What does forgiveness mean to you? How do we use forgiveness in our lives? Is it important when managing conflict?
Have a look at our latest blog by Ewan Aitken where he shares his thoughts about forgiveness http://ow.ly/OjMjI
Really liked what Ewan said here:
The act of forgiveness, especially when there is no sense of the person being forgiven expressing a recognition of needing to be forgiven, is possibly one of the hardest things to do. In particular it can sound or feel like capitulation or weakness or even suggesting that an act of injustice is acceptable. It can sound like saying its ok, donāt worry, Iāll cope; you donāt have to change what you are doing or acknowledge the hurt you have caused.
Yet it can also be the beginning of healing and hope. Healing because it is an antidote to hate which is the most destructive of emotions and hope because it means the person who has suffered at the hands of others is beginning to be in control of their place in the situation.
I am reminded of some things I read recently and resonated with. Karyl McBride, writing in āWill I ever be good enough?ā, notes how we are sometimes conditioned to āforgive and forgetā because that is what āniceā people do. But when forgiveness becomes a denial of the pain that we felt, a way of diminishing our hurt, then we only cause ourselves further harm. She says how many people think of āforgiveness as somehow condoning the original offending behavior, as if saying that it is all rightā, whereas forgivness as an āinner letting goā is a release of our own hurt feelings, rage, shame etc.
The first and often the only person to be healed by forgiveness is the person who does the forgivenessā¦. When we genuinely forgive, we set a prisoner free and then discover that the prisoner we set free was us. (Lewis Smedes, inĀ Shame and Grace)
And one of my favourite writers, David Whyte on forgiveness:
Strangely, forgiveness never arises from the part of us that was actually wounded. The wounded self may be the part of us incapable of forgetting, and perhaps, not actually meant to forget ā¦
Stranger still, it is that wounded, branded, un-forgetting part of us that eventually makes forgiveness an act of compassion rather than one of simple forgetting.
To forgive is to assume a larger identity than the person who was first hurtā¦ Forgiveness is a skill, a way of preserving clarity, sanity and generosity in an individual life, a beautiful way of shaping the mind to a future we want for ourselvesā¦ To forgive is to put oneself in a larger gravitational field of experience than the one that first seemed to hurt us. We reimagine ourselves in the light of our maturity and we reimagine the past in the light of our new identity, we allow ourselves to be gifted by a story larger than the story that first hurt us and left us bereft. (my emphasis)
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Thank you for sharing Raka 
Itās great to hear peopleās thoughts on what resonates for them them around forgiveness.
Does anyone else have some ideas or even questions around what it takes to truly forgive ā¦ ā¦ ?
Some more thoughts from my own experience -
I find that when I pursue forgiveness as a goal, something I āshouldā do, I only make things worse by taking all the responsibility for the situation and repressing my hurt feelings. As if I am not allowed to be wounded and must quickly get over it and forgive, that would be the right thing to do, then there would be peace and harmony. āThey didnāt mean itā I say, as a way of denying that it actually happened.
I find that when I can make space for my own feelings and put an arm around myself and acknowledge and express the pain I felt, without criticising myself for feeling it, if I can truly release the emotions, then forgiveness comes naturally. It sort of emerges out of that process without me trying. I have often felt that when we are stuck in a victim or accusatory mode we are actually struggling to accept and own our painful feelings. Grieving can be so difficult sometimes.
I think it is a mistake to believe that forgiveness means we just move over the bump and things continue as before. We are changed through that process and things may never be the same again, but hopefully we emerge more aware and compassionate (towards ourselves first, then others) and more whole somehow.
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