Forgiveness.. Interesting concept…
What happens when you don’t forgive? I know what happens to me.. A part of me shrivels up & dies or creates another hard layer of my psyche that is difficult to shift.. And the more I try to push it aside, more & more of my life force/energy gets eaten away until I am left with just a smidgen of what I could be…
Is that any way to live? Is that any way to be?
You are only hurting yourself when you do not forgive..
What I am learning now, is that I can easily forgive other people – so much so that my mother believes me to be an “easy target” and my children think I am weak and need protecting! (What they don’t understand (at the moment) is that it is a tough road to follow – to pull yourself up when you perceive an attack and let it go. Which is quite different to ignoring or avoiding a situation.)
However, when it comes to me, I am having great difficulty… It seems that I have a tendency to be really hard on myself and expect a great deal from myself. When I fall short of those expectations, I do not forgive, I just give myself a hard time… No loving thoughts coming my way from me!!
Why is that?
I guess I don’t need to know why… I just need to learn.. Learn to be loving towards myself.. Learn to offer myself the same advice as I would offer my friends… Learn to forgive myself..
If you ever figure out how to do this, let me know. I do the same thing over and over again.
Siggghh! Please do let me know too.
There is a poem in Turkish which I can’t recall now saying something like, “…I’m the one who killed the innocent…”
I can’t put my thoughts on a line on this but feel like I have lots to say. Instead I’ll copy two pieces here and will be looking forward to other people’s thoughts. The pieces seem to be a light relevance with your post. But I think you will see my point.
“A Priest:
“For a brief time I served in a small parish in England, and every Sunday after mass, I would see a young boy waiting at the back of the church. And then one day the boy confessed to me that he had beaten his dog to death with a shovel. He said the dog had bitten his baby sister on the cheek and he needed to protect her. And he wanted to know whether he would go to hell for this. I told him that god would understand, that he would be forgiven, as long as he was sorry. But the boy did not care about forgiveness. He was only afraid that if he did go to hell, that dog would be there waiting for him. “”
“Man goes to doctor. Says “I’m depressed. I can’t enjoy life. I think of the hungry ones, I can’t eat. I think of the naked, I feel cold with them. I blame myself for every murder. Every bullet gets into my heart. I can’t laugh anymore.”
The doctor points at the banner outside the window, which is about a clown.
“You see that clown. I recommend you to go to his show every night. You forget all your sorrow, learn to smile and laugh again. You will restart enjoying life”
“Doctor” says the man lowering his head “I’m that clown””
Best wishes.
Oh, I will!
Thanks Levent… I do indeed see your point…