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You present a false dichotomy. And I think there’s a difference between letting go and forgiveness. First of all, physical and temporal distance from trauma he

You present a false dichotomy. And I think there’s a difference between letting go and forgiveness. First of all, physical and temporal distance from trauma helps protect and heal from trauma. Secondly, often trauma leaves people with a warped mental state that can be addressed on its own. For example, treating anxiety that was developed from trauma. Thirdly, you can try to understand why your trauma occurred like “my dad beat me because his dad beat him”. Some might say this is part of forgiveness but imo there’s a big difference between understanding why someone did something and forgiving them.

barrkel 3y ago
I'm not really talking about trauma or anxiety. I'm talking about a feeling of resentment and anger directed at the other - the kindling for that flame of anger is past injustice. Letting go of this is forgiveness, I think. It's specifically the injustice, rather than the hurt, that is keeps resentment alive. "It's not fair!" is the rallying cry. Hurt heals and lessens with time. But feelings can be nursed, indulged, prolonged, and inflamed. Understanding operates on a different plane to emotions. Intellectually you can understand why something happened, but that doesn't necessarily have an effect on your emotions. Emotions seem to have a life of their own, if you don't take responsibility for them. And of course that's a key part of growing up, of maturity: emotional regulation. You might use intellectual understanding as a rationale for regulating feelings of resentment, but it's neither necessary nor sufficient. You do need an act of will to let resentment go. And I think this is the core of forgiveness.