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Why forgiving someone else is about you

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Re: Why forgiving someone else is about you

#31

Post by purple-again »

nicoburns wrote: post #21
willcipriano wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As with all things in life it really depends on how you frame it. As a young man I encountered many people who were unkind, told me that my goals were impossible and mocked me for my ambition. Now that I have succeeded at those aims and continued to grow as a human being it is a great feeling to encounter those people in life and see that they haven't been as successful as I have. I can't help but think that I perhap…

Proving someone wrong isn't revenge. Revenge would be if you used your newfound position of power to actively hurt them in some way.

No that’s your definition of revenge. I agree with the OPs definition of revenge. The first step of any productive conversation is to make sure you have a meeting of the minds on the words being used to describe real world phenomenon.

Re: Why forgiving someone else is about you

#32

Post by dkarl »

Forgiveness as discussed here is an internal emotional matter and easy to make a case for. Forgiveness becomes a public and contentious issue when the injured party is under pressure to once more trust the offender, to do business with them, to "let them back into their lives," etc. That's what the arguments are about, and that's when this idea of forgiveness gets perverted into "gee, you must be suffering spiritually under all that hatred and resentment towards Bob, why don't you let it go and let Bob borrow your car for his bachelor party road trip."

Re: Why forgiving someone else is about you

#33

Post by scottious »

hnarayanan wrote: post #3
hawk_ wrote: post #2

While law doesn't have place for revenge in a civilised society and rightly so, the need for revenge/retribution I suspect is quite innate. It's healthy to try to forgive but it's quite difficult, almost like you can't fool yourselves into thinking you aren't hungry.

Do you honestly believe revenge helps you?

If you take the high road while they consistently take the low road long enough, eventually you'll feel like a complete push over who lacks self-respect.

I personally have reached a breaking point in which I realize that if I don't do something different, then the people who've abused me will continue abusing me while all while I take the high road and try to be the better person.

I wouldn't call it revenge, because that sounds malicious. Let's call it tit-for-tat or "taking my ball and going home". If you repeatedly abuse me, you're out of my life. Call it revenge or call it whatever you want, but I'm simply not going to stand for it.

Re: Why forgiving someone else is about you

#34

Post by throwaway0a5e »

ogurechny wrote: post #28
Waterfall wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. If you were stung by a wasp does it make you happy when you smack it to death and it never stings you again? Or do you forgive it as it continues to sting you and you gladly turn the other cheek to let it sting your other cheek too? Then when your facial cheeks are all stung, do you let it sting both your lower cheeks so when you sit down you can forgive them? Now the whole village is being stung by wasps and yo…

You have just made a speech about non-Aryan sub-human pests… wasps. I'm not sure whether it is sad or funny.

>You have just made a speech about non-Aryan sub-human pests… wasps

Are you hearing a dog whistle that I'm not?

Wasps (the black and yellow flying kind, not the "control political discourse in the Boston-DC corridor" kind) in his example are obviously just a metaphor that's being used as a stand in for some thing that is uncontroversially considered harmful.

Re: Why forgiving someone else is about you

#35

Post by jerkstate »

One of the most important aspects of forgiveness is a credible apology. We all know people who can't or won't apologize for their transgressions, or heard apologies that don't address the core issues of the transgression. When you hear a small child apologize, it's reflexive, like they hope to use it as a shield for any retribution or punishment. The true purpose of an apology is to convey contrition and growth from the aggrieving party to the aggrieved, which are both important to the ability to forgive any given transgression. A large part of this forgiveness article is about expressing yourself - perhaps to the aggrieving party - perhaps in order to achieve a satisfactory apology. In that way, an apology is like a confession of sin prayer. If you don't mean it, the person upstairs can tell and you won't be forgiven. Maybe this is one function of religion - helping us develop the important life skills of apology and forgiveness.

Re: Why forgiving someone else is about you

#36

Post by fladrif »

scottious wrote: post #25

As somebody who's struggling to forgive somebody who's wronged me, I find this article to be a bit wishy-washy, like this: > Reexamine your perceptions of life events that have trapped you in the role of victim. well, what if somebody really truly was a victim? What if one's parents have condescended and belittled them for decades? What if one's mother is abusive and drinks too much? What if somebody spent their enti…

I think the part you're missing is this passage

> soul-level letting-go of our pain, our sorrow, our suffering," Holub says. "And we do that because we want to be free.

I'm not saying that it's easy or something you may want to do, but it will end up improving your life.

Personally I'm in a similar situation to the one you presented, with the overbearing insensitive parent. It's difficult to say that I've forgiven them, but it's a slow process of trying to rid my life of their influence and shedding that negativity and their nagging voice in the back of my head. The forgiveness isn't seeking reconciliation with them, but resolving the blame and anger you have within yourself directed towards the person in order to free yourself to heal. Of course the person will continue with their actions which will cause it difficult to heal, but I've found the strategy of divorcing emotion to the person helpful. Therefore you can heal yourself of the wounds caused by that person on your own even if the person is still ever present. I can't say this works out all the time, but I do feel myself getting closure without reconciliation.

Re: Why forgiving someone else is about you

#37

Post by unionpivo »

scottious wrote: post #25

As somebody who's struggling to forgive somebody who's wronged me, I find this article to be a bit wishy-washy, like this: > Reexamine your perceptions of life events that have trapped you in the role of victim. well, what if somebody really truly was a victim? What if one's parents have condescended and belittled them for decades? What if one's mother is abusive and drinks too much? What if somebody spent their enti…

Because its about you not them. It doesn't matter what they think or do. You should do it for yourself to set yourself free of emotional baggage.

Just because you forgive someone does not mean you suddenly think he is a great person, or should forget that he is abusive. Its saying I am done with all this shit. "you" (whomever wronged you) are not worth my time hating you.

At least that worked for me.

Re: Why forgiving someone else is about you

#38

Post by [deleted] »

scottious wrote: post #25

As somebody who's struggling to forgive somebody who's wronged me, I find this article to be a bit wishy-washy, like this: > Reexamine your perceptions of life events that have trapped you in the role of victim. well, what if somebody really truly was a victim? What if one's parents have condescended and belittled them for decades? What if one's mother is abusive and drinks too much? What if somebody spent their enti…

[deleted]

Re: Why forgiving someone else is about you

#39

Post by TeaDrunk »

scottious wrote: post #33
hnarayanan wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you honestly believe revenge helps you?

If you take the high road while they consistently take the low road long enough, eventually you'll feel like a complete push over who lacks self-respect. I personally have reached a breaking point in which I realize that if I don't do something different, then the people who've abused me will continue abusing me while all while I take the high road and try to be the better person. I wouldn't call it revenge, because…

I don’t think that is not taking the high road. When facing abuse, taking the high road is indeed not responding to the abuse with anything more than a firm, non malicious, self protecting establishment and enforcement of your personal boundaries.

Refusing to respond at all and allowing abuse to continue can be construed as taking the high road but it isn’t the only way to healthily manage toxic people.

(Revenge imo is when one actively moves to harm an abusive person.)

Re: Why forgiving someone else is about you

#40

Post by qwerty456127 »

hawk_ wrote: post #2

While law doesn't have place for revenge in a civilised society and rightly so, the need for revenge/retribution I suspect is quite innate. It's healthy to try to forgive but it's quite difficult, almost like you can't fool yourselves into thinking you aren't hungry.

> the need for revenge/retribution I suspect is quite innate.

Why? I can't imagine feeling this way for longer than some minutes.

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