to forgive....

It sounds like you just need to let the energy that is caught up in the situation dissipate.

As soon as you notice those feelings starting to build acknowledge that your done with that and refocus on something else.

In words it might go "<grr>why that...oh wait, that's done...what a beautiful day it is"

The idea is to turn the anger/frustration from an ending point into the start of a flow into something positive.

Also remember emotions don't care if you are fighting them, analyzing them, wanting them to go away or what ever. If you pay attention to them, any attention, they strengthen. If you pay attention to something else they weaken. So realize, redirect the flow and focus.

Been there. What ended the anger, and allowed me to forgive the person, was that I finally came to a point where the rage was so distressing to me that I thought, "I will do anything, ANYTHING, in order to not feel this way anymore," and I meant it. This wasn't a slow or gradual experience either; it occurred on October 15th 2006 at 4:00 a.m. Exactly then, and not one moment before, I was able to let it go.

The next day my life started getting much better.

As a side note, this person has been recently upset with me about how much I've changed and how he doesn't know me anymore. Wish I could do something to help him get over being angry with me, but that doesn't seem to be in the cards.

Hi Jessica
I can understand your frustration and pain. The kind of love we usually engage in unfortunately always has its opposite and most people feel that as well as the good side. But you are posting this to the unconditional love tribe and maybe the practice of unconditional love holds the key because it has no opposite. Rather than trying to access unconditional love for him I would suggest redirecting your focus away from him as an external figure and put your focus directly on what he is touching in you. There is clearly something within you that still needs healing and energy that needs to be released or you would have been able to let this go by now. At this level he is just a trigger for this wound. When you are feeling this anger and having these violent thoughts I would suggest sitting with them and simply observing them, this requires accepting that they are there and not fighting or resisting whats coming up but instead surrendering to it and allowing yourself to simply be aware of it. Watch it arise become more intense and then decrease and pass away. This can change your perspective and allow you to not identify with whats coming up and see it as a temporary state of mind. This creates some space for you to fully feel and release it and perhaps for deeper stuff to arise that may still be unconscious. In getting to the core of these feelings you can eventually through them find the deeper level of healing and peace which leads to unconditional love and compassion, for yourself first and then for him.

Hi Jessica,

I'm reading a book right now that contains some wisdom worth sharing. It's called Radical Honesty, by Brad Blanton. I am currently reading the section about anger, and find that I also have various un-addressed anger issues, so this is especially pertinent.

Blanton talks about our need to really experience our anger, fully, whether it's ugly or scary or anything else. Most of us are taught from early childhood to mask our anger, and then we don't know what to do with it or even how to recognize it when it wells up inside us.

Sit with it, let it come. Yell, scream, cry, laugh, shake, whatever. Don't try to reason it out (well I understand what he was going through so I'm not REALLY mad...anger is irrational, and that's ok), don't try to name it, just feel it in your body, in your heart. If it helps, think about the deeper layers of where it might be coming from...you may find that it has little to do with the actual relationship you had or the person, but it could stem from an experience much earlier that is now tied to this man.

When you try to ignore the feelings, or convince yourself that you shouldn't feel the way you do, you're denying yourself, denying the opportunity for even more growth. You are lying to yourself. An extreme way of putting it, yes, but that is one way of putting it.

While I think that unconditional love is an ideal place to exist, it shouldn't be exclusive to more "negative" emotions like sadness, anger, etc. Give yourself the unconditional love to open up to the darker places, explore without judgment, and know that you are a being of light no matter what. How can we be balanced if we only look to the light?

You can do it!

Sending you compassion on your journey,
Robin

thank you everyone for your replies. i think some of you are right about just feeling the anger and then letting it pass instead of trying to push it away. i just wish i wouldn't have it in the first place, but who wants negative emotions anyways...i do hope that someday it will just stop. it's not so much about "why wouldnt you want to be with me" though that is a big part of it.....it's more complex then that, i don't know if it has anything to do with other things in the past, i don't believe so. i'm angered by his hypocrisy and the way he has treated me and other people, his huge ego and his self rightousness and inability to admit that anything he does is wrong even if it is cruel to others. and his lies......i could go on and on, but i won't. i feel sorry for the people in his future who may have to experience what i went through, but i know there's nothing i can do about it. i've always been a pretty laid back person, it takes a lot to make me angry. i admit that i rarely do get angered, and that could be because i don't let myself. i think a part of it has to do with my experiences with he ex-gf before any of this happened. his ex treated him like absolute shit and constantly yelled at him and accused him of everything, calling him over and over and sending him (and me and all his other girl friends) negative emails everyday and i think that she is the cause of a lot of his behaviors. but the thing about her is that once i saw her act like that, i vowed to never let myself become like her, and i think because of that., i've saved myself a lot of drama by not letting myself act out on my negative impulses like she did. but it alot got me to not act out and feel anger as well. i realize that feeling and getting out anger, as well as all emotions, in a safe way, is healthy. does forgiveness come naturally after you feel and accept the anger, or do any of you experience anger for years, even if your life is in a better and completely different direction, and even though you have other wonderful people in your lives?

