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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

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 entire childhood planning their escape from their parents (successfully!) That kind of stuff doesn't just go away. Is it even possible to forgive somebody who honestly doesn't think they've done anything wrong?

watwut 6y ago
I call this stuff self-gasslighting. You convince yourself that you was at fault for own abuse.
fladrif 6y ago
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.
unionpivo 6y ago
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.
- watwut 6y ago
  Pretty much all actual examples in article are of the "you interpret it wrong" sort. > A situation you may have misinterpreted as a child can taint your important adult relationships, Kennedy says. This does not say you should free yourself of hate despite them being wrong. This says, hey, maybe it happened differently. What if I did not misinterpreted it as a child? Or as an adult? What if it is one of those very real situations where you was not stupid, but someone really harassed you, took credit for your work, whatever. The article does not deal with such situation, rather, it wants you to convince yourself it did not happened.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
ogurechny 6y ago
Well, you can't forgive people for something they haven't done. It is assumed that there is something to forgive, so no one really questions the wrongdoing. The question is why should it still define the way you look at life, be the starting point of reasoning.
jjgarzella 6y ago
This is one major drawback writing an article about forgiveness and only interviewing authors of self-help books. Whatever it says, right or wrong, it can’t be of much help to someone who is in a situation like you described. Forgiveness, reconciliation, or even just dealing with hurt, are all easier said than done. I wonder it would be more helpful to interview someone who has been through something hard and actually decided to forgive. For example, maybe one of the victims’ family members in https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2015/06/19/i-forgive-you-relatives-of-charleston-church-victims-address-dylann-roof/%3foutputType=amp https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.washingtonpost.com/news/pos... Even so, no one article or book can truly “solve” or “fix” pain, so we would be wise to carefully consider our words. Calling forgiveness “a simple solution to all your problems” (https://www.radicalforgiveness.com/ https://www.radicalforgiveness.com/) feels condescending. Even if the statement is true, how would someone who is facing real hurt see that statement?
roenxi 6y ago
I certainly agree; the signal to noise ratio is poor about why this stuff is a good idea. But it does get at some practical issues that are quite subtly layered: 1. Be realistic about what is likely to happen. If someone has a history of drinking and hasn't committed to stopping then they will probably continue. 'Forgiveness' doesn't mean stupid. 2. Don't make the past emotional. If someone chopped my leg off, for a silly example, then there is nothing I can do. Revenge does not regain me my leg. Seeking vengeance for the emotional pleasure is tragic; if a matter must be pursued then it should be to prevent a future risk (eg, losing the other leg) or for meaningful restitution (maybe they provide income for me since I can't work as effectively). 3. Strive to create prosperity. If someone hurt me in the past and I have an opportunity to better us both, it is foolish not to take that opportunity unless they are likely to do future harm. 4. Negotiate terms - keep asking for what you want, and be strategic about what you give ground on. Bundle those four things together and the result is a very productive perspective that is hard to differentiate from forgiveness. The past is ultimately subjective and people who make good decisions going forward will get better results than people who make bad decisions and justify them with history. It is hard in practice.
- notadonut 6y ago
  Revenge is underrated. The opportunities to avenge oneself without also shooting oneself in the foot, or entering an endless cycle of reciprocal vendettas, are very rare. But when they do come, the closure is liberating.
OneGuy123 6y ago
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 issues, and that those issues caused them to act out. In other words: they didn't knew any better. The side effect of their issues was that your life was misarable, so you moved away from them. What has to be understood is that yes, you indeed were at a disadvantage. But now that you moved away it's only up to you what you make of this. You don't have to visit them or call them. What is meant by "forgiveness" is that you have to realize that "yes, your parents have issues and there is nothing that can be done about it. But now I'm free of them, so from now on it's up to me". Forgiveness also means that you don't actively hate on your parents: ironicaly hating your parents will NOT hurt them: you will only hurt yourself by hating on them because you yourself will create self-conflit & rage & hate withing YOURLSEF. So it's more of a "what happened happened, I'm free of them now so from now on it's up to me" + the realization that actively hating on them will only hurt you, not them!
- scottious 6y ago
  Recently mother showed up unannounced at my house in tears and SCREAMED at my wife and I for HOURS and wouldn't leave. It was an absolute ambush. The reason? She wanted to get together earlier in the day but we had an appointment so we had to postpone it to later in the day. yes, that's all it takes. Our son was TEN DAYS OLD at the time. That was 18 months ago. Since then she's been the nastiest, most unpleasant person to be around and my father is condescending as hell and still tries to boss me around at 35 years old. This doesn't really feel like a "the past is the past, people have flaws". This more feels like an assault on my day-to-day life. It has been like this since I was a kid and I see not even the slightest bit of progress or self-reflection. When do I just call it quits?
  - rowanG077 6y ago
    Cut them out. You are forcing yourself into victimhood by including them in your life.
UnpossibleJim 6y ago
It also seemed a bit on the side of blaming the victim. It seemed, at least to me, to try very hard to walk the line to try to empower people by saying it isn't their fault you're a victim, it's your fault you're a victim and there's power in that. That seems to pull accountability away from the responsible parties. Though, admittedly, I am biased.
voisin 6y ago
