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I'm not convinced that saying aloud 'I forgive you' is really cutting it, especially with the likes of CPTSD symptoms exhuming what I thought was dead and buried.
A lot gets lost with amnesiac dissociation, until it is re-remembered again
My book with a basic forgiveness ritual is lost. It went something like 'write a letter to whom you want to forgive and then burn it'.
Does anyone know of a forgiveness ritual, something simple to forgive ones Mother for an insane upbringing?
Theirs actually quite a few people to make sure are forgiven, maybe I could roll it all into one?
The Whole Judeo Christian thing is good at telling you what to do, without actually telling you how.
And while I'm at it, what would the affects of not forgiving actually be?
As someone with also an insane upbringing / abusive mother, I've spent a lot of time thinking about the concept of forgiveness. I don't think it really means much in the modern world, and it's only given such a supreme focus because Christianity (USA Christianity in particular) is obsessed with it
Forgiveness USED to mean something very concrete, and it was to do with debts. Let's say we're in Old Norse times, which is the origin of some of our justice system
You kill my brother. There is now a blood debt. I am honour bound to kill your brother.
But for the survival of our clans, ongoing blood feuds are very very bad. We keep killing each other one by one until there's an all out war and half our people are dead and there's no one to work the farms.
So instead of me killing someone from your clan, I demand what was called "weregild" - money or goods to compensate for what you did. In return, I FORGIVE you. In other words, I say "the score is settled, I'm not going to come after you". If I kill your brother after publicly forgiving you, that's not honourable, it's just murder.
Or less dramatically, we're in the same clan but you steal my sheep and I want to punch you out for it. In a small society, they are on a knife's edge in terms of having a successful harvest and not starving to death etc, so peace is important for the whole clan's survival -a fight between neighbours might mean we all starve. Peace comes via justice, which means paying ones debts, and forgiving others.
(This is very relevant to early Judaism and Christianity who were still tribal or semi-tribal)
So in the modern world, I think it means something like "you screwed me over, but I accept your apology, and I'm not going to keep bringing it up every time I see you"
That's what it means for my mum (because she has apologised). Even without an apology, just to yourself, you can say "I am going to LET THIS GO, meaning, Viking style, "I am not going to keep seeking justice." Sometimes "my mum is crazy and incapable of understanding what she did, so I am GIVING UP on pursuing justice (her understanding and apology)". That's what forgiveness of the debt looks like now
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In terms of this nebulous emotional forgiveness, here's my belief. You can't offer forgiveness on behalf of someone else. Only the wronged person can forgive. My mum really hurt the little girl who was me, and I don't have the right to offer emotional forgiveness on behalf of that little girl. The hurt is done. The damage is done. Everyone, including my mum, has to live with the consequences.
I'm more or less fine these days, but that's adult me. Adult-me wasn't the one who got hurt, so she's not the one who can decide whether to forgive or not forgive
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(The prayer about "forgive us like trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us" means Jesus wants you to forgive people even if they HAVEN'T paid their debts, and that means something real, not vague and emotional: it means not seeking vengeance against those who wrong you. It's the same advice as "if someone strikes you on the left cheek, don't hit him back, instead turn your other cheek to them" - no vengeance, no blood feuds
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Emotional forgiveness = acceptance of reality. The past has happened and nothing can be done to change it.
Do you keep thinking, if your mum would say just the right thing, or explain her reasons properly, that somehow it would fix the past and fix you?
Or have you truly and completely given up hope of that ever happening? Giving up hope is actually the same thing as forgiveness in this situation.
If you're still seeking "closure", you haven't given up hope of an explanation that fixes things, so the past still has hooks in you.
Let's be honest, this is a concept that is spoken a lot about but only because the ruling religion(s) demands forgiveness.That you forgive someone else or that you are forgiven just because you asked for forgivenessm regardless if the guilty person actually feels sorry or not.
But forgiveness is something you do for yourself and not the other person.It's something that shouldn't be expect and much less demanded.You forgive if you want to and when you feel ready to.
I particulalrly prefer Hammurabi's style: "an eye for an eye".
If I'm not mistaken this kind of thing still happens in many parts of the world.I don't remember what was the country exactly but there is one where at least in the more countryside parts of it, blood feuds are common and so is common for entire families to spend almost their whole lives hidden in fear of retaliation.
My mum really hurt the little girl who was me, and I don't have the right to offer emotional forgiveness on behalf of that little girl. The hurt is done.
This is something that make me wonder why some people think that just saying "sorry"(if they ever say that) should just make things "ok" now.Apologizing won't undo the pain and hurt done, it won't undo mistakes and choices taken.So why there are some people that think that life should be all rainbows when someone apologizes after hurting another?
Ah that's my fault. OP asked for a ritual and I responded with philosophy.
If I were in OP's place AND I was mentally stuck or circling around the past (such that I felt I needed to forgive) then I would instead be looking at something like a cord-cutting ritual, to cut the obsessive thoughts out
Another potentially helpful option for unweaving the patterns caused by the past is retro-sigils (next Mercury Retrograde is early April). Especially if there's something where you're like "as an adult, knowing what I know now, the best thing to do back then would have been x" - of course you didn't know to do that because you were a kid, but you can sigilise to give kid-you the resources they lacked
I thought this was really cool. She makes use of Mercury Retrogrades, but I don't care about that so much and would launch these any time. I really appreciate the lists of examples, which help me understand better than pure theory. Everything below is by Orchis, originally shared here...
I'm not convinced that saying aloud 'I forgive you' is really cutting it, especially with the likes of CPTSD symptoms exhuming what I thought was dead and buried.
A lot gets lost with amnesiac dissociation, until it is re-remembered again
My book with a basic forgiveness ritual is lost. It went something like 'write a letter to whom you want to forgive and then burn it'.
Does anyone know of a forgiveness ritual, something simple to forgive ones Mother for an insane upbringing?
Theirs actually quite a few people to make sure are forgiven, maybe I could roll it all into one?
The Whole Judeo Christian thing is good at telling you what to do, without actually telling you how.
And while I'm at it, what would the affects of not forgiving actually be?
If we have Ritual by Damien Echols in the library, it looks like there is a forgiveness section in there. I dont see anything about burning a letter however. Im not sure if there is a Celebrate Recovery center or chapter in your area, but if there is, Id recommend going there and at least getting their Bible version, it could be very beneficial to you.
I think this type of post is more appropriate on the philosophy section than here.
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Let's be honest, this is a concept that is spoken a lot about but only because the ruling religion(s) demands forgiveness.That you forgive someone else or that you are forgiven just because you asked for forgivenessm regardless if the guilty person actually feels sorry or not.
But forgiveness is something you do for yourself and not the other person.It's something that shouldn't be expect and much less demanded.You forgive if you want to and when you feel ready to.
I particulalrly prefer Hammurabi's style: "an eye for an eye".
If I'm not mistaken this kind of thing still happens in many parts of the world.I don't remember what was the country exactly but there is one where at least in the more countryside parts of it, blood feuds are common and so is common for entire families to spend almost their whole lives hidden in fear of retaliation.
This is something that make me wonder why some people think that just saying "sorry"(if they ever say that) should just make things "ok" now.Apologizing won't undo the pain and hurt done, it won't undo mistakes and choices taken.So why there are some people that think that life should be all rainbows when someone apologizes after hurting another?
Yes, what folks tend to forget was that Hammurabi's dictum set a limit to vengence. A took B's eye, so then A had to forfeit one. Period. No blood feud. Of course, this calls for an enforcement apparatus. Still, forgiveness---with its visiting guilt on the p.o.'ed victim---was wisely left out of the equation.