Sounds like Love. It's a many shpongled thing, sometimes. C'est amore. :) Love, everybody's doing it. :)

I find that at the core of forgiveness, is self love and honour.

i think... that once love exists, i never not exists after that... we build alters in our hearts when we love, and those alters we carry with us... me, i dont think i'd have it any other way, even some of the alters that i am still working to arrange in a way that is comfortable for me to carry in my heart...
and i think, once i've really learned what i need to learn, all of my alters will be exquisitely comfortable, and comforting...

Eckhart Tolle's book A New Earth, Awakening to Your Life's Purpose, will lead you to the place where you are no longer attached to the ideas of this person and the pain and anger that accompany your thoughts. It will show you in simple terms how to let things flow through you, without attachment or judgement, and to separate yourself from your ego, your thoughts and emotions, which are NOT you but the illusion. It will help you to allow the love of the universe to flow through you!

good reading and good luck to you!

Hi Jessica.

My sympathies, I'm 'there now' also... It's terrible. And I wonder when I'll be really Joyous again.
& when I'll be able to trust in women & providence again.
'Cause honestly, I can't see it happen just yet. For me it's beyond trying!
I actually want to leave to country to go somewhere where gender issues and the culture
are not so horrid and stultifying...

But, all in all, I do know deeply that it is temporary, and mostly ego-mind tricks.

"" I forgive myself, I love myself"
this reflects on all others.

I have read your post, and all the responses and I love what people have said there is nothing that I can add to what people are sharing, accept maybe my experience.

Along the road of spiritual progress, I noticed that the very things I wanted out of my life came to me under the most unnerving circumstances. All the work that I was doing was because I wanted to get rid of something in my life that I didn't like about my self. One of those things was the fact that I didnt feel very liked by people in general. So I went out and learned how to be more likable. Not from a standpoint of wanting approval, but more from a place of "This is who I am, im finally willing to work on parts of me that cause people to second guess my character. Lets find wants real and wants not inside of me"

As soon as I started on that path, I started getting hit with things that shook me to the core. My life actually started to get worse instead of getting better. I would try to relate with people and find myself digging bigger holes then when I started out.

I couldn't understand why the universe would want me to suffer further just by trying to make changes in my life. After trial and error, I realized my efforts were a mask that I was using to run away from feelings of abandonment and lack of love. It took a few really bad experiences with those two feelings to wake me up to what I was trying to avoid. But this time it was differnt, instead avoiding the experince with drugs or some other avoidance mechanism, I stood there in the moment and just looked at it with a certain non-attachment. I was still sad about these experinces repeating in my life, but they didnt take me over and once I realized that I had a choice as to how I am going to look at these situations, with acceptance and understanding, the pain finally dissolved. afterwards, I found that people are trying to move through their own pain just as I am, and when I accepted that its not about me, its just about them trying to do the best they can, i didn't need to feel like my character was at fault. Im doing everything that I need to, to be a gentle human being. Now, its just people trying to come to terms with that them selfs the best way they know how.

Shortly after that I met someone really special and now i am in a very loving relationship. I don't think I would have happened if I didnt work with those feelings. Now every time I get into a situation like that, I know its always about my relationship to the moment in question, and has little to do with the other human being im relating with. As soon as a transform my own pain. Their behavior towards me, which is always based on their own pain no longer has any power over me.

Life is counter-intuitive, when you think you should go one way, go the other. Just the act of doing that helps you look at situations in a new light, even if its not the correct way to move in your life.

I am so happy to hear of the great things in your life and sorry to know that the dark shadows of the past are looking for attention. As someone that has caused such suffering and endured it (sadly, I have caused more than I have had to endure) I hope to give you some insight into the why.

Those we love the most are etched so deeply in our hearts and minds that when they are lost, we will undoubtedly spend much time thinking about the loss, and the heart wrenching that accompanies it.

I am not going to say you have not forgiven, but I don't think so (sorry if I am wrong) - anyways I had a similar feeling towards some one that lasted a long time. He really could have used my help, but I was stuck with the one situation that caused us to part our ways of true friendship. I let this eat away at me for years. It didn't consume me, but when I thought of that person the anger always arose again. I knew I didn't truly forgive. His near death experience gave me the strength to face down this fact, and forgive, and go on to provide him with things I could have been helping him with for years (he is quadriplegic).

Too bad for the person that lost you in their future. I would recommend going back beyond the pain when it comes to mind. Think of how joyous those times where and you may find them as pleasing or less pleasing than the times you are living. Regardless, the train wreck will always look like a train wreck. You can only be stronger from it because you lived it and survived (and are excelling!) Spend not another moment thinking of the "why" when it comes up, moving that energy instead to either forgiveness or thoughts of the treasure you and your mind are to those you love.

Your pain is a tough test of your emotional strength, and will be eliminated when you truly forgive because you will see rose and thorns as one.

Good luck to you.

Jess,I think,it is not the point of Forgiveness ...It is more a point of Letting it go ...
YOu hate this person coz you still care for him,you care for something he had done to you or been to you ..

Just let him go...
Unforgiving him you are letting him control your emotions,
By letting him go you will just get rid of all bad feelings
and will forget of his existence by being detached ..


Just let him go ..


~E~