What is the true nature of forgiveness?

All I know is that forgiveness has never been something I dispense with easily…it’s hard to pin point one ‘true nature’ of any social concept as what’s true to one may not be true to another…I also know that if I have wronged others, it is much more important for them to forgive me than for me to forgive myself and in reality, the former usually happens much faster than the latter

@Simone_De_Beauvoir to thine own self be true…and i think for one’s own mental health, it’s important that we come to terms with ourselves as it relates to the wrongs we do to others. that is not to dismiss others forgiving us.

@avalmez
Oh I completely agree
I may not have stated it properly
it is just so much harder for me to forgive myself

I don’t know but would like to someday.

Ultimately it’s compassion .

I think this is the kind of thing that you have to live in order to understand. It’s different for all of us. We need it, or we need to give it for so many reasons. Anything anyone tells you will be wrong, because no one else is you. Forgiveness can help you get on with your life without dwelling and fretting over the past. You are the only one who can do the getting on.

For me, to forgive someone who has wronged me, is to let the anger and desire for revenge go away. I won’t forget the wrongdoing; I will learn from it and decide how much (if at all) I can trust the person again. Keeping the anger does me no good at all, so I do my best to forgive as soon as I can.

It is much harder to forgive myself because I hold myself to higher standards than I hold others. It’s not that I believe I am superior to them, but I am supposed to be in control of myself. I cannot help what somebody else does to me, but I am the only one who can stop myself from doing harm to others.

Yes, as TCH mentioned it’s compassion itself but I suppose it must start with me acknowledging that I have hurt others either deliberately or by default and acknowledging my willingness to let go of others who I imagined have injured me as well. I think they are inseparable- forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us

@daloon with all due respect (and i do respect your opinion), imho your response begs the question. forgiveness is about more than just getting on.

i can choose to ignore the wrongs done to me and get on without forgiving those who wronged me. i can choose to realize i’ve wronged others without caring that they realize my regrets.

sociopaths are persons who would are unable to recognize the impact of their actions on others and so able to get on, you know?

Forgiveness is more about you moving on with your life than it is about condoning the wrong actions of others. When you forgive those who have wronged you, you’re no longer carrying around the negative emotions that burden you.

@The_Compassionate_Heretic
Exactly

the true nature of forgiveness is the ability to continue through life as if it had never happen/

I don’t know what the true nature of forgiveness is. I do know that it is harder for me to forgive myself than it is to forgive those who have hurt me.

i used to believe it was a matter of time traveling back into the past and asking the offender to offend you the way that he would thereby absolving the offender of moral guilt and blame for doing you the favor which you ultimately learned from.

The true nature of forgiveness is when we really mean it. Sometimes forgiveness is just communicated to break a vicious circle of an escalating conflict (which can also be valuable).

I disagree with @DrBill. It is not about continuing as if it never happened. That is foolishness, because you leave yourself wide open to being hurt by the same thing again. Forgiveness is about letting go of your anger and pain and feelings of retribution so that you can go on with your life without thinking about how you were wronged all the time (or even occasionally), and figuring out ways to get revenge. It does not require forgetting. In fact, I believe forgetting is foolish, although we see “forgive and forget” all the time in the same sentence. I am open to further discussion about forgetting, because I’m actually curious, now, as to why people put those things in the same sentence.

@avalmez: I think you are confusing apologies with forgiveness. Your two latter examples (i can choose to realize i’ve wronged others without caring that they realize my regrets. sociopaths are persons who would are unable to recognize the impact of their actions on others and so able to get on) are about the person who does the harm, not the person who has been harmed. The person who does the harm can apologize, but they can’t forgive themselves. Only the person harmed can forgive, whether or not the person who harmed asks or not.

As to your comment that is about forgiveness (i can choose to ignore the wrongs done to me and get on without forgiving those who wronged me), I respectfully disagree. If you are ignoring the wrongs, but have not let them go (as in it still bothers you a lot and it keeps you from enjoying life to some degree), you have not forgiven. If you ignore and have let the harms go (as in not dwelling on them), then you have forgiven, whether or not you formally think that.

I believe forgiveness is to come to terms with the other party but mostly with yourself.

I recently addressed my personal journey with forgiveness in this question which is quoted below:

”I think it is a matter of semantics, and I find that the best word to describe what has worked for me is acceptance. I accept that I can not change what happened. I accept that my perpetrator didn’t and doesn’t care one whit for anyone other than himself. I accept that my mother is clueless and shouldn’t have borne children. I accept that both of these people are incapable of accepting responsibility for what happened because they could not bear the guilt. I accept that they will have to deal with it in some aspect at some point in time, but that there is nothing I can do to manifest that.