Reframing the situation from “this happened to me” to “this happened for me” has been the healthiest advice I’ve received for dealing with childhood trauma. It changes the perspective from being a victim to being someone who conquered adversity and used it to (a) not repeat the cycle of abuse, (b) learn about other people and how they can act, and possibly (c) how to be a better person than you otherwise might have been had life been easier. Depending on your personality the following recommendation may be a huge turnoff, but Tony Robbin’s Netflix documentary “I am Not Your Guru” has a number of examples of reframing situations in this manner. Good luck and I wish you peace and wellness!
erokar 6y ago
Forgiveness has become yet another external demand, same as the duty to feel gratitude. The important thing is to work through, then let go and move on. Forgiveness might be part of that process, but it doesn't need to be. It might as well include confrontation, or even a little bit of revenge.
PopeDotNinja 6y ago
I recently went through therapy for some touch up work. I was getting mad at someone because of their shenanigans. Basically the therapist told me "when someone pisses you off, they want you to get mad, so why would you give them the pleasure of getting mad?" After some discussion on methods for how to not get mad, I stopped getting mad. Might be worth looking into whether it's worth wasting any brain cycles on whether or not to forgive someone.
wenc 6y ago
The advice I've been given is forgiveness + boundaries. This book is usually recommended [1], but you can discover your own style of setting boundaries by working with a therapist. (it will need to be tailored to your situation) [1] https://www.amazon.com/Boundaries-Updated-Expanded-When-Control/dp/0310351804/ https://www.amazon.com/Boundaries-Updated-Expanded-When-Cont...
brudgers 6y ago
For me, forgiveness is a way of severing myself from the past. It is a way to stop ruminating in the present. It has saved me from myself. But it's not abstractly total. Not continuous. Forgiveness is a state I can work myself into. That working-myself-into is often a path toward understanding and empathy. Neither of which I mistake for excusing the behaviors. And when someone doesn't feel they've done anything wrong they're not in the market for forgiveness, so all my forgiveness is for me anyway. So forgiveness severs the past and lets me move forward in the present and take the future with the understanding I found on my journey to it. The understanding shapes my future interactions and non-interactions with someone I forgive. Forgiveness isn't trust. It doesn't abolish all the consequences of violating my trust. I've forgiven someone and cut them out of my life. Forgiveness doesn't change my boundaries except in so far as the understanding I've found on the road to it has shown my own unreasonableness. Good luck.
bravoetch 6y ago
> Is it even possible to forgive somebody who honestly doesn't think they've done anything wrong? The working definition of forgive that I use is 'to give myself as before'. It's a useful test for me, I can just ask if I'm giving myself as I was before. It's not always possible to forgive. And religion makes light of it which causes problems for people that want more than just lip service.
bfieidhbrjr 6y ago
I was in the same boat. I have a book recommendation for you: https://www.amazon.com/Courage-Be-Disliked-Phenomenon-Happiness/dp/1501197274 https://www.amazon.com/Courage-Be-Disliked-Phenomenon-Happin...
asveikau 6y ago
> As somebody who's struggling to forgive somebody who's wronged me, Not meaning to trivialize your experience, but first sentence right off the bat you identify with your grudge.
elboru 6y ago
I think C.S. Lewis does a good job explaining what forgiveness really means: “For a good many people imagine that forgiving your enemies means making out that they are really not such bad fellows after all, when it is quite plain that they are. Go a step further. In my most clear- sighted moments not only do I not think myself a nice man, but I know that I am a very nasty one. I can look at some of the things I have done with horror and loathing. So apparently I am allowed to loathe and hate some of the things my enemies do. Now that I come to think of it, I remember Christian teachers telling me long ago that I must hate a bad man's actions, but not hate the bad man: or, as they would say, hate the sin but not the sinner. For a long time I used to think this a silly, straw-splitting distinction: how could you hate what a man did and not hate the man? But years later it occurred to me that there was one man to whom I had been doing this all my life—namely myself. However much I might dislike my own cowardice or conceit or greed, I went on loving myself. There had never been the slightest difficulty about it. In fact the very reason why I hated the things was that I loved the man. Just because I loved myself, I was sorry to find that I was the sort of man who did those things. Consequently, Christianity does not want us to reduce by one atom the hatred we feel for cruelty and treachery. We ought to hate them. Not one word of what we have said about them needs to be unsaid. But it does want us to hate them in the same way in which we hate things in ourselves: being sorry that the man should have done such things, and hoping, if it is anyway possible, that somehow, sometime, somewhere, he can be cured and made human again.”
- PTOB 6y ago
  Thanks for this quote. Well said, and poignant. I aspire to one day speak English real good.
hnzix 6y ago
I also don’t buy the narrative of “nobody intends to be mean they just don’t know any better”. This line is popular in management and self help circles and I feel these people haven’t rubbed shoulders with true evil and frankly are ignorant. I prefer to think of forgiveness as releasing one’s attachment to the trauma and leaving those folk to stew in their own poison while moving onwards and upwards.
08-15 6y ago
> What if one's parents have condescended and belittled them for decades? It's all a matter of perspective. You see, one day, your parents will show up at your doorstep and expect you do the mature thing and take care of them in their old age. You could then go off on a long rant, wash all the dirty laundry, and finally slam the door in their face. Or you tell them "I forgive you" and close the door in their face. That's the power of forgiveness.
adamsea 6y ago
FWIW what the article says about the nature of (most, not all) anger echoes some of the best advice I ever got: 'Holub calls anger a "secondary emotion," one that guards our more vulnerable feelings, such as grief, fear, abandonment and disappointment.' Most of the time (but not always), anger is a barrier to self-consciousness.

