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What is forgiveness and why is it important ?

 



Why? Why Me? When will the other person realize his/her mistake? Why should I be the one forgiving? 


Forgiveness is the release of resentment or anger. 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.

Just as important as defining what forgiveness is, though, is understanding what forgiveness is not. Experts who study or teach forgiveness make clear that when you forgive, you do not gloss over or deny the seriousness of an offense against you. Forgiveness does not mean forgetting, nor does it mean condoning or excusing offenses. Though forgiveness can help repair a damaged relationship, it doesn’t obligate you to reconcile with the person who harmed you or release them from legal accountability.

 

Instead, forgiveness brings the forgiver peace of mind and frees him or her from corrosive anger. While there is some debate over whether true forgiveness requires positive feelings toward the offender, experts agree that it at least involves letting go of deeply held negative feelings. In that way, it empowers you to recognize the pain you suffered without letting that pain define you, enabling you to heal and move on with your life.

With this understanding in place, here are at least eight reasons to forgive. Which of these are in your conscious awareness when you offer this virtue to those who have wronged you?

When I forgive, I do so:

1.    To become emotionally healthier. Forgiving can reduce unhealthy anger.

2.    To repair relationships as it helps me to see the other’s worth.

3.    To grow in character because it can help me to become a better person.

4.    To be of assistance, within reason, toward the one who acted unjustly. Forgiveness extends the hand of friendship even though the other may reject this.

5.    To help me to assist other family members to see that forgiveness is a path to peace. Forgiveness for peace, in other words, can be passed through the generations.

6.    To motivate me to contribute to a better world as anger does not dominate.

7.    To help me to more consistently live out my philosophy of life or faith tradition if that worldview honors forgiveness.

8.    To exercise goodness as an end in and of itself regardless of how others react to my offer of forgiving. 

To forgive is to exercise goodness even toward those who are not good to you. Forgiveness is perhaps the most heroic of all of the moral virtues (such as justice, patience, and kindness, for example). I say it is heroic because which other moral virtue concerns the offer of goodness, through one's own pain, toward the one who caused that pain? Do you see this—the heroic nature of forgiving—as you extend it to others?

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Here I am attaching a link to Forgiveness Meditation to help you to forgive

 






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