{"id":1334,"date":"2017-06-05T06:04:31","date_gmt":"2017-06-05T11:04:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mentalhealth-online.com\/mentalhealth\/?p=1334"},"modified":"2017-05-21T20:50:41","modified_gmt":"2017-05-22T01:50:41","slug":"what-is-forgiveness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mentalhealth-online.com\/mentalhealth\/what-is-forgiveness\/","title":{"rendered":"Forgiveness: What Is Forgiveness?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover that the prisoner was you\u00e2\u20ac\u009d. — <\/em>Lewis B. Smedes<\/p>\n

Let\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s talk about forgiveness<\/i> and what exactly it is. If you look up the definition of forgiveness, you will learn that it is the act of forgiving someone. Of course, using a word to define itself doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t reveal much, does it?<\/p>\n

\"Forgiveness<\/a>I think the quote above is a lot more telling. Forgiveness involves two or more people — or you and yourself — and there usually has to be a previous incident that requires forgiveness.\u00c2\u00a0 You might think that forgiveness is all about the other person.<\/p>\n

However, when you are mad, angry, disappointed, or sad about something that someone said or did to you, you are the one who is carrying the burden.\u00c2\u00a0 And, for as long as you agree to carry it, you are the one who is shouldering the weight.<\/p>\n

When you get to the point where you can forgive and move-on, something truly amazing happens. You realize that the only person being hurt by hanging on to that anger is you.\u00c2\u00a0 You might not believe me now, in the midst of hurt and anger, but, forgiveness is much more about YOU, than it is the other person involved.<\/p>\n

When you look at the act of forgiveness as a journey, it becomes a journey which involves coming to terms with an unpleasant or hurtful experience. \u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0Once you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re able to come to terms with the hurt, you also come to the realization that the only person you were really hurting with your anger and resentment is yourself.<\/p>\n

Forgiveness then, truly a noble act, is a noble act in which you engage for yourself. Forgiveness is about giving yourself permission to let go and move on.<\/p>\n

Of course, this can be easier said than done.<\/p>\n

Forgiveness is also strange in that it is both an act and a process.\u00c2\u00a0 It starts with the deliberate act of deciding to let go of the resentment you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re feeling. Once you make that conscious decision, then you can start the process of forgiving.<\/p>\n

One way to get this to happen is to repeatedly forgive and forget — in cycles –\u00c2\u00a0 until you are truly over the anger, hurt, and pain.\u00c2\u00a0 Forgiveness is usually a process, occurring in step–fashion.<\/p>\n

Forgiving someone doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t mean that you condone what they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve done in the first place that hurt you. Forgiveness doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t mean that you suddenly agree with what they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve done or take on their point of view.<\/p>\n

Instead, forgiveness is about giving yourself the peace of mind to move on and get on with the rest of your life. While this may involve a reconciliation with the person you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve forgiven, that isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t necessary. Forgiveness really is all about you coming to terms with a bad experience … specifically, in order to get past it. Forgiveness is a very powerful event.\u00c2\u00a0 It is an experience that is\u00c2\u00a0 well worth exploring.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover that the prisoner was you\u00e2\u20ac\u009d. — Lewis B. Smedes Let\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s talk about forgiveness and what exactly it is. If you look up the definition of forgiveness, you will learn that it is the act of forgiving someone. Of course, using a word to define itself […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,5,11,4,2],"tags":[350,348,347,345,349,346,316,92],"class_list":["post-1334","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-communication","category-emotional-healing","category-life-coaching","category-mental-healing","category-stress-remedies","tag-anger","tag-burden","tag-forget","tag-forgive","tag-forgiven","tag-forgiveness","tag-hurt","tag-pain"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mentalhealth-online.com\/mentalhealth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1334","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mentalhealth-online.com\/mentalhealth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mentalhealth-online.com\/mentalhealth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mentalhealth-online.com\/mentalhealth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mentalhealth-online.com\/mentalhealth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1334"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/mentalhealth-online.com\/mentalhealth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1334\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1340,"href":"https:\/\/mentalhealth-online.com\/mentalhealth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1334\/revisions\/1340"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mentalhealth-online.com\/mentalhealth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1334"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mentalhealth-online.com\/mentalhealth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1334"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mentalhealth-online.com\/mentalhealth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1334"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}