Forgiveness

[Emanuel]

Yeah I guess this thread would be more useful if there was a trick :/

The "trick", if you want to call it that, is to find reasons to forgive.
We tend to explain other peoples' bad behavior towards us with thoughts like "They're trying to **** with me, those sons of bitches" or "He did that just to be annoying". But statements like that are essentially never correct. The reasons people do what they do are more complex. And it is almost never (just) about you. Now, if we accept that, we can try to find alternative explanations for other peoples' meanness. This may be difficult, especially if you don't know much about the person in question, but rewarding in the sense that it lets you find a more realistic and understandable explanation for what has happened. Having such an explanation, or several possible ones, may allow you to forgive and let go of anger.

 

[SilentBird]

"Forgive them for they know not what they do."

 

[Pacific_Loner]

The reasons people do what they do are more complex. And it is almost never (just) about you. Now, if we accept that, we can try to find alternative explanations for other peoples' meanness.

I agree with that. Though I think the reason to people's meanness is not always that complex and not that worth your time to think about. But I agree that sometimes it can certainly be worth thinking about it.

 

[Zod]

"Forgive them for they know not what they do."

This^. Humans are possessed by an entity called the mind and or ego. Being mean to someone or judging someone is the ego trying to attain its superiority over others. Recognize people beyond that, because they are in the grip of something that is not them. In a spiritual sense, they are "unconcious".

Vice versa the grudge the "victim" might hold against those people is also the ego. A whole story in the mind develops of how "they wronged me" and keeps playing like a broken record, long after events have taken place.

It's important to transcend it.

 

[coyote]

"Forgiveness means giving up all hope for a better past." - Lily Tomlin

 

[selon]

Now, if we accept that, we can try to find alternative explanations for other peoples' meanness.

I understand where you're coming from with this but I'm not sure it's right, at least not for all cases. It might be interesting to get an explanation for XY's behavior because they had a crappy childhood but then again so did I and I don't run around destroying other people's lives willingly. For me at least, it would mean forgiving them for the wrong reasons. I wanna forgive those that are still haunting me because I moved on, not because I found out they made my life a hell because of their own problems. Otherwise, where does self-responsilbilty start?? Who ever caused them to have a hard time will probably also have had a tough upringing etc etc ..