Love and forgiveness are NOT enough!

It's said that you should open your heart to forgiveness of those who have hurt you. Turn the other cheek and let the sunshine in.

But what if that person is a parent who you trusted to teach you what love means in the first place but abused that trust and abused you?

Nothing can ever fix that. Because you never learned to love and forgive properly in the first place. You didn't get a chance to develop the tools for real love because you need an adult (usually parents) to help you to learn how to love. They show their love to the children, the children grow up healthy and able to love.

But if the parent "half-makes" the tool of love, just enough to use it as a hook for manipulation, guilt, and justification of sick acts, then it isn't really love. And you'll never be able to love that person enough to forgive them, because you never had the tools to begin with. And that feeling is just associated with being used anyway. To apply it as an adult after breaking free is almost a betrayal of self.

A terrible sense of distance and loss. Loss of something you never even had to begin with.

I have no more to say about this. End of rant.

It is unhealthy to be an all forgiving all accepting soul. It's not how we are wired. One day, you either flip out or break in another way.

What is healthy is having that anger, hate, whatever, and not holding onto it. Let it be there. Silently there.

That is forgiveness. Never forgetting, but not letting it hurt you any more. People who dwell on hate or anger, are just as likely to become ill as those who push it away, fight against it in order to say "I forgive you" when in their heart, they only hide it.

good rant tho. True.

You two people should try harder and discover what love is. Your parents can't teach you. That's crazy. You are on your own journey.

When you understand that your life springs from love then you can understand why forgiveness is important.

If for example, you blame your parents for not being happy or well-adjusted you will suffer, not them. If you forgive them, you release their hold on you. If you are free in this way, you will shine the light from your heart. You let the light in by observing life as it truly is - a symphony of love and light. That isn't the same as letting light in. You forgive so there is nothing blocking you from letting light out!!

There is no limit to the light that springs from within. Don't hold back.

You will learn these things as you get older - if in case you don't become more jaded. When you were younger you already knew but you will have forgotten how it was. It is too far from the current context to understand.

When you foster hate, you can believe anything more mind tells you and you will never know love, or even "truth". Nobody can cause that to happen to you. It is the way you chose to see things and you have to fight very hard to stay that way. It is exhausting. If you've read that forgiveness is the key, well, it is a start. Only then you can see what life has to offer.

Lastly, I just want to be clear that nobody is talking about allowing people to walk over you at all - not for a second. You need to have full courage to be forgiving; to forgive yourself and others, and if you love someone you certainly don't let them hurt you or others. You stop them. That is not hateful. It is love.

I hope you dont mind me saying this(not 100% positive you are speaking about yourself) but, you seem to be the most 'healthy' ,well adjusted person on ATS. I can tell you are a warm caring person that cares about others and cares about the world. I get the feeling that you have a good heart and you have alot of love inside you to give.

And I agree with the guy above,we really cant forget certain things or let them go altogether sometimes. Especially some things. But we can draw what we need from other places if we look.



I always like Bronfenbrenner because unlike many other gypsies(psychogypsies),his ideas are positive and they contend that what you may miss out on from one system,you can gain from another. His ideas honour the value and potential of all.

You seem like a really nice,smart person. Dont feel down hey.

reply to post by Germanicus


You make an excellent point.

Love in the sense of self judgement will depend on the sphere of life you place yourself. The context is derived from who you believe you are.

I am a human, an earthling, insert: city, sex, family ties and other relations, up to the cosmos and the breadth of the known Universe and God, and down to micro-biology and the energy forms that underpin your movements.

Somethings are easier to love than others. If you can tie it all together, everything is revealed as love. The definition of love being oneness with everything...

I remember the OP's troubled post about sex. If you love someone, sex is an intensely loving union.

reply to post by Leftist


It won't matter how readily the hurt party might forgive the transgressor if the transgressor does not repent, there can be no hope for an open and honest, loving relationship between the two and the hurt one will be forced to accept the perpetual victim role.

We all make mistakes, even parents who have abused a child (whatever form that abuse may take), sometimes do so not out of malice or some other cruel device but out of naivity or emotional blindness or even ego. But then, if the parent denies the act/s, implies the child is a liar (for having broached the subject), there can be no true relationship thereafter.

My childhood was fraught with abuse. My mother being the antagonist and my father the facilitator. I tried to forgive them and remain within the family. It did not work as I was required to live the lie that the abuse never happened and when I mentioned any incident from childhood, I was always and immediately branded a liar and a lunatic. The only way I 'saved' myself was to decide this living a lie essentially, to protect the pride and ego of the transgressors who had all but ruined my life, was not the life for me and I walked away.

In my heart, I forgave them both but not without a great deal of internal struggle that has taken it's toll upon other relationships in my life. My mother is now dead. I grieve the loss of a possibility that never really existed! Since my mother's death, my father has made no attempt to contact me and make reparations and from this I take it that he was more than a mere facilitator.

