Forgiveness Is For The Strong

Glorious morning!

Today let’s expand on a quote about forgiveness This quote is from a favorite man of mine, Mahatma Gandhi.

“  The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is an attribute of the strong “

I believe this. There are different levels of forgiveness. in my opinion. There is what I call “ lip service forgiveness “ there is mental forgiveness and then there is real soul forgiveness. Let’ s start with lip service forgiveness. Lip service forgiveness is when you are in a situation where, let’s say you are on a family vacation and got into an argument with your spouse and the disagreement is taking time away from the vacation and the kids are being affected. Sometimes the bigger person will just apologize to keep the peace so they can move on. That is lip service forgiveness.

It seems that it’s the right thing to do,  and it is for the kids sake , but….. Unresolved resentments can build and eventually cause “di ease”. Let’s go to mental forgiveness. Mental forgiveness is similar to lip service forgiveness but can become the only way we eventually apologize or forgive. Take someone who is in an abusive relationship and the abuser is taking out their own unresolved issues of anger out on their spouse and the spouse tolerates it. That can turn into a situation where the abused starts to believe that they are the cause of the abusers outbursts and that can develop into saying sorry often so the abuser will stop. Now the abused thinks there is something wrong with them and goes on an endless pursuit to make the abuser happy and gets into a constant state of being “sorry” .

That is not real forgiveness. True forgiveness is when we learn how to stand in our own truth and see the abuser for what they are. LOST. But we too are lost if we accept abuse. In most cases that requires standing up to the one who is abusing us and to stop apologizing. It also requires boundaries , and not permitting the behavior any longer. The self love required for that takes courage. Once we love ourselves enough and forgive ourselves for tolerating the abuse, then and only then can we forgive the abuser. We can say we forgive someone all day long but it will still carry unresolved love. Seeing how we ourselves fall short is essential to forgiving someone's horrible behavior.  If we are tolerating the behavior over and over ( a child has no choice ) it’s pretty hard to see the light in that person. To see the light in the abuser, we must be fully healed and put a stop to the abuse. ( in a childs case we need to be grown to do that ) Sometimes that requires leaving that person.

That takes the attribute of a strong person, you are not only helping and healing yourself, but helping the abuser by teaching them how to treat you. When we don't learn how to truly forgive we stay in a victim state of consciousness. When we allow ourselves to remain a victim, we allow abuse and we prevent solutions. The cycle just keeps going. In my former marriage I experienced some dysfunctional behaviors that I learned were going on behind the scenes of our marriage and I was horrified. I forgave him, believed the behavior would stop, but it continued.If I stayed in the marriage and just kept on “forgiving” what good does that do? I had to eventually leave in order for me not to experience the dysfunctional behaviors because he wouldn't stop AND because I kept forgiving or should I say “ allowing”. Then that started me on a journey of asking and finding out the answers to WHY I was tolerating the behaviors in the first place.That journey helped me develop self love. When I was in a complete state of love for myself is when I was truly able to forgive him and let it go.

I stopped the victim-like behavior by saving myself. In the end it was my courage to face the truth and view my marriage as a lesson that helped me view him as being just as human as me. A soul on a journey of forgiving ourselves so we can have the capacity to truly forgive and yes , that takes strength. Do you have unforgiveness inside of you? Backpack coaching can help sift through the old cycles and clear the path for true forgiveness. Make a free discovery call today. Peace be with you, Dawn

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