyond hell-like, it has burned me from the inside. I am extremely cognizant of the fact that I've caused so much harm that there's no words to define it, yet I am at the same time the most vengeful soul you can come across.

Are there other reasons and if so are they a lower percentage of the reasons?

There are plenty of other reasons. Strong sense of justice can unable a person from forgiving, for they want to see justice served. I am one such person. Sometimes forgiveness actually encourages the wrongdoers, and people only want the harmful behavior to stop, thus they refuse to forgive, to make sure such evils aren't repeated. There might be many other reasons

 

[Unveiled Artist]

Sure, but forgiveness entails not caring if it gives a way out. So yes, if a person feels that forgiving will be a way out to the criminal it makes all the sense to refrain from forgiving.

That's what I'm saying. It's psychological. Some people feel that way others do not.

 

[Windwalker]

I see no hierarchy either. I would frame it slighty different though: We hold it emotionally and experience it mentally.

Ah... you are grappling with the age old question, which came first, the chicken or the egg, the thought or the emotion. I know this puzzle well. Different schools of thought see it the other way around, such as you find in Cognitive Behavior Therapy. Does the thought precede the emotion, or the emotion precede the thought? I personally see it can arise in either place, or neither, or both simultaneously, etc. It ultimately doesn't matter, since it all happens in a nanosecond anyway.

Regardless of the cause and effect relationships, there is one thing for certain though. They interact with each other in a self-amplifying feedback system. Negative thoughts most definitely increase negative emotions, which in turn feeds back into and increases the negativity of the thoughts, which in turn increase the negativity of the emotions. They feed off of each other.

This is why forgiveness is such a vitally important part in the process of finding mental and emotional health and wellbeing. It breaks that cycle. And moreover, it then replaces the negative feedback loop, with a positive feedback loop. What we hold in our minds, will in fact manifest itself in our emotions and in our physical bodies, through constantly tense muscles, lack of circulation, etc, all of which affects our physical, mental, and emotional health. Positivity increases health. Prolonged negativity, such as carrying around resentments, decreases health.

Repressed negativity has the same effect. While we may have it "out of mind", it is not out of awareness in our bodies, or in our emotions. Our subconscious and unconscious mind are very much part of the whole package deal. Would you agree with this?

How do you measure the effect?

Mental, emotional, spiritual, and physical symptoms. This is why people end up in therapy. And probably the majority of these problems are due to things like this. Negative mental outlooks, for instance, will manifest themselves in someone's posture, which effects blood circulation, which affects mental outlooks, which affects the emotions, which affect the body.

Now, take someone who is slumped over with crappy posture. Have them think of some positive thing, something that energizes them. They now sit up straight, the blood flows better, they feel better, they think more positively, etc. Again, feedback loops, in both negative and positive directions.

How did you reach the conclusion that unforgiveness must lead to repression?
I think you just might be projecting here.

I don't think I said that. It is not a given that it leads to repression. The person has a choice to acknowledge that in themselves and release it. Or that choice may be to rationalize and justify hanging onto it, that it's "needed" for some reason. Now if they do that, eventually unhappiness and disease is going to begin to set in, creating anxiety. That is when people attempt to respond to its presence by pushing it out of mind into the shadows.

Doing that just forestalls and worsens the effect of holding onto it. Now it's no longer obvious why they are so miserable, because they are pushing it away into the closet in order not to face the reason why they need to forgive the other, which is facing the pain that it caused them and letting that go. It's all about holding onto our pain. And then, it's no longer the other who is victimizing us, but ourselves victimizing ourselves.

 

[Jimmy]

Ahh christian rapists, thats a whole different ball game, like the any tens of thousands of christian criminals.

If they were truly concerned about their actions they would not have violated anothers freedom, sanctity, humanity, body

They are only repentant because they have been caught

And i didn't bother reading your apologetics excuses

Well there are a lot of people concerned about their actions but commit crimes while under the influence of alcohol or drugs unfortunately. They don't feel guilty because they got caught. It actually makes them pretty sad that it happened because in their sober mind it would've never happened.

 

[Unveiled Artist]

Oh!

What? You thought it was "that" serious about this?

People have better experiences than me and worse experiences than you and I'm sure some of them have forgiven-probably with therapy and other means. Sometimes therapist help one forgive for the wellbeing of the victim rather than the benefit of the prey. Depends. Someone who experience grief may experience worse than the one beside him regardless if it were a stranger, family, friend, loved one, child. It depends on the relationship, situation, personality, and psyche (etc) of the person not what type of situation they are involved in in order for one to determine if he or she should forgive while another does it for his or her own sake not the sake of the prey.

But, yeah. Conversation sake. The questions weren't rhetorical.

 

[Windwalker]

Sure. But will you insist on them somehow paying for what they have done? I would say that if you do, you have not forgiven.

Forgiveness by one individual to another, does not mean they don't have an obligation socially to make good to another for having wronged them. Social contracts, and personal forgiveness are two different things. I'm talking about holding onto resentments of how they wronged you. I'm not talking about forgiving them the debt they now owe you to fix your car after they lost their cool with you and beat it with a bat.

 

[Jimmy]

How many times do you need to change move the goalposts in order to get the answer you want.

I am not in the habit of starting bar fights so i have no idea what would constitute a good excuse.

In my view, as i have stated previously, forgiveness (like respect) should be earned

OK let's say he started the fight because the other guy killed his friend. And let's say that the victim in the bar fight ended up with permanent brain damage.

 

[Eyes to See]

Because you brought it up, rationalizing that if you forgave the perpetrator, they we keep on hurting others. So I asked, if they were dead, then if you are still holding onto your unforgiveness, is it serving any good purpose? Is it helping you, or harming you?

I would argue unforgiveness harms the person doing it, regardless of what the other person has done, or if they continue to live or have died. Unforgiveness only harms you. Holding onto hatred, is like a cancer to the mind and body.


But unforgiveness isn't something that just goes away, or fades on its own into forgetfulness. You hold condemnation of another actively in your heart, until you actively let it go, or "forgive".


Unforgiveness is not the same as indifference. It is actively holding blame on the other person, anytime they come up in your mind, or even if just simmers under the surface. "I've forgotten all about that *******," is a lie.

As long as you never forgave them, you hold onto your anger, even if you eventually make yourself numb to it, and assume that is a mere indifference. It's still there, and is still affecting you, and nobody else but you. We can carry that unforgiveness with us our whole lives, and it only hurts ourselves. It serves no good purpose.

Forgiveness has nothing to do with the worthiness of the other person. When we make it that, it is because that is how we treat ourselves. When we condemn others, we are condemning ourselves. When we place our hands around another's throat, we are placing them around our own.

Yea, no. I didn't say any of those things you have me quoted as saying.

 

[ChristineM]

Well there are a lot of people concerned about their actions but commit crimes while under the influence of alcohol or drugs unfortunately. They don't feel guilty because they got caught. It actually makes them pretty sad that it happened because in their sober mind it would've never happened.

We are talking of people who are responsible for their actions, well i i anyway

 

[Windwalker]

Yea, no. I didn't say any of those things you have me quoted as saying.

Oops. Sorry about that. It was a copy/paste problem. I fixed the post.