watwut 6y ago

I call this stuff self-gasslighting. You convince yourself that you was at fault for own abuse.

fladrif 6y ago

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.

unionpivo 6y ago

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.

watwut 6y ago
Pretty much all actual examples in article are of the "you interpret it wrong" sort. > A situation you may have misinterpreted as a child can taint your important adult relationships, Kennedy says. This does not say you should free yourself of hate despite them being wrong. This says, hey, maybe it happened differently. What if I did not misinterpreted it as a child? Or as an adult? What if it is one of those very real situations where you was not stupid, but someone really harassed you, took credit for your work, whatever. The article does not deal with such situation, rather, it wants you to convince yourself it did not happened.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

ogurechny 6y ago

Well, you can't forgive people for something they haven't done. It is assumed that there is something to forgive, so no one really questions the wrongdoing. The question is why should it still define the way you look at life, be the starting point of reasoning.

jjgarzella 6y ago

This is one major drawback writing an article about forgiveness and only interviewing authors of self-help books. Whatever it says, right or wrong, it can’t be of much help to someone who is in a situation like you described. Forgiveness, reconciliation, or even just dealing with hurt, are all easier said than done. I wonder it would be more helpful to interview someone who has been through something hard and actually decided to forgive. For example, maybe one of the victims’ family members in https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2015/06/19/i-forgive-you-relatives-of-charleston-church-victims-address-dylann-roof/%3foutputType=amp https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.washingtonpost.com/news/pos... Even so, no one article or book can truly “solve” or “fix” pain, so we would be wise to carefully consider our words. Calling forgiveness “a simple solution to all your problems” (https://www.radicalforgiveness.com/ https://www.radicalforgiveness.com/) feels condescending. Even if the statement is true, how would someone who is facing real hurt see that statement?

