Willingness to Forgive Yourself and Others?

We’re all deserving of forgiveness, for we are human

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This time of year I spend time exploring through quotes. I’m assembling the sets of prompts for Prompt A Day and there is a quote in each set. Some of the quotes speak to me and get me nodding. Occasionally I come across one that gets a WTF reaction from me. Like this one:

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I’ve either totally missed the point here or this Ausonius is totally out to lunch in my opinion. He was a Roman poet and teacher in what is now Bordeaux, France. Born in 310 AD and died 395 AD.

Many people struggle with the idea of forgiveness. They often equate the idea with letting someone away with a a wrong they have done. The more the wrong has hurt you, the harder it is to let go.

I’ve had that struggle more than once. Some I’ve never really given forgiveness for. Others I’ve been able to and move on.

One of the lessons I have learned about forgiveness is that I don’t have to actually tell the offending party I’ve forgiven them. Choosing not to forgive is energy that I am spending, it’s hurt I’m nursing and holding onto. Even if I don’t think about it constantly the energy it’s still there, sitting off to one side just waiting for a trigger to jump back into my consciousness. To stick it’s pointy end into my awareness.

When I can reach the point of asking myself if I really want to grant that person more energy of mine, that is when I can rationally choose to set the hurt aside. To let it release into the ether.

Will I forgot what happened? Of course not. I just wont the hurt drive my thoughts about what happened. I wont give it energy any more. Is this easy? HELL NO! There are things in my life I’ve not even been able to make a dent in forgiving and letting go of. Not always from lack of effort. Somethings go deeper into the soul and take longer to extract.

Now I come to the idea of forgiving myself. We’re all human, we all screw up, we all carry guilt about things we’ve done. Well, unless you’re a psychopath in which case.. F** To not allow…