Life is all about forgive and forget

Came accross this article while I was browsing through the web. And I think it should be something we ponder and think about it. I just put a few quotes. For full details, do refer from the website in the following:-

http://www.messengers2.com/articles/philosophy/reconciliation.htm

Benefits of forgiving

• When we forgive and accept forgiveness, we will heal. The psychophysiology of the human requires harmony and balance in its components; body, mind and spirit. Reconciliation harmonizes not only human relationships, but restores the harmony within the mind. This occurs partly because the person is no longer constantly at war with the image of the person’s enemies in their mind.
• When we forgive and reconcile we are mentally healthier and physically more vibrant. Interpersonal conflict eventually becomes intrapsychic conflict. This creates disharmony and a disequilibrium that consumes energy needlessly. God has constructed the mind so that it will normally seek to resolve conflict. It does this by: thinking a lot, or talking a lot to others, or contributing to the re-enactment of the unresolved conflict. Once harmony is restored, the spirit, mind and body function more efficiently and more harmoniously. Having reconciled, a person becomes more vigorous, healthy and lives longer.
• When we forgive, we can be loved by those whom we forgive. The victim becomes a perpetrator by hating the perpetrator in their heart, not praying for them, not trying to meet their needs, often besmirching their reputation, and holding them in a state of unforgiveness. God makes it very clear, that what we bind with unforgiveness on earth is bound in heaven.6 When we forgive the perpetrator they are freed and in a position to love us.
• As we forgive, we understand better. Unforgiveness results in ignorance and self-imposed blindness. If we forgive, we are not afraid of truth. To know the truth, we must be courageous. By knowing the truth, we become more courageous and more able to know the truth.

The Results of Unforgiveness

• We will go on remembering sick, sordid and painful history. Those memories will eventually poison our mind, producing a dismal outlook on oneself and life.
• You become like those you do not forgive. The mind, through transacting, invariably becomes more like the things that it concentrates on. When one is concentrating on a perpetrator, trying hard to resolve the problem or expressing angry thoughts, one becomes like that person. You become like those you hate.
• Until we forgive, history must repeat itself. Because humans are constructed to be as efficient as possible, people will automatically tend to help recreate unresolved conflicts. Therefore their history will continue to repeat in tragic re-enactments. That history becomes foisted onto one’s family. Now they have to be part of that painful re-enactment to at least the third and fourth generation.
• Until we forgive and reconcile, we will not forget. Until we forget, the brain becomes increasingly stuffed with sordid material, distorting our personality and interfering with our ability to see the truth, discover and to invent beautiful things.
• If we don’t forgive, we become alienated from our true selves, and the true selves of others. We cannot see clearly who we are and who they are. We are more likely to be trapped into false relationships. We are more likely to be seduced and used by others.
• Without forgiveness, people are difficult to love. Until they forgive the perpetrator, they cannot be blessed and loved by the perpetrator.

When you are hurt, you....

• To try and ignore it: You may pretend it didn’t happen. When you find you can’t forget that it happened, you will attempt to distract yourself with activity, pleasure, travel, numb yourself with alcohol, drugs or medication, or harm yourself through risk taking.
• Go on re-enacting the unresolved conflicts, repeating the tragedy and ingraining the deep pain even deeper.
• Engage in a futile process of getting even through revenge or court action. You soon find that nobody gets even. One time, riding a taxi to the airport out of war torn Belfast, I asked the driver when the two sides of that sectarian violence would stop killing each other. “Oh,” he said, “when we get even.” Can you ever get even? I doubt it very much. So the only reasonable option is reconciliation. But people know reconciliation is difficult. They will try to avoid it by avoiding the basic problem, denying the necessity, becoming ill, go to war, or becoming unwell.

The Process of Forgiving

The process of reconciliation is difficult and can be dangerous. If you wonder how hard it is, ask God. It was the most difficult he did. It cost him the life of his son. It appears that humans would rather go to war and kill each other than engage in the arduous process of reconciliation, but it is the only option.

• You must accept the truth of who you are and what you have been doing. Jesus said no one should criticize the other, trying to point out a speck of problems when you have a whole plank of them in yourself.8 Your unresolved problems occlude your vision. If you cannot see yourself clearly, you certainly are not in a position to see clearly anybody else. We have all sinned and come short of the glory of God.9 In the tragic triangle, everybody contributes. In matters of life and death, there are no innocent bystanders.10 You are either striving to prevent or correct the effects of the problem, or you are contributing to them. You can never say, “I wasn’t involved.” If I see a person in individual psychotherapy who has been sexually abused by her stepfather, who is she most angry at? Her mother. Why? Because her mother should have, could have done something. However, if the daughter approaches her mother and says, “Why didn’t you do something?” the mother’s characteristic defense or excuse that has been handed down through the ages in all these situations – “I didn’t see, I didn’t hear, I didn’t know, and besides there’s nothing I could have done about it.”.
• Change. We have to become as adult as possible, a pilgrim, setting aside false faces and accepting and mourning the loss of the person we should have become (PISHB). Then only can we engage in the process of reconciliation without distorting things. Then and then only can we be effective in reconciling. Take the initiative. We can’t afford to wait. Time is always of the essence. While you are waiting for somebody to take the initiative and say sorry, people die, people change or die, and the opportunity to love and grow is lost.
• Forgive and accept forgiveness. If people apologize, we must forgive them as often as they apologize. “Then Peter came to him and asked, "Lord, how often should I forgive someone who sins against me? Seven times?" "No!" Jesus replied, "seventy times seven!” 13 “Even if he wrongs you seven times a day and each time turns again and asks forgiveness, forgive him." 14 “If you forgive those who sin against you, your heavenly Father will forgive you. But if you refuse to forgive others, your Father will not forgive your sins.” 15 We have the prerogative of discerning whether the apology is genuine or not. If it is not, we may decline. But in doing so, we must encourage the other person to try again and give them hints about how they should apologize fully and correctly. We must remember that we cannot go to church until we are reconciled with our brother. “Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to your brother; then come and offer your gift.” 16