roenxi 6y ago

I certainly agree; the signal to noise ratio is poor about why this stuff is a good idea. But it does get at some practical issues that are quite subtly layered: 1. Be realistic about what is likely to happen. If someone has a history of drinking and hasn't committed to stopping then they will probably continue. 'Forgiveness' doesn't mean stupid. 2. Don't make the past emotional. If someone chopped my leg off, for a silly example, then there is nothing I can do. Revenge does not regain me my leg. Seeking vengeance for the emotional pleasure is tragic; if a matter must be pursued then it should be to prevent a future risk (eg, losing the other leg) or for meaningful restitution (maybe they provide income for me since I can't work as effectively). 3. Strive to create prosperity. If someone hurt me in the past and I have an opportunity to better us both, it is foolish not to take that opportunity unless they are likely to do future harm. 4. Negotiate terms - keep asking for what you want, and be strategic about what you give ground on. Bundle those four things together and the result is a very productive perspective that is hard to differentiate from forgiveness. The past is ultimately subjective and people who make good decisions going forward will get better results than people who make bad decisions and justify them with history. It is hard in practice.

notadonut 6y ago
Revenge is underrated. The opportunities to avenge oneself without also shooting oneself in the foot, or entering an endless cycle of reciprocal vendettas, are very rare. But when they do come, the closure is liberating.

OneGuy123 6y ago

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 issues, and that those issues caused them to act out. In other words: they didn't knew any better. The side effect of their issues was that your life was misarable, so you moved away from them. What has to be understood is that yes, you indeed were at a disadvantage. But now that you moved away it's only up to you what you make of this. You don't have to visit them or call them. What is meant by "forgiveness" is that you have to realize that "yes, your parents have issues and there is nothing that can be done about it. But now I'm free of them, so from now on it's up to me". Forgiveness also means that you don't actively hate on your parents: ironicaly hating your parents will NOT hurt them: you will only hurt yourself by hating on them because you yourself will create self-conflit & rage & hate withing YOURLSEF. So it's more of a "what happened happened, I'm free of them now so from now on it's up to me" + the realization that actively hating on them will only hurt you, not them!

scottious 6y ago
Recently mother showed up unannounced at my house in tears and SCREAMED at my wife and I for HOURS and wouldn't leave. It was an absolute ambush. The reason? She wanted to get together earlier in the day but we had an appointment so we had to postpone it to later in the day. yes, that's all it takes. Our son was TEN DAYS OLD at the time. That was 18 months ago. Since then she's been the nastiest, most unpleasant person to be around and my father is condescending as hell and still tries to boss me around at 35 years old. This doesn't really feel like a "the past is the past, people have flaws". This more feels like an assault on my day-to-day life. It has been like this since I was a kid and I see not even the slightest bit of progress or self-reflection. When do I just call it quits?
- rowanG077 6y ago
  Cut them out. You are forcing yourself into victimhood by including them in your life.

UnpossibleJim 6y ago

It also seemed a bit on the side of blaming the victim. It seemed, at least to me, to try very hard to walk the line to try to empower people by saying it isn't their fault you're a victim, it's your fault you're a victim and there's power in that. That seems to pull accountability away from the responsible parties. Though, admittedly, I am biased.

voisin 6y ago

Reframing the situation from “this happened to me” to “this happened for me” has been the healthiest advice I’ve received for dealing with childhood trauma. It changes the perspective from being a victim to being someone who conquered adversity and used it to (a) not repeat the cycle of abuse, (b) learn about other people and how they can act, and possibly (c) how to be a better person than you otherwise might have been had life been easier. Depending on your personality the following recommendation may be a huge turnoff, but Tony Robbin’s Netflix documentary “I am Not Your Guru” has a number of examples of reframing situations in this manner. Good luck and I wish you peace and wellness!

erokar 6y ago

Forgiveness has become yet another external demand, same as the duty to feel gratitude. The important thing is to work through, then let go and move on. Forgiveness might be part of that process, but it doesn't need to be. It might as well include confrontation, or even a little bit of revenge.

