You see, when you forgive someone, you are not granting them a wish.....

A few synonyms of forgiveness are; pardon, absolution, exoneration, remission, dispensation, indulgence, clemency, and mercy.

On the Berkeley website, forgiveness is discussed as the following;

Psychologists generally define forgiveness as a conscious, deliberate decision to release feelings of resentment or vengeance toward a person or group who has harmed you, regardless of whether they actually deserve your forgiveness.

That statement brings up a point of contention regarding forgiving those that have wronged us.

"regardless of whether they actually deserve your forgiveness"

Once, my sister went through something really difficult. I remember talking to her on the phone one day. She said, you know that song, "The Heart of the Matter" by Don Henley? I replied that I did know the song, and loved it. She said, "although a hard one to listen to right now, that's the summarization of how I feel, regarding this unfortunate situation".

"I've been tryin' to get down to the Heart of the Matter
But my will gets weak
And my thoughts seem to scatter
But I think it's about......forgiveness
Forgiveness"

I'm writing this now, friend, to help you win.

I often jokingly use the hashtag #winning (thank you Charlie Sheen). But today I'm serious about winning. When you are wronged by a person, or people, it can often be excruciatingly difficult to decide to .....forgive them, for what they've done to you. What you see, while in the midst of the pain someone has caused you, is nothing but the act of what they've done. The hurt they've caused. The pain you endure. The seemingly endless agony of how you may suffer at their hand. And how you do not deserve it.And how you feel they should suffer.

But during that process, what may go unnoticed, is the heavy, cumbersome weight that is developing on your shoulders. It begins with a few pounds. With each passing day, it can grow into some serious baggage that is unfathomable to carry. Not to be outdone, the weight develops other things that have a bite. Anger. Bitterness. Betrayal. Each of these items having their own weight, adding to the overall total that you will carry, until you decide to unload all of it, and walk free, carrying only yourself, your heart, your head and your life.

To win, you have to do this unloading. If you don't, they win. You do not.

"But they did this and it was so wrong, and I did nothing to deserve this".

I know.

"You want me to forGIVE them for THIS? Are you kidding me?"

Yes, I do, and no, I'm not kidding you.

"There are people in your life who've come and gone
They let you down and hurt your pride
Better put it all behind you; life goes on
You keep carrin' that anger, it'll eat you inside"

And it will. Eat you inside.

You see, when you forgive someone, you are not granting them a wish. Or giving them a gift.

What you are doing, is releasing yourself from all of that dead weight you are carrying around. You are not pardoning what they've done and releasing them from the ramifications of their actions. Instead, you are allowing yourself to walk away,  free. Nothing extra to carry. No additional, unnecessary burdens.

When you do this, you will feel as though you are walking on air.

And life will feel brand new to you.

So, to get the big win. Forgive them. And then take a deep, cleansing breath, open the door, and walk outside into that fresh air.

You will have perspective you didn't know existed.

Talk to you soon friend,
Tiffany

PS Fall has almost arrived and I'm so excited about this I can taste it. If you live in what I call North Southtown, you already know that you may not feel Fall temperatures until late October, and that's if you're lucky. But Breakfast at Tiffany's can do Fall regardless of what's going on outside. Pumpkin Bran Muffins it is!

 

Forgiveness or forgetfulness.....which would you choose?

They say "don't look back". I don't ever know who "they" are when I make statements like this. Everyone in general, no one in particular. I've often given this advice myself to friends. But a thought occurred to me when I was writing the last post about my trip home to see my family. I wrote, "I could see the completely round sphere of yellow orange in my rear view mirror", referring to the sun sinking lower in the sky behind me, as I drove east. Excited for where I was going, I was driving forward to a destination I really wanted to reach as quickly as possibly. Obviously I was looking straight ahead, you can't drive looking backwards right? But, I still saw the sun, in my rear view mirror, it was beautiful.

My thoughts are these. Yes, we should absolutely move forward. See tomorrow, be excited about it if we can. If we're unable to, then we should make changes so that we can be. Look forward to the future and the possibilities it holds. But I don't think we should lose all sight of the past. The decisions we've made along the way, good and bad, shaped who we are today. New friendships and old ones, new jobs, or ones we've stayed in for a long time, relationships or marriages.....life decisions. These things encompass the sum total of our current identity. It's okay to read the last chapter, close the book, reflect, then place it on a shelf. But that doesn't mean the next book won't be written.

One of my favorite movies is "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind", if only for the intrigue it brings alone. It made me ask myself the question, "would you erase this if you could", referring to past decisions. If I'm being honest of COURSE there are things I would like to erase from my past, I'm human. But if I could only answer once, involving all decisions, friendships, etc, my answer was no then and still is. Even if some of the things are painful, I don't want to erase them. I learned from them. If I erase it, my knowledge goes with it, that wouldn't work for me. I need what I learned, for the next book.
I'm not necessarily trying to plug this movie, it's definitely different and probably not for everyone. A good friend told me that it's based on a poem by Alexander Pope, titled "Eloisa to Abelard". If I had been a "googler" back then, when I saw it, I would have known this. I was glad he told me, you know I went straight to google to check it out. =)
In Pope's poem, Eloisa is in anguish over the powerful feelings she still has for Abélard, especially in her dreams, and by the realization that for various reasons (I'm being vague on purpose in case you want to read for yourself) , he could not return her feelings even if he wanted to. And so she begs, not for forgiveness, but for forgetfulness.

Okay I understand why she would want this. How easy is that, to hit "delete" on memories that are painful. But to grow, isn't it better to just let that pain in for a little while, then release it? If it's handled that way, it's got closure written all over it.

"Those things that hurt, instruct" Benjamin Franklin

So I'm driving forward, looking through the windshield, towards tomorrow. But that sunset in my rear view mirror is pretty awesome, eh? Glance at it every once in a while, it's okay.

We have to have watermelon with breakfast tomorrow, it's SO good.
See you soon,
Tiffany

"How happy is the blameless vestal's lot! The world forgetting, by the world forgot. Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind! Each pray'r accepted, and each wish resign'd ..."