So, for me, love and forgiveness were not enough because by being expected to pretend the abuse never occured, the inference was that I was to victimise myself.

Tolstoy wrote "Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." Since we don't know the details and the particulars of the OP's situation, its hard to know exactly what to say as advice or response. However, painting with broad brushes, I'd say there are plenty of situations where its better to walk away and not worry about reconciling or fixing things. A side note: I'd also be cautious about telling yourself or letting others tell you what you can and can't do vis-a-vis love. Love's a big old word, full of surprises.

Ultimately, the only thing you have to do is come to peace with inside yourself. Sometimes this can be done by seeking some kind of contact between injured and injurer. Sometimes not.

Originally posted by teapot
reply to post by Leftist

 

It won't matter how readily the hurt party might forgive the transgressor if the transgressor does not repent, there can be no hope for an open and honest, loving relationship between the two and the hurt one will be forced to accept the perpetual victim role.

We all make mistakes, even parents who have abused a child (whatever form that abuse may take), sometimes do so not out of malice or some other cruel device but out of naivity or emotional blindness or even ego. But then, if the parent denies the act/s, implies the child is a liar (for having broached the subject), there can be no true relationship thereafter.

My childhood was fraught with abuse. My mother being the antagonist and my father the facilitator. I tried to forgive them and remain within the family. It did not work as I was required to live the lie that the abuse never happened and when I mentioned any incident from childhood, I was always and immediately branded a liar and a lunatic. The only way I 'saved' myself was to decide this living a lie essentially, to protect the pride and ego of the transgressors who had all but ruined my life, was not the life for me and I walked away.

In my heart, I forgave them both but not without a great deal of internal struggle that has taken it's toll upon other relationships in my life. My mother is now dead. I grieve the loss of a possibility that never really existed! Since my mother's death, my father has made no attempt to contact me and make reparations and from this I take it that he was more than a mere facilitator.

So, for me, love and forgiveness were not enough because by being expected to pretend the abuse never occured, the inference was that I was to victimise myself.

It is near impossible to forgive someone for an act that is ongoing. Perhaps this is life's journey teaching you to overcome. You can forgive your parents for wanting to live a lie, where they are good parents, and the reminders are just evidence that they are weak. It's possible to forgive them for that too.

Now you have the after affects to deal with. We all have those. There aren't ass many stars in the sky's as the number of personal issues you can attach yourself to, if you wish.

What is of paramount importance is that you know that these things are not YOU. You are not the things that happened to you. You are not your reactions: past, present or future. You are you and in fact one with the universe, including the good and the bad as you see it. I'll stop before if bore you.

Originally posted by bowtomonkey
What is of paramount importance is that you know that these things are not YOU. You are not the things that happened to you. You are not your reactions: past, present or future. You are you and in fact one with the universe, including the good and the bad as you see it. I'll stop before if bore you.

Thank you for your kind response bowtomonkey. I was not bored reading it! I agree with much of what you say but actually, I think that experience informs life and becomes part of who we are.

Yes, I am not the things that happened to me but I can never be free of those experiences. I walked away and have taken a different path, one that involves the Universe that has brought me much comfort and opened my understanding of why forgiveness is so very important.

Originally posted by teapot

Originally posted by bowtomonkey
What is of paramount importance is that you know that these things are not YOU. You are not the things that happened to you. You are not your reactions: past, present or future. You are you and in fact one with the universe, including the good and the bad as you see it. I'll stop before if bore you.

Thank you for your kind response bowtomonkey. I was not bored reading it! I agree with much of what you say but actually, I think that experience informs life and becomes part of who we are.

Yes, I am not the things that happened to me but I can never be free of those experiences. I walked away and have taken a different path, one that involves the Universe that has brought me much comfort and opened my understanding of why forgiveness is so very important.

There are so many ways to experience life, I don't know what to say. I sat by the river ans watched the water go by all - sure enough I'm floating water, or at least that's where my mind has been all day. I lost a child and fell into depression (not true), but I'm better now is another experience that can shape you and teach you concrete lessons, but... it is only you as much as you let it, or as important it is to you when you make life's decisions.

I would not say that you are free of your past, but you are always able to stand back and evaluate any situation as if was new, no karma implied.

I need a better working mindset for my own karma. We are responsible for everything that happens in our lives...

I don't see an opposite reaction, forgive or be unforgiven (I subscribed to that one for a looong time) for example. You simple see nothing good in something and lose interest. Forgiveness is the natural state. Let God sort it out

Originally posted by bowtomonkey
You two people should try harder and discover what love is. Your parents can't teach you. That's crazy. You are on your own journey.

Agreed.

My single biggest problem with Marxism, is the degree to which it advocates total denial of individual self-responsibility. According to that way of thinking, you're a perpetual, totally powerless victim. Everything bad that has ever happened to you is always someone else's fault. You don't have the ability to change your circumstances whatsoever.

No thanks. You might as well be dead, thinking like that.