And if you forgive somebody, you let go of all that. But what Maria is asking us to think about is to remember the experience, to remember what happened, to allow it to be something that you hold between the person you forgave and yourself so that you're stronger for it. So forgiving and remembering, that's kind of what I want to start this week off. Do you have a thought about someone you forgave and the truth of that experience still lives between you and its strength in you?
Derek Pierre
@DerekPierre · 3:57
You. Thank you so much for sharing this. It feels so on point, so on time. I feel like every question you post, it's always, like, so thoughtful, and I appreciate that. I believe the hardest experience I had when it came to forgiveness was honestly forgiving myself. I think when it comes to forgiving other people, it comes pretty naturally to me
You. Hello. I'm gonna speak in generalities here. And I think the notion of forgetting forgiving and remembering is more healthy than forgiving and forgetting because I think forgetting forgetting means that you're suppressing the memory and the thoughts and the feelings of that transgression and that in and of itself isn't healthy. I think when you're dealing with that transgression you have to process it. You can't pretend that it didn't exist. You can't pretend that it didn't happen
Deborah Pardes
@DBPardes · 0:28
Hey, Rich and Derek, thank you both for your insightful, personal replies. And Derek, I just want you to know that the last sentiment you shared around forgiving lets you breathe again. I mean, wow, I just took that in, like, a deep breath myself. What a beautiful comparison metaphor. And it sounds like it's completely a lived experience for you because you have asthma. So that's amazing. Thanks both for starting this week out so beautifully. Bye
Hi, thank you for this wonderful, insightful post. I also want to thank the other respondents, Derek and his powerful metaphor about feeling the weight of forgiveness, particularly forgiving oneself and allowing oneself to be able to breathe enrich talking about the concept of forgiving and remembering as opposed to forgiving and forgetting, which is where you also start along with something I want to thank you for talking about and that is the science of forgiveness
Phil Soapsmith
@soapsmith · 3:11
You. Hey, thank you very much for this prompt and that quote. I love that author. I'm going to have to find some more of her work. I. Pardon me, I'm in the car. That's the only time I do swells, I guess, is when I'm in the car. Forgive me. But you were talking about forgiving and forgetting or what forgiveness really means. If you really do forgive someone, does it count if you just go, well, whatever
Was it something that was core to who they are? And it's just never going to change. But in the long term, could be harmful to me if it were to occur again. I'm in a constant state of evaluation when it comes to things like that. I can forgive, and I can certainly keep what happened alive in my mind for the sake of learning. Doesn't always mean that I keep the person around, though
Isoellen Writes
@Isoellen · 4:59
But the hurts incurred within trauma, the hurts incurred within vulnerability, the hurts repeatedly incurred over time, become like muscle memory, don't they? And it all gets wrapped up in fear and identity and what it means to be strong or weak, whether I forgive and remember or forgive and forget. I wish it was just a whole process that I can complete in one day and move on, but I can't. I can't. I mean, maybe you can, but I can't
Jeremiah Myer
@Jeremiah73 · 4:40
And he put a board up there, and in the board he put a great big 16 penny shiny nail and he nailed it into it. And he told his son that that was what he had done. That nail represented the theft or whatever, and that every time we drove out of that driveway, everybody was going to see it. And he needed to make right and work to be forgiven and to get that nail taken out. And it really impacted the boy and he
Isoellen Writes
@Isoellen · 2:27
I thought I had forgiven. And maybe one of the things I did wrong was I stewed about it for a Phil, and I thought what I would do as a response in my anger and in my hurt, and I made a plan. Even as silly as that sounds, I made a plan, and I really thought my plan was a good idea, and I wanted to share that with the world
Geetha Kariappa
@angelface7 · 3:33
I may have been a people pleaser. I may have been a person with a low self esteem. I may have been a person who allowed the other person to walk all over me. So when I am also responsible for hurting myself and the other person was not wholly responsible for hurting me, it is easier to forgive that person. So I have gone through that experience. And for me, forgiveness is all about letting go of the past, letting go of the hurts