It's interesting to see modern-day “certified forgiveness coachers” transmit the millenia-old Christian teaching on sin, resentment and forgiveness.
Why forgiving someone else is about you
101–110 of 251 posts
Re: Why forgiving someone else is about you
#102As 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…
You caught yourself in a trap (similar to which I also did). Yes, your parents were assholes. What has to be realized is that yes: your parents were assholes and this probably did had a (severly) negative effect in your PRACTICAL life. But what must be understood is that what is done is done. This doesn't meat that you say "my parents are ok". This means that you, on a deep level, realize that your parents have issue…
A mantra that I like: “It's not your fault, but it's your responsibility to try to fix things.”
Re: Why forgiving someone else is about you
#103As 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…
You caught yourself in a trap (similar to which I also did). Yes, your parents were assholes. What has to be realized is that yes: your parents were assholes and this probably did had a (severly) negative effect in your PRACTICAL life. But what must be understood is that what is done is done. This doesn't meat that you say "my parents are ok". This means that you, on a deep level, realize that your parents have issue…
Why do you assume his/her parents didn't know any better? Some people really are selfish and malicious. You're going out of your way to assume the best when you don't actually have any reason to believe that's true.
Re: Why forgiving someone else is about you
#104Earlier quoted context omitted.
You kind of answered the question: revenge does not help the victim. It might feel necessary, but it does not actually help.
I don't know what definition of revenge everyone is using, but if revenge means consequences for the perpetrator, then it could help the victim by sending a message to future perpetrators.
It could in principle, but in practice I think the situations where it would are very rare. If you discovered that coworker A took revenge against coworker B by sabotaging their project, would that make you more likely to deal with A fairly or just less likely to deal with them at all?
Re: Why forgiving someone else is about you
#105Earlier quoted context omitted.
You caught yourself in a trap (similar to which I also did). Yes, your parents were assholes. What has to be realized is that yes: your parents were assholes and this probably did had a (severly) negative effect in your PRACTICAL life. But what must be understood is that what is done is done. This doesn't meat that you say "my parents are ok". This means that you, on a deep level, realize that your parents have issue…
Why do you assume his/her parents didn't know any better? Some people really are selfish and malicious. You're going out of your way to assume the best when you don't actually have any reason to believe that's true.
There's a general sentiment that all dogs are innocent at heart. If the dog has bad or mean behavior, that's the consequence of its bad experiences, like being outcast as a stray, bad owners, having been hurt before, etc.
You can apply the same line of thinking to humans. Everyone is a victim of their circumatances and experiences.
And while I understand that "everyone is innocent at heart" might be true to only some degree both with humans and dogs (nature vs nurture, etc), you can't really tell by the end result.
Re: Why forgiving someone else is about you
#106Plot twist: it's ALL about us, if you keep digging
Re: Why forgiving someone else is about you
#107Earlier quoted context omitted.
I do not know what "victim mindset" is supposed to be. Victim is descriptor - something negative was done to you. You don't become victim by looking at things certain way. Nor you do stop being one. If you was robbed, you are robbery victim regardless of what your mindset is. Most of this is about denying that you might be victim of something either to yourself or to others. Plus, people actually really do deny that.…
In many scenarios you do become a victim by looking at things a certain way. Suppose I get in a nasty fight with a close friend, where she yells at me and calls me all sorts of nasty names and shoves me a bit before running away. There are two different ways I could process that: * That conversation really spiraled out of control. We should get together, understand what went wrong, and make up. * I'm an abuse victim!…
The difference between the two options is not just subjective. There is real world difference between misunderstanding and abuse.
The big issue with calling 2 unhealthy mindset is that if you are actually in 'toxic' situation, it prevents you to find solution. This is one of things that makes people stay in abusive relationships. It prevents you to set boundaries, leave or cut people that needs to be cut. "It is just passion spiraling out of control" is real world way how people rationalize staying in abusive relationships. And then everyone is like "why did you not left", well because he/she did not wanted to be victim with unhealthy mindset.
And part of healing is to learn to recognize the situation for what it is and learning to leave.
This is exactly one of my reasons why I object. Because even if you are dealing with narcissist or someone who has abusive habits, you will insist on fault being in the middle, making up, reconciling, enabling.
Also, even in case of conversation spiraling out of control, it should not mean that I have to bend over to make up nor have to have boundaries pushed a bit again and and again each time it spirals. Sometimes, when conversations spiral out of control due to one person lacking self control, it is perfectly ok to NOT make up and decide that I don't have to deal with this.
Re: Why forgiving someone else is about you
#108Earlier quoted context omitted.
But you're not free until you deal with the PTSD, and a trite "I forgive you" is absolutely no help with this. Nor is pretending to everyone - including yourself - that you're just fine with the past when you really aren't. Worse, it implies a social pressure to "just deal with it" which is completely inappropriate and can be actively harmful. Good therapists and good therapy can help a lot. The modality doesn't matt…
> Nor is pretending to everyone - including yourself - that you're just fine with the past when you really aren't. I don’t think forgiveness is about pretending you are fine with something you are not fine with. It isn’t about covering something up or lying. It is about taking back control of your feelings about the situation so that you can move toward a place of healing. Most people have suffered some form of traum…
This is well said. I think some people view this as liberating themselves, and some people view this as letting the offender get away with it.
For me personally, it feels oppressive to require anything from the person who wronged me. The fact that they wronged me indicates that perhaps they don't value my happiness as much as they should, and now my happiness is predicated on them acting the right way?
This isn't to say I wouldn't try to, say, get my money back if I got scammed, but making my happiness contingent on the contrition of the scammer seems to give them emotional control in addition to my money, which is even worse.
Re: Why forgiving someone else is about you
#109I have a hard time thinking that anything one does isn't about oneself first and foremost. Even when that action is self-destructive.
But this is probably just my view of existence.
Re: Why forgiving someone else is about you
#110As 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…
You caught yourself in a trap (similar to which I also did). Yes, your parents were assholes. What has to be realized is that yes: your parents were assholes and this probably did had a (severly) negative effect in your PRACTICAL life. But what must be understood is that what is done is done. This doesn't meat that you say "my parents are ok". This means that you, on a deep level, realize that your parents have issue…
> ... so from now on it's up to me
It's... not that easy. We're all wired a little differently and trauma twists that wiring even more. Some people are less resilient than others and need more help moving on. This is not a condemnation of those people. It's an acknowledgment that trauma has a real and different affect on people and we should treat individual needs.