Faith, Perseverance and Patience have been with me for weeks. I am a slow learner.
Forgiveness and Acceptance keep coming to visit and then taking off. I must find a way to entice them to stay,
Serenity stopped for a short visit before leaving to be with Busting. And Doubt - well, little Doubt is growing up slowly into Trust - I keep bribing her with leftovers from the picnic:)
It's Acceptance and Forgiveness that I'm really after to stay close with me this week. I have a lot to learn from them - those wise old ones.
I was thinking this morning about forgiveness. I'm not really sure what it means to really truly do that - i don't think i've done that ever where i let it go completely. My way was to say to myself, it's okay doesn't matter, and then let resentment build behind the scenes.
so is forgiveness about understanding - really trying to understand why the other person may have done something from their point of view - and then saying that you can let it go, after acknowledging that they are human and humans don't always get things right?
i'm hoping others will chime in and talk about what it means to forgive for each of them.
thanks zig
me 46 H 38 M10yrs T 11 S10 BD ow 8/11 h filed 9/25/12
"if i could define enlightenment briefly, i would say it is the quiet acceptance of what is"
from Pema - I think i'll have to name my next turtle Pema in her honor...
PRIMORDIAL WISDOM
When we cling to thoughts and memories, we are clinging to what cannot be grasped. When we touch these phantoms and let them go, we may discover a space, a break in the chatter, a glimpse of open sky. This is our birthright—the wisdom with which we were born, the vast unfolding display of primordial richness, primordial openness, primordial wisdom itself. When one thought has ended and another has not yet begun, we can rest in that space.
This is timely for me - that space - I imagine Serenity waits there...
It's not just thoughts, it's time also. When one time has ended, and another has not quite begun, we CAN rest in that space too. I think it's the space many of us are occupying right now - leaving our marriages in our mind and making the space for the future events to unfold.... whatever they may be...
me 46 H 38 M10yrs T 11 S10 BD ow 8/11 h filed 9/25/12
"if i could define enlightenment briefly, i would say it is the quiet acceptance of what is"
I don't think we have ever communicated, but I have kept up with you. I have done a tremendous amount of introspection the past few days, and forgivness, unconditional love and selflesness have been my 3 areas of growth/awareness.
Our sitchs could not be more opposite, but I believe lessons of the heart are always the same.
For me, forgiving meant letting go of the victim role, something I felt justified in claiming, like it was a birth right. So much so that it seemed like back stepping to love and give when I really NEEDED.
You know how we remind each other that we can decide to leave/give up when ever we want, and how it awlays makes things easier to deal with?
Not forgiving/pain/anger is the same concept really. We can let go of that any time we want (or are ready). I have discovered that just like my ability to remain in my sitch, I also have the ability to love and forgive-because it is a choice that I can make, independant of what someone else may do or say.
I also think that for everyone here, the act of forgiving our partners also means forgiving ourselves (for whatever we regret, for what we didnt do, or to forgive and give ourselves permission to do what is best for us).
Not sure if my perspective helps, but at least its another perspective
Me-31 H-24 D3,D2 M 4 yrs WAW(me) 12/2011 role reversal 03/2012 (H)PA 3-6/2012 (H)D filed 6/2012 D deemed "inactive", closed 8/2012 I've moved on 9/2012
It's Acceptance and Forgiveness that I'm really after to stay close with me this week. I have a lot to learn from them - those wise old ones.
I was thinking this morning about forgiveness. I'm not really sure what it means to really truly do that - i don't think i've done that ever where i let it go completely. My way was to say to myself, it's okay doesn't matter, and then let resentment build behind the scenes.
so is forgiveness about understanding - really trying to understand why the other person may have done something from their point of view - and then saying that you can let it go, after acknowledging that they are human and humans don't always get things right?
i'm hoping others will chime in and talk about what it means to forgive for each of them.
thanks zig
zig - I can't remember if this has been discussed before in any of your threads, but have you read anything by (appropriately named) Al Turtle? He has a ton of stuff on his website about understanding the perspective of others and how we can learn to see things through the eyes of others (although we can never really fully understand their whole thought process - he uses the metaphor of an iceberg for "stuff" we can see above the water and all the stuff we can't see underwater and how we may not even know what all of our own underwater stuff is, etc). This might help a little with forgiveness.
My forgiveness turtle likes to swim away a lot, too. Reading Al's stuff helped me, though.
Thought I'd share something I found on forgiveness that made sense to me. It's from the co-founder of The Forgiveness Institute.
He defines forgiveness as "The freely chosen foregoing of resentment or revenge when the wrongdoer's actions deserve it and the beyond duty act of overcoming evil with good by giving the gifts of mercy, generosity and love when the wrondgoer does not forgive them."
