My mind and some of my little ones have been raging at me, why should we forgive HIM? He hurt us and he took pleasure in it and you want us to forgive him? The pain and anger with those questions is so overwhelming that it has left me shaking in the past. Anger is something I don't deal with very well, honestly it's not something I deal with at all, some of my parts hold a lot of the anger -but for the longest time I haven't been able to get angry, I simply hid within myself and let another part deal with confrontation. I am getting better at this, I now get frustrated and even a little angry at times. I stand up for myself more and I am more likely to voice my opinions. This blog has helped me with that last part. However anger still frightens me, even anger that comes from within (maybe even more so) and the anger I feel with those questions terrifies me.
This is where my epiphany stemmed from, it was from this that I realised why I should forgive: because I don't deserve carrying around all that negative energy, the anger, hatred and pain. Several dictionaries describes forgiveness as "to pardon an offence or an offender", to absolve*. I am starting to see forgiveness as more than this - to me, it is letting go of the hurt, anger, hatred. It is accepting what happened and choosing to live on without the negative energy.
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| I created this in Polyvore after I wrote this post and decided to add it... |
The key word here is acceptance. When I say acceptance I do not mean pretending that what happened was okay - if what happened was okay then there would be nothing to forgive. By acceptance I mean acknowledging what happened, understanding it was beyond our control and choosing to let go.
understanding... accepting... letting go... forgiving...
Not that I am saying this is easy, it is anything but easy. And this sudden epiphany doesn't mean I have suddenly forgiven and let go of the pain and anger. I beginning to understand that forgiveness might not be something you just decide and move on. It's a process and sometimes a process that needs to be repeated several times.
I am starting to recognised that this is even more emphatically so when relating to myself. The few times I have felt anger it has usually been directed at myself, there have been times when I truly hated myself and believed that I deserved all that happened and more. Yet I hadn't thought really of forgiving myself because I do not see what there is to forgive - what happened was not my fault. And yet there are times when I still need to understand this, accept it and let go of the hate. I need to forgive myself.
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* forgive. (n.d.). Dictionary.com Unabridged. Retrieved January 29, 2011, from Dictionary.com website: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/forgive
3 comments:
A friend of mine who was badly abused found it better to think of 'acknowledging' than accepting - she felt that 'accepting' had too much feeling of approval about it and that 'acknowledging' felt more matter of fact.
Some people find that expressing the anger fully (in a way that is safe for you, others and the furniture) really helps.
This is such big stuff. I hope you have some support as you deal with it.
Thank you Evan - I like what you said about your friend. I think you are right, some things need to be simply acknowledged rather than accepted. Other times I think I do need to be accepting - particularly when it comes to myself. I will definitely have to think about this some more :)
As it stand I don't think I am ready to express that anger - I am not sure I even know how to face it. But that is something I know that I will need to do one day - face the anger and express it. I don't think I will completely let it go until I do. Right now anger doesn't feel safe and I wouldn't even know where to begin expressing it in a safe manner.
I am lucky in my friends, my church and my therapist who are all here and happy to help support me. Sometimes I wish I had someone closer though - a partner. However I don't think I am really ready to have a partner again at the moment - in the future I will hopefully.
I find the comments here, the other blogs I read and the community with both the Expressive Arts Carnival and with Pandys to be a huge encouragement and support. So thank you so much for your comments - they do make a huge difference.
I also like the idea of "acknowledge".
This is an incredible healing step... even if you aren't ready to take those steps, to see them as a possibility is brilliant. One step at a time.
I'm glad you have that support around you...
Take care,
CG
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