Forgive

What is forgiving actually? According to your personality it is something like: the other person knows that he is wrong and offers you an apology for that, preferably adds some kind of penance, and then you do something vague like saying "I forgive you". And that would be the trigger for you to stop blaming the other person and end the more and less subtle behaviour with which you had made sure that the other person would know that he had done something wrong that required an apology. Now the unpleasant part of this whole game is, that the other person has to play it along with you. If he or she refuses that, then you get stuck with your blame, which cannot dissolve because of the absence of this expected behaviour. Whole families have fallen apart and relationships have ended only because of this.

There is of course a different way to deal with this, one that will bring you more satisfaction. And that is because the initiative for getting rid of your feelings is within you, and does not depend on the other person apologizing. For your personality this equals a bad job on taking care of your interests, but when you read more of the columns on this site, you will learn that that only is an attempt to hold you prisoner in this vicious circle of blaming, and you know for sure that that does not make you really happy.

Real forgiveness means that you break up the automatism of your interpretation of the thing the other person did or did not do, and the feelings this calls forth in you, and the way you deal with that. Someone may literally step on your toes. You experience physical pain. Now you take responsibility yourself for dealing with this feeling. It is your feeling, you have to live through it somehow. It is your personal reaction to what you can choose to be a training moment, physically or emotionally.

You consciously make the choice to not label the person who brought forward this training moment as "wrong". You let go of the idea that the other person is guilty. There is no "wrong", "wrong" is only a new label that, according to your personality, seems justified to put on someone in this situation. But you can choose to stop the big label-exchange game. Here and now, in this situation. You can start to use as much situations as possible as a way to increase remembrance of who you really are, and experience the inner Peace that accompanies the vision of your non-judgmental inner Self. It will be unpleasant to become consciously aware of all the convictions your personality has adopted over the years, but it is not impossible.

Check on the columns actively choosing a different approach for various ways to help yourself to stop reinforcing the pattern of judgment and blaming. And the column unable to forgive may give you some specific inspiration.