11Retrain your thinking. When your enemy and his or her evil actions come to mind, send him or her a blessing. Wish your enemy well. Hope the best for him or her. This has two effects. One, it neutralizes that acid of hate that destroys the vessel in which it is stored. The evil we wish for another seems to have a rebound effect. The same is true for the good that we wish for another. When you make yourself able to return blessing for hatred, you'll know that you're well on the path to wholeness. The first 15 - or 150 - times you try this, the "blessing" may feel contrived, empty, and even hypocritical but keep trying. Eventually, it will become a new habit and soon thereafter, the anger and pain that has burned in your heart will evaporate, like dew in the morning sun. This technique forces your mind to overcome the cognitive dissonance between hating someone and acting with compassion toward him or her. Since there is no way to take back the kind gesture to agree with your hatred, the only thing your mind can do is change your belief about the person to match. You will begin to say to yourself, "S/he is deserving of a blessing, and indeed, must need one very much."

SweetLambo wrote on Feb 28^th, 2015 at 7:52pm:


- : ) =

"To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover that the prisoner was you." - Lewis B. Smedes
"Those who are the hardest to love, need it the most."
"Follow peace with all men, and holiness," -Hebrews 12:14."
"As far as possible, without surrender, be on good terms with all persons." -The Desiderata by Max Ehrmann
"Hating someone is drinking poison and expecting the other person to die from it."
"If we could read the secret history of our enemies we should find in each man's life sorrow and suffering enough to disarm all hostility." Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
"Do unto others as you would have them do unto you" - The Golden Rule
"Correct and courteous words accompanied by forgiveness are better than charity followed by insulting words." - The Qur'an 2:263
"Be kind, for all you meet, are fighting a great battle."- Philo
"Anyone who claims to be in the light but hates his brother is still in the darkness. But whoever loves his brother lives in the light, and there is nothing in him to make him stumble." 1 John 2:9,10-The Bible
"Anyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life in him." 1 John 3:15- The Bible
"The hatred you're carrying is a live coal in your heart - far more damaging to yourself than to them." Lawana Blackwell, The Dowry of Miss Lydia Clark, 1999.
"The stupid neither forgive nor forget; the naive forgive and forget; the wise forgive but do not forget."
"But if ye do not forgive, neither will your Father which is in heaven forgive your trespasses." Mark 11:26.
"For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you" Matthew 6:14

it_is_the_light wrote on Feb 28^th, 2015 at 7:51pm:



He has truly become enlightened.

Is it only temporary?

The Nature of Forgiveness

Mustering up genuine compassion for those who have wronged us, instead of allowing anger toward them to eat away at us, is the course of action recommended by most psychologists. An exception to the belief that burying the hatchet brings peace to the soul may be sexual abuse: Some victims of these crimes are empowered when given permission to not forgive.

balanced, realistic views of themselves are less likely to use counter-productive coping strategies like self-handicapping than those who either inflate or deflate their self-images. Along similar lines, self-forgiveness interventions have been shown to be most helpful when combined with responsibility-taking exercises (link is external). Alone, self-forgiveness seems to do little to motivate change.

3. Pay your dues. Just as you probably wouldn't forgive someone else until they make it up to you in some way, forgiving yourself may be most beneficial when you feel like you've actually earned it. So how do you know when you've adequately paid your dues? In some cases, it's obvious what needs to be done (e.g., if you borrow your friend's favorite sweater and lose it, you would probably want to find a way to replace it, at minimum), but in other cases the criteria for making amends may be less clear. Receiving forgiveness from others can help facilitate self-forgiveness, but it's ultimately up to you to decide when you've done enough to right a wrong. Rather than simply going through the motions of atonement, it may be useful to consider what kinds of reparative behaviors will actually make a difference for others, or for your own personal growth. Even certain forms of self-punishment may be useful when motivated by a desire for self-improvement rather than anger at the self, though researchers recommend (link is external) that such punishment be mild and time-limited, and never physically or psychologically harmful. For example, a teenager who engages in shoplifting and feels remorse might decide to refrain from shopping for three months and instead focus on her schoolwork.

4. Avoid the empathy gap. Problematically, research has found that self-forgiveness is negatively associated with empathy for victims (link is external). As self-forgiveness increases, empathy decreases. This disconnect is understandable: when you're feeling compassion for the suffering of those you've hurt, it's difficult to also have compassion for the person who caused that suffering. But self-forgiveness is not supposed to be easy, and without incorporating empathy it seems more like a form of avoidance.

Importantly, self-forgiveness need not be all-or-nothing. It's a slow process that may never (and some may argue should never) result in a full release of negative feelings or an exclusively rosy view of oneself. Rather than being a form of self-indulgence, healthy self-forgiveness might be better seen as an act of humility, an honest acknowledgment of our capacity for causing harm as well as our potential for doing good.

Can You Forgive?

From Jews preparing for Yom Kippur, the holiest Jewish day, to Catholics going to confession before Easter, all religions understand the healing power of forgiveness. Everyone can relate to carrying a grudge that's gone on for too long or feeling guilty for a wrongdoing that needs to be atoned. This is how we are built. As long as there are relationships, there will be a need for forgiveness.

Forgiveness is a powerful and affirmative part of our humanity. It should be differentiated from its close cousin, acceptance, which while important, is essentially, passive.  For many, the healing power of forgiveness allows us to truly move on. It's a topic that is relevant to your life, whether you are religious or not, Jewish or not, guilty or not. A life lived without forgiveness is a life of real pain.

Forgiveness is essential in overcoming a divorce, but it has a place for everyone, regardless of age or level of hurt. The topic is timely, because, today, there is a lot of hurt in the world. People are out of work. Families are struggling to keep everything going, and many of our politicians and institutions seem to have let us down.

Everyone has something that they can be forgiven for and that they must forgive. This is a good time of the year to look at our own actions, how we rationalize dubious behavior and how we can step forward, even when injured, to take charge of our lives to the extent that it is possible. So, with this in mind, let's take a look at the many permutations of forgiveness.

The Past Becomes the Future.

The great American playwright Eugene O'Neill said it best in Long Day's Journey into Night: "The past is the present, isn't it? It's the future too." Here he was referring to an Irish American family that was struggling with the scourge of alcoholism, which seems to infect generation to generation. The truth is that past wounds, from any source, can infect our present. If you were hurt by someone, you may carry a grudge or be so wounded that you are psychologically ready to be hurt by her again (link is external).