PopeDotNinja 6y ago

I recently went through therapy for some touch up work. I was getting mad at someone because of their shenanigans. Basically the therapist told me "when someone pisses you off, they want you to get mad, so why would you give them the pleasure of getting mad?" After some discussion on methods for how to not get mad, I stopped getting mad. Might be worth looking into whether it's worth wasting any brain cycles on whether or not to forgive someone.

wenc 6y ago

The advice I've been given is forgiveness + boundaries. This book is usually recommended [1], but you can discover your own style of setting boundaries by working with a therapist. (it will need to be tailored to your situation) [1] https://www.amazon.com/Boundaries-Updated-Expanded-When-Control/dp/0310351804/ https://www.amazon.com/Boundaries-Updated-Expanded-When-Cont...

brudgers 6y ago

For me, forgiveness is a way of severing myself from the past. It is a way to stop ruminating in the present. It has saved me from myself. But it's not abstractly total. Not continuous. Forgiveness is a state I can work myself into. That working-myself-into is often a path toward understanding and empathy. Neither of which I mistake for excusing the behaviors. And when someone doesn't feel they've done anything wrong they're not in the market for forgiveness, so all my forgiveness is for me anyway. So forgiveness severs the past and lets me move forward in the present and take the future with the understanding I found on my journey to it. The understanding shapes my future interactions and non-interactions with someone I forgive. Forgiveness isn't trust. It doesn't abolish all the consequences of violating my trust. I've forgiven someone and cut them out of my life. Forgiveness doesn't change my boundaries except in so far as the understanding I've found on the road to it has shown my own unreasonableness. Good luck.

bravoetch 6y ago

> Is it even possible to forgive somebody who honestly doesn't think they've done anything wrong? The working definition of forgive that I use is 'to give myself as before'. It's a useful test for me, I can just ask if I'm giving myself as I was before. It's not always possible to forgive. And religion makes light of it which causes problems for people that want more than just lip service.

bfieidhbrjr 6y ago

I was in the same boat. I have a book recommendation for you: https://www.amazon.com/Courage-Be-Disliked-Phenomenon-Happiness/dp/1501197274 https://www.amazon.com/Courage-Be-Disliked-Phenomenon-Happin...

asveikau 6y ago

> As somebody who's struggling to forgive somebody who's wronged me, Not meaning to trivialize your experience, but first sentence right off the bat you identify with your grudge.

elboru 6y ago

I think C.S. Lewis does a good job explaining what forgiveness really means: “For a good many people imagine that forgiving your enemies means making out that they are really not such bad fellows after all, when it is quite plain that they are. Go a step further. In my most clear- sighted moments not only do I not think myself a nice man, but I know that I am a very nasty one. I can look at some of the things I have done with horror and loathing. So apparently I am allowed to loathe and hate some of the things my enemies do. Now that I come to think of it, I remember Christian teachers telling me long ago that I must hate a bad man's actions, but not hate the bad man: or, as they would say, hate the sin but not the sinner. For a long time I used to think this a silly, straw-splitting distinction: how could you hate what a man did and not hate the man? But years later it occurred to me that there was one man to whom I had been doing this all my life—namely myself. However much I might dislike my own cowardice or conceit or greed, I went on loving myself. There had never been the slightest difficulty about it. In fact the very reason why I hated the things was that I loved the man. Just because I loved myself, I was sorry to find that I was the sort of man who did those things. Consequently, Christianity does not want us to reduce by one atom the hatred we feel for cruelty and treachery. We ought to hate them. Not one word of what we have said about them needs to be unsaid. But it does want us to hate them in the same way in which we hate things in ourselves: being sorry that the man should have done such things, and hoping, if it is anyway possible, that somehow, sometime, somewhere, he can be cured and made human again.”

PTOB 6y ago
Thanks for this quote. Well said, and poignant. I aspire to one day speak English real good.

hnzix 6y ago

I also don’t buy the narrative of “nobody intends to be mean they just don’t know any better”. This line is popular in management and self help circles and I feel these people haven’t rubbed shoulders with true evil and frankly are ignorant. I prefer to think of forgiveness as releasing one’s attachment to the trauma and leaving those folk to stew in their own poison while moving onwards and upwards.

08-15 6y ago

> What if one's parents have condescended and belittled them for decades? It's all a matter of perspective. You see, one day, your parents will show up at your doorstep and expect you do the mature thing and take care of them in their old age. You could then go off on a long rant, wash all the dirty laundry, and finally slam the door in their face. Or you tell them "I forgive you" and close the door in their face. That's the power of forgiveness.

adamsea 6y ago

FWIW what the article says about the nature of (most, not all) anger echoes some of the best advice I ever got: 'Holub calls anger a "secondary emotion," one that guards our more vulnerable feelings, such as grief, fear, abandonment and disappointment.' Most of the time (but not always), anger is a barrier to self-consciousness.