The article this comes from goes on to say that "Forgiveness is not saying what happened doesn't matter. Forgiveness can be difficult if the offender doesn't admit to any wrongdoing. What happened does matter. By forgiving you are not condoning or excusing inexcusable behavior. After all, if what happened doesn't matter it doesn't need to be forgiven. Forgiveness is not giving up your right to obtain justice.... While forgiveness has nothing to do with whethe rour offender is willing to make restitution to us, our healing will be quicker and the likelihood of reconciliation greater if the offender shows remorse and takes actions to correct the damage he/she caused."
The article is about forgiveness as a tool to either save your marriage or help you to move on.
Hope it's useful.
me 45 H 46 T 5 M 2.5 BD Sept 6 2011 OW Sept 8 2011 Threw him out Sept 8 2011
Four stages of forgiveness: 1. uncovering your anger 2. deciding what to do about it 3. thinking about your offender in a different way 4. discovering new things about yourself and the world
Reading it this way, it's really a tenet of DBing.
me 45 H 46 T 5 M 2.5 BD Sept 6 2011 OW Sept 8 2011 Threw him out Sept 8 2011
Ah forgivness...What a great and challenging topic. I'm with you on the touch & go aspects of it. And like what GWN mentions, its definitely more difficult when I don't see remorse coming from my W. But that doesn't change the need for it. Even moreso, its a reminder that those things most valuable are often those that require great effort to gain.
But being a bear of simple brains, it helps me to keep it simple. Jesus' life has always been my great example of forgiveness. To paraphase some of His teachings, even when we were his enemies, He still made the choice to die for our sins, offering forgiveness.
Now, not sure where you stand on Christianity, but that aside for now, here's the basic teaching I get. -Forgiveness was a choice of Jesus' character, not my actions. -This choice was done to help create a way to move to a deeper and closer relationship with those he loved. -He knew some would appreciate the gift and others would not. -He didn't let the negative impact the opportunity for the positive. -For those who recognized the act of love & forgiveness, they sought out Jesus and committed to Him, creating a deeper relationship. -From His teachings, this response always involved a change of heart by those who understood His gift.
So when I choose to forgive my W, it helps create a greater opportunity to show love and a way to a deeper relationship. She may or may not respond. If she doesn't then our ability to restore will be limted if not gone, but I will have left he load behind me.
If she does accept the forgiveness, then a change of heart for her to let go of actions that hurt our M can more readily take place, helping us to move forward. And it works the other way too because there are things I need forgiveness for as well.
Me:45, W:45 S:16 D:13 M:22, T:25 Bomb: July 2010 Putting finances in order for "D" Continue to live in same home-separate rooms
Thanks for answering, stronger. Your words reallly spoke to me.
forgiving meant letting go of the victim role
You have hit the crux of what was a pattern throughout my life - sub-consciously seeing myself as the victim. I never felt that on a conscious level really, but deep down I carried some distorted version of it.
I also think that for everyone here, the act of forgiving our partners also means forgiving ourselves (for whatever we regret, for what we didnt do, or to forgive and give ourselves permission to do what is best for us).
Yes you're right - the biggest thing is to forgive myself - and I'm not sure what I am forgiving myself for - I think right now I am in the throes of forgiving myself for being shaped by my experiences and not realizing how they affected me. As for doing what is best for myself - I still have to learn about that:)
Your perspective helps a lot, stronger, and I'm so pleased that you gave it. I stopped by your thread and read a bit, and want to go back and catch up. Your letter that you wrote to your h - it was really beautiful, and i am so pleased for you that you were in a position where you could even write that, let alone give it to him.
thank you again zig
me 46 H 38 M10yrs T 11 S10 BD ow 8/11 h filed 9/25/12
"if i could define enlightenment briefly, i would say it is the quiet acceptance of what is"
vera, dear vera - I read your post first thing this morning. and i just smiled in my heart.
The universe just brings me everything right when I need it, and you just happened to be the bearer of it this time!
I've spent the last three nights reading on Al Turtle's site. That was really why I couldn't answer starsky's question about what happened the last 5 yrs. I was in the process of seeing the whole thing differently
Then yesterday afternoon, s wanted to do some stuff on my computer, and I went and cleared the history. When I was trying to answer the posts last night - I wanted to copy something from Al's site - and realized that I had forgotten to bookmark it and could not remember his name.
and isn't it funny - I remembered "Tuttle' and couldn't get past that. and there was a turtle sitting there all the time!!
there's a lot to read on that site, and i'm making my way through it - i had read some stuff months ago, but obviously wasn't ready for it in some way.
thanks for this, I know it will help me a lot
zig
me 46 H 38 M10yrs T 11 S10 BD ow 8/11 h filed 9/25/12
"if i could define enlightenment briefly, i would say it is the quiet acceptance of what is"