”I accept that I allowed my victimization to lead me to have low self-esteem and to make poor decisions. I have forgiven myself for the mistakes I’ve made while I lived with a victim’s mentality. I accept that I do not need to be ashamed for having been victimized, and that it has given me a sense of compassion and insight that I might not otherwise had. I no longer blame them for what is wrong in my life. I accept full responsibility for my actions. I live by my own personal values and choose to distance myself from those who are harmful to me.

”I have let go of the hurt, anger and rage that imprisoned me in shame and misery for decades. I have decided that ‘living well is the best revenge’—in that I no longer define myself by my victimhood, and have thus denied their attempts to vanquish my spirit. I will never forget… but does that fact that I relinquish any claim to pass judgement or to exact revenge on them mean that I have “forgiven” them?”

@hearkat
“Thanks for sharing that with us.”

@SeventhSense: ((((hugs)))) right back at you!

now you’re really confusing me with the avatar switching, because I think someone else was using that one previously

<———-How’s that?

@SeventhSense: Ummmmm… it’s a bit creepy, since you ask. :-D

Jack as creepy?
<——-How about this one?

@SeventhSense: why don’t you use the photo you posted on the Fluther PhotoBucket page?
I assume that is you a ‘few’ years ago.

My baby picture?....maybe I will.

@daloon
I disagree with @DrBill. It is not about continuing as if it never happened. That is foolishness, because you leave yourself wide open to being hurt by the same thing again.

I did not say forget.

@hearkat
now my answers are really confusing

@SeventhSense: your answers aren’t confusing… just our discourse here, since your avatar changes throughout Fluther, so others won’t know what we’re referring to. I never change my avatar, because I know how confused I get when others do it.

Well yes that’s what I meant. Sometimes you just want to remove some posts. So do you approve now? It’s hard for me to be a bad boy with that avatar though. :)

@hearkat
Oh it’s best to get used to frequent changes. Some of us change avatars like underwear. Life is impermanence

@SeventhSense: Those eyes have a mischevious glint to them… I wouldn’t worry about the ‘bad boy’ thing.
“the more things change, the more they stay the same” – lately I have been pondering how I have changed so much and yet am still the same me…

@DrBill. Help me out here. If you act as if nothing happened (which is what you have to do if you are not to forget), then what is going on? It’s not forgiveness, I think. It’s more like dishonesty. It’s a pretense of a relationship. I don’t understand how this is helpful.

I once loaned my truck to a friend, who returned it damaged. I forgave them. We do not talk about it anymore.

I did remember it, and learned from it. No one borrows my truck anymore.

I forgave, but did not forget.

Well, perhaps it’s semantics. In my mind that is not continuing as if it never happened. You are changing your behavior. No matter how call it, I think we’re talking about the same behavior.

@daloon part of the question is whether it is necessary to be forgiven before you can forgive yourself for wrongs you’ve committed. it’s important that one is able to, perhaps, not forget or move on as if nothing happened, but nonetheless come to terms with their actions else guilt can eat at one like a poison – even when they’ve been forgiven by their victims.

actually my opinion is the two (forgiveness by others, forgiveness of self) are not mutually required. some people can find it very difficult to forgive their trespassers and in such cases it may be necessary for the trespassers to be able to move on nonetheless.

Forgiveness is wishing well the person who has hurt you, moving together into the future healed of the trauma of the wrong.
Sometimes you cannot move together, but forgiveness is something I offer as much for myself as for the one who has hurt me. I forgive, because I have been forgiven.

Sometimes when I’ve hurt someone I love or offended a friend I ask them if they’ll forgive me, and actually allow them the choice and the time to if needed. That way the choice is their’s instead of me appologizing and expecting them to accept an apology no matter what.
Although I’ve caught myself holding on to things way too often my policy is to forgive the person as soon as possible with out holding a grudge. If I hold something against that person then for me that is not really forgiveness.
I may be careful on giving out total trust if the person has broke trust again and again. Trusting someone is way different then forgiving someone.
Putting away the past is so important for me. And like other’s here I have a bad habit of not forgiving myself, and then getting all down on myself on something I’ve done wrong.
However, recently I’m working hard on forgiving self as easy and as much as I would other’s after taking care of responsability for my actions.

John 3:16. Google it. Whether you are Christian or not, if you study the Bible, you will realize all base ideas of ethics are derived from it. Ethics need to be absolute – if someone can disagree,. and make up their own ethics…why can’t I kill all of you?\

Uh… you don’t want to die?
Too bad.
It’s fine in MY book.

See my point?
www.venomfangxsite.com

Forgiveness is like showing unconditional love.

I can’t forgive someone if only they’ll do this or that for me. Forgiveness has to be as far as possible unconditional. If love or forgiving someone hinges only on what they can or will do for me then its only conditional. In that case it doesn’t really work.

To find no fault.