Making Mistakes

Compassion, Forgiveness, Growth, Letting Go, Life 0

Trying to be what I am not, and cannot be, is not only arrogant, it is stupid. . . . If I make myself a martyr to appease my false guilt, then I am falling into the age-old trap of pride. I fall into it often. . . . If I am not free to accept guilt when I am wrong, then I am not free at all. If all my mistakes are excused, if there’s an alibi, a rationalization for every blunder, then I am not free at all. I am subhuman. . . . I do all kinds of things which aren’t right, which aren’t sensitive or understanding. I neglect all kinds of things which I ought to do. . . . One reason I don’t feel guilty is that I no longer feel I have to be perfect. I am not in charge of the universe, whereas a humanist has to be. . . this inability presents her with a picture of herself which is not the all-competent, in-control-of-everything person she wants to see.

— Madeleine L’Engle, Summer of the Great-Grandmother

First, Love.

Forgiveness, Joy, Love 0

Try, if you can, to hate someone and be happy. Try to resent somebody and be joyous. Try to be angry at someone and be peaceful. Try to judge someone and feel free. Try to control someone and not feel controlled. Try to be fully independent and intimate. Try to cheat somebody and feel safe. It can’t happen, because what you do to another you’re doing to yourself. Love works! . . .

First, love! Love and enjoy everything! If you’re waiting to be happy before you start being loving, then you’ll find that you’re in for a very long wait. Similarly, if you’re waiting to be successful before you’re truly loving and generous, then you’ll be greatly disappointed and frustrated. There’s no such thing as happiness without love first, health without love first, peace of mind without love first, or freedom without love first. First, love! . . .

Resentment costs too much. Make no mistake — you are the one who has to pay the bill for the resentment you hold on to. It is your nervous system, your lungs, your muscles, your heart, your perception, and your mind that deteriorates and decays during every moment you try to defend yourself with hate. . . .

The problem with resentment is that you cannot be resentful and happy. There’s an old saying: “If your heart has room for one enemy, it is not a safe place for a friend.” You cannot hate and be happy. You cannot hate and love. You cannot hate and win. You cannot hate and be free. You cannot hate and be present. You cannot hate and have a future. The bottom line is . . .

You cannot carry resentment and peace of mind at the same time.

As long as you still value resentment, forgiveness will have no appeal. Forgiveness only has appeal for those who are interested in freedom, love, peace of mind, and joy.

— Robert Hold, PhD, Happiness Now! p. 185, 207-208

Forgiveness Is About You.

Forgiveness, Healing 0

Forgiveness is not giving up your right to justice. In fact, you may need to seek restitution of some kind for the wrongs that have been done to you. You may even need to resort to legal recourse to get support or help in your healing.

Forgiveness does not remove or alter pain from the past. The hurt and sorrow of yesterday can’t be changed. Forgiveness can only make your present and future less painful.

And, perhaps most crucial of all, forgiveness in no way excuses the wrongdoer. When you’re ready to forgive, you do so for yourself. His inexcusable behavior stays inexcusable. Forgiveness isn’t about him. As I’ve mentioned, it’s only about, and for, you.

— Eve A. Wood, MD, The Gift of Betrayal, p. 61

Teaching Ourselves

Compassion, Connection, Forgiveness, Growth, Relationships 0

You cannot teach others that they’re guilty if you’re to be free of guilt yourself.

It’s important to understand that, on the level of consciousness, thoughts are never given away; they’re always shared. Therefore, if you teach others that they should be guilty, you’re simultaneously teaching yourself that you should be guilty, too. Also, when you judge someone as unworthy of happiness, you are in that very same instant telling yourself that you are also unworthy.

The reverse of this principle is that every time you affirm others’ goodness, their inner light, their original blessing, their innocence, you’re affirming these qualities for yourself.

— Robert Holden, PhD, Happiness Now! p. 98

Moving on to the Goodness of Love

Connection, Forgiveness, Life, Love 0

Not forgiving ourselves, not forgiving others, not forgiving, even when the whole world thinks we should, is a part of who we are. It is as natural to us as our defenses, our repression, our dissociation, our denial. No one is able to look at himself whole. No one is so evolved as to deal creatively with every loss and insult. No one is free from illusions about himself, positive and negative. No one is immune to the joys of victimhood and revenge. We all have this in us. We are all enmeshed to some degree in our inner dramas and the unimaginable passions and loyalties they represent, which hold sway over us in ways that not even we can know. If we can see some of this in ourselves, accept it, be concerned about it, talk about it, it is less likely to control or overwhelm us. We will have a better chance to stay connected, to expand our zone of connection, to dissolve whatever scar tissue we can from a life of hurt and conflict, and move on to the goodness of love.

— Robert Karen, PhD, The Forgiving Self, p. 279

Choosing Not to Blame

Forgiveness, Gratitude, Growth, Healing, Letting Go, Marriage, Relationships 0

Our intimate partners are by and large our most important persons. Because we share responsibility for our lives with them, because they are magnets for our disappointments, it is all but written into our marriage contracts that we will blame them when things go wrong.

But what happens when we make a point of doing the opposite? What happens when we let go of our proclivity to blame and resent our lovers for our own disappointments? Every time we forgive and thank each other we teach each other critical, and generalizable, life lessons: There is no master plan. There is no life that we were supposed to lead. There is no good future in wishing for a different past. The assumption that things should always go our way, and that someone or something is to blame if they don’t, only leads us away from the path to our better selves.

— Mark O’Connell, PhD, The Marriage Benefit, p. 164-165

The Place We’d Rather Live

Compassion, Forgiveness, Healing 0

In the aftermath of catastrophic wounds, an obsessive, demonizing hatred may be mobilized to help us survive. And yet here, too, understanding eventually becomes the desirable thing, if for no other reason than we don’t want to keep feeling like victims and living in hate. It rarely hurts us to be more generous. In many cases, even if the grievousness of the wrong is never acknowledged or atoned for, we may want to feel our way back to a caring place. It’s the place we’d rather live.

— Robert Karen, PhD, The Forgiving Self, p. 175-176