Current mood:	awake
Current music:	dee-lite Groove is In the Heart

This started out as a reply to GoatGirl's post on Forgivness, but...hee hee Forgive me! My Soapbox Rant! that it turned into.

Here it is for anybody with interest:
Love, you have a Very good point here. I think that Forgivness, like Guilt, Sorrow, Anger, and Regret (to highlight a few) have been sorely abused by our culture. Negative emotions and feelings have been mercilessly used by Social powers like the government, commercial campaigns, and especially mass religions to forward their own causes -which upon close inspection have no relation to your personal mental health. This abuse leaves us with seriously twisted concepts about these emotions. I do my best to dismiss all my preconcieved notions about negative emotions and replace them with the notion that emotional sensations serve the same purpose as physical sensations -they're feelers and info gatherers about our world.

I think a good way to find a new path to understanding forgivness is to start with that moral superiority thing. I can't abide feeling morally superior to someone else. It's so obviously a ridiculous position! -for a long time I could not forgive because I felt like I was putting myself above them. Instead I just tried to understand what was going on in that other person's shoes -to do this you have to be ready to accept that it's all about them and has nothing to do with you -A low self esteem will hold you up here for a long time. Look for the wall they ran into, the muck they've got their feet in...their weakness -we all have things we're good at and things we're bad at -what are theirs? Don't expect it to make sense. It's not what makes sense for them to have done, but what Did they Do? What mental circle are they running in? No one reasons their way past their most heart-felt hang-ups. When you get in their headspace a little you start to generate compassion for them. You start to see a little how they got to the place to do that. For most of us, life is a struggle of self mastery. Remember your perp is not his master yet -not "perfect" or whatever. He screwed up -sure, and the questions are why? how? what's got him so confused, so confounded, so scared? He's trying to figure out the same thing, but he doesn't have the benefit of your external perspective. Can you see better? You get sympathy for them -ultimately your concern shifts from you to them. This is part of the process, I think, that heals your heart. You learn more about how to support them without risking harm to yourself. You start to figure out that the question isn't whether you can trust them, but, in what way do you trust them. Like, trust a pig to fly and you will always end up betrayed. Learn to trust him instead to find truffles. And again, maybe the pig's not good at self-analysis and is sure he can fly... And, forgivness is a feeling you get -letting you know that you're on the right track -like joy and love, NOT something you Decide to Do. So, go mucking around in the head and heart of the perpetrator. When you start to feel that lightening, sympathy, compassion, and understanding, I think then you are forgiving. Manage to do this once, even in a small case, and you can start to feel what forgivness is, can see the difference between it and it's twisted, but popular counterpart. And for the Goddess's sake, don't waste your time beating yourself up just cause you aren't as good at it as Jesus -or whoever. You're learning to master yourself in another small way -just like them.

Or, you can do it the American way -get yourself a nice, tall, sturdy alabaster pedistal (The mother teresa 2000 model is popular). Climb on board. Look cooly down your nose at the other person and simply decare them icily forgiven for their lowly immoral actions -how could they know better since they aren't nearly as awesome and morally perfect as you? Meanwhile, wrap some lovely, perfectly white flowing robes around all the wounds and other painful things you can't understand -the forgiving are healed...right? Add some posing and mood lighting, and you might even fool yourself.

Most of all, Sweetheart, trust yourself. You are full of love and compassion. You hurt and you heal. Life goes this way. You've got it covered. We can't insure ourselves against pain and sorrow. We can't be certain that all things we bring into our lives will be only good. We don't get to know. We pick and choose as best we can and deal with what we get. You have Always Dealt Very Well with what life throws at you. Have some faith in your track record. You Make Good Decisions and you Handle Bad Situations Well. Your History attests to it. You're set; you're good; relax, and look to him with calmness and clarity.