@Bubbles3wrote:
I was through some of your post and i think you mentioned that you forgive someone....yohur mum maybe (can t remember now)
Myg question is how do you do that.
How do you forgive someone who has hurt you @Owlunar
Hi @Bubbles3
Yes - I have forgiven my mother and my sister for their bad behaviour but not for their sake but rather for my own.
Forgiveness is a hard thing to understand - we are rarely in the mood and I don't know when I figured out that forgiving other people was not for them but for myself - and my mother hurt me a lot - and she spent the last years of her life in a very miserable state and I refused to visit someone who snarled at me
But yes - she was physically violent toward one of my younger siblings and me when we were children and when I started to fight back she turned to emotional abuse and I would not tolerate that and kept away from my family of origin for a long time -
So you question is a very valid question - but hard to answer
So I will tell you a little of my story - after my mother died I was extremely distressed - I had what is called repressed memories - and those memories are memories we have not consciously hidden but something we have buried deep within us and don't know what's there
But hearing people saying wonderful things about my mother during her funeral brought back the past and I thought I would vomit and wanted to run out of the chapel but my sister-in-law and her husband held me down and I cried hard and after the funeral I fainted and was taken off to hospital and a nurse came and spoke to me for a long time about all of this and other things. She was really helpful and they kept me there over-night - it was a General Hospital
So I started to see a therapist and also took myself on an inward journey - I strained my brain remembering everything I could and spoke to my uncles for there memories and also went to the war memorial in Canberra to find out more about my mother's father and this was really interesting - I learned a lot
So I learned the reasons - possibly/probable reasons - and understood - and reasons are not excuses - my mother was really cruel toward me and I really don't know why except I am very intelligent and too spirited for her - and I would not change myself for her - I had an idea of myself - very lucky I think to have other members of my family who loved me
The reason I forgave my mother has nothing to do with her - everything to do with me. I do not want to carry her shit around with me - I am not interested. I saw two different therapists in that time and both moved interstate but the one I have now is very interested in my place in my family and she is helping me a lot
So - it is hard to see past the hurt your family has imposed upon you and I remember when you told me about it some months back - which was incredibly harsh as I remember it - and that is hard to ease the pain of - but this is the important part
Nothing can change what happened to you but we can make the pain easier by easing the anger we have a right to - we can be angry about it - we do not have to excuse the bad behaviour - we need to love the little children we were and let go of as much as we can for our own sake
As for the people who hurt us - they will go on doing whatever and are not interested in forgiveness - it is totally for ourselves
And it does't all happen at once - I have spent years doing it - but it really has worked - I can see what a pitiful and pitiable person my mother was - and she is not me
She has no power over me - the continual acts of forgiveness have set me free - and I have found I feel sorry for her. But I did stop her from hurting me years before she died and refused to see her for my own sake
Everything we do about this is for ourselves Bubbles - not for anyone else
I could probably have written less so I will underline the important parts
Dec
