Forgiving 

It can be both helpful and on the other hand it can be harmful to yourself and your relationships. So it is something that you have to analyze for yourself. Depends on the situation and what was "forgiven"

If you are stuck on old stuff that hurts when you remember it, you need to get over it. There is no such thing as "forgive & forget" so don't try.  But you can forgive!

The act of forgiveness is easy. It's the pain of deception, betrayal and your own weakness that is hard to get over. 

We tend to think that when we forgive that we have to go right back to how things where. That's the first mistake. Nothing will ever be the same. You can't take the wrinkles out of a crumpled piece of paper. Try it if you don't believe me!

The other mistake is that after an issue happens that requires forgiveness, the betrayed and the betrayer are not given time to recover.

The betrayer needs to be truly sorry for his/her actions that led to the hurt. You can't just say sorry because you don't want to loose that relationship. You need to accept the responsibility for what you have done no matter the degree of hurt that was done. Know that you have just lost something very dear to any relationship.  Besides asking for forgiveness( if you even are sorry), you need to for give yourself.  That doesn't mean that just because you forgive yourself, that everything goes back to normal. Chances are that the one who said they forgive, doesn't know the true meaning of forgiveness. 

The betrayed need to realize that you don't have to try to make things they were before.  They won't be no matter how hard you try to let it be and how hard the betrayer tries to regain what was lost.  You  need to forgive, but with that you need to give yourself time to heal and get over whatever was done.  If you don't distance yourself from that person for a bit, you never let that wound heal. You are just putting a band aid over it.

What happens when you get burned? You stay away form the stove for a while, don't you! You might even take showers with water a little cooler just so that burn doesn't hurt so much, at least until it heal enough!

Same concept!

After being cut or burned, you will always have that little fear of it. Now you know how it feels so then you are more careful and when it does happen you stay way and heal your wound.

Same concept!

When that trust is lost in a relationship, it's a big deal. Especially for the betrayed. It's is so easy to say I'm sorry but it sure is damn hard to say that you forgive, and actually know how.  That's why we hurt so much when something is done to us. If you knew certain things, forgiving would be so much easier.

There was a quote I had read the other day that was something like:  I'm not mad that you lied, I mad that I can't trust you anymore.

It's true! This is such a great way to word it. It's not about the lie or deception, it's about the consequence that is what is hard to deal with. Like I said in an earlier blog, you can't take the wrinkles out of a crumpled piece of paper.

You can't undo all the mistake that are made id any type of relationship. The will always be there forever, no matter how much you try to cover it up...it has been compromised!

The good news is, for the betrayer you can learn from your error and never do it again, and for the betrayed you can learn to forgive in such a way that you won't hurt every time you are reminded of what happened.

I will discuss just how to do that in my next blog!

Thought for the day:

Forgiveness. You can't spell it without the word "give", so if you want it...you are going to have to "give" a little more on your part. If you are the forgiver, you are going to have to "give" yourself time to heal!!

As Always

Dr. Nobody