Friday, August 19, 2011

Forgive and forget

Forgive to forget or forgive and forget?

These are two different things. In my own opinion, forgive to forget is that when you forgave the person who hurts you so that you can forget what has happened whereas, forgive and forget is when you forgave the person and forget about the pain and everything. Personally, I prefer the latter.

I remember an elder in our community said,” yes I forgave the person but I can’t forget what she has done to me”. See what I mean?

Can you really forgive a person and forget about everything?

I have been trying to finish this article the soonest possible time that I can but can’t seem to find and grasp the right words to express what’s in the deepest of my heart. The past few days were spent on soul searching about my life journey’s mischievous trick. Or say mischievous tricks?

It’s really not easy to let your emotions out but it does “me” good when I actually let go and accept things that were beyond my control. Took me a lot of prayer, outpouring of emotions, letting my emotions go with the emotional flow (your guess is right or did you guess?) until I am left with nothing but forgiveness and inner peace. Well, I’m just human so it’s not 100% yet but I know I’m on my way to emotional healing and my goal of – forgive and forget - forgive (99% in progress) and forget (70% in progress).

When someone hurts you, the first thing that you will feel is betrayal followed by anger, distrust, and all the negative emotions that come with it.

It may take a long time to work up the courage and strength to forgive that person and forget what happened, especially if you were hurt by someone whom you gave your love, trust and your all.

For some, forgive and forget is a cliché. And forgiving the person who has wronged you and forgetting the pain brought by it may just be unrealistic or nearly impossible.

The course and road to healing depends on the person involved. It’s not easy, really not easy. A lot of things must be considered like emotion, anger, the pain, the feeling of betrayal and distrust before finally getting to the final stage of recovery and emotional healing.

In order to forgive someone, you must want and have the desire to forgive the person.

Support system really helps a lot, if there is. But it’s not always that you can open up everything to your family as you also don’t want to hurt them specially if they were already hurt of the situation. You need a friend or someone who understands you and what you have been going through. And, I’m glad I have a brutally frank friend, who stood by me and gave me all the emotional support that I need. Though many times, I contradicted her opinions and still follow my heart out, still, her mere presence, solicited and unsolicited advices kept me sane and helped me a lot throughout my - ordeal.

As what I have said earlier, it’s not easy. Everyday I tell myself that I forgave and has forgiven the person who has wronged me, and it’s true, I did. When you accept things which you can’t do anything about to change the course of event, eventually, forgiveness will follow. Instead of hatred in my heart, I feel inner peace is slowing taking its place . But forgetting is more complicated than what I thought because, however I tried to forget, memories still find its way to me, the good ones and the not so good ones. I want to keep the good ones of course and blow the bad ones in the wind – poof! and say bye-bye bad memories.

Life is too short to hold grudges and harbor ill feelings. There’s a lot of beautiful things around you. Your life, career, family, friends, people who care about you and most importantly, what life what has to offer. Instead of crying over spilled milk, why not live life to the fullest? Learn to accept things, move on and live the lessons of life by heart. Not easy though but attainable, slowly but surely, in time.

As I always tell myself, be POSITIVE. My trials? This too shall pass. It’s just another icing on the cake.

The road may not be easy as we encounter lots of detour. A detour is only a detour and not the end of the road and everything. There will always be that road that will lead and bring us to the right and final destination.

Tell the person who wronged you that you forgave him. He may need it too and just leave the past behind.

Life is a journey. Forgive and forget.



2 comments:

Sal said...

I am glad you have a friend who has lifted you up and helped you dust off your fears and disappointments. Such friends are hard to find. I thank you friend for that. A friend in need, is a friend indeed. How true is that.

Unknown said...

Agree. Thank you Sal.