Aha Moment
originally posted in August 2005
From: slj2004movingon (Original Message) Sent: 8/27/2005 12:24 AM (At first I added to the title Aha Moment -- But I don't really like my answer but by the time I was done typing the post I realized that wasn't really true. My mind doesn't really like my answer. The rest of me knows it is dead on.)
So in my daily life, I have been off for the summer, still collecting a teacher's pay from the school I will not be returning to this fall since I moved to begin my new life. Still waiting for that new life to take some kind of shape. Outwardly it appears that I am doing very little. And yet, in reality, I think I am working harder this summer than at any other time in my life. Still trying to make sense of it all. Still trying to put the pieces of myself back together.
I questioned whether I had grieved. I decided that I had. I decided that the truth was that I had to accept that I didn't love him. All of these things are partially true. But, what feels like maybe, the final, real healing for me, is that I have to love him.
I have to. And fully. And completely. And with a full awareness of all his faults.
And yes, this is seemingly a complete reversal, but much like my outward life of leisure these past few months, I think the reversal is also an illusion.
I must love him so fully that I can understand and accept him as he is. I must be able to wish for him happiness and healing. I must not be so anxious in awaiting his comeuppance as I admited in my response to Talia that I have been. I must love him enough to forgive him. And then, and only then can I let him go. Then and only then can I appropriately honor myself for the years that I gave him -- out of love.
See, that's why it isn't a reversal. I have no plan to be with him. I have no plan to dip and get sucked back in. And in many ways, I truly don't even do this for him. I will attempt to bridge this gap for me. Because the person that I was when I met him was capable of forgiving anyone of anything. How can I not be that person at the end? If I have lost such a precious ability, I am less than I was before. And I would not be less.
I have so struggled with forgiving him. Believing as I do that it is so important to forgive, and being unable to do so. I must take every bit of love I ever felt for him, every bit of desire to ease the pain I felt from him and use it to transform this pain that he has caused in me and love him still. Judge him not. Understand that if he knew better he would do better. And that he doesn't is neither my fault nor his. And then, just let him go.
I don't know if I am expressing this well. Perhaps some of you find this so very simple and obvious. But perhaps this sideways approach to how to forgive will be helpful to someone else who is stuck the way that I have been.
I bough several Wayne Dyer books this evening. It is in beginning to read through them that I realize this is what I must do. What I will do. Have in some ways by realizing and typing it already done. This huge of vice of anger that has surrounded my heart for these past 15 months, it's just dissolving. And how I know for sure that I do this because it is right, and that I do it for me is that typing about that dissolving vice is the only line of this long post that brought tears to my eyes.
I have been waiting so very long for this.
From: Cornfield10 Sent: 8/27/2005 4:55 AM Yes, I understand your present thinking. It is complex to describe but necessary to go through. You are getting somewhere to a better life. It is a journey. Keep going.
On the brain tumor web they say "keep on keeping on." Cornfield
From: Ellie50301 Sent: 8/27/2005 5:53 AM Dear Slj,
What a beautiful post and what a beautiful way to describe your realization.
Coming to that place of acceptance, of knowing that forgiveness reflects our souls desire for peace of mind, is empowering.
Bravo for you for being your true self. For embracing all of you without fear. In loving someone who hurt you, you become more than you ever imagined.
Thank you for your provocative and empowering words.
Ellie
From: ellen2126 Sent: 8/27/2005 7:53 AM slj,
I have been struggling with this also as I realize my rage toward him and unwillingness to forgive does not hurt him in any way, only myself. I am not there yet but I know it needs to happen.
I believe my xN is the way he is because he was sexually molested by a church leader as a young boy. So the person I will forgive is that young boy, the one who never had a chance to grow into the man he was capable of being. Not the soulless creature who's only goal at this point is to destroy me.I saw flashes of that boy when I was with him but only flashes. There will never be any more than that, he has been buried too long. The false self serves him well so he will never endure the pain that unearthing him would entail. I grieve for that boy and work toward forgivness.
I understand what you are saying, I too want to get back to the person I was before the N, just wiser and not so naive. Bitterness does not become me.
You have made a big step, congratulations and lots of love on your journey.....Ellen
From: Yelloh22 Sent: 8/27/2005 8:03 AM I knew along time before the final D&D that the hardest part would be letting go with love...Not sure I am completely there yet...but I am definitely closer! I remember telling him I really didn't want to throw the baby out w/ the bath water! Unfortunately they were inseperable!
Hate the sin and love the sinner???
From: LynnS2274 Sent: 8/27/2005 8:26 AM Dear SLJ--
Your post is lovely. Thank you so much for this.
Here is an excerpt from an article by Larry James that speaks to exactly what you're saying:
Love,
Lynn
From:
http://www.celebratelove.com/forgive.htm "Give yourself the gift of forgiveness. The very word forgiveness is built on the root word give. Forgiveness releases your partner from your criticism and also releases you from being imprisoned by your own negative judgments. It is not surrender, but a conscious decision to cease to harbor resentment. In affect, it takes the poison out of your body. It cleanses your system of the poison that will surely fester and cause illness and continued misery if not released. You cannot take the poison and expect someone else to die. They will go on with their life and you will be the only one to continue to suffer.
Forgiveness is the key to your own happiness. Forgiving someone else takes moral courage. It ends the illusion of separation, and its power can change misery into happiness in an instant. Forgiveness means choosing to let go, move on, and favor the positive.
Forgiveness is a form of love within the context of a personal crisis. To forgive is, in a sense, to love one's enemy. When forgiveness is given because you think you should, it no longer is forgiveness but an act of self- interest.
The act of forgiveness constitutes a mental bath, letting go of something that can only poison us within.
Robert Enright, a developmental psychologist at the University of Wisconsin defines forgiveness as "giving up the resentment to which you are entitled and offering to the person who hurt you friendlier attitudes to which they are not entitled."
"When you hold resentment toward another, you are bound to that person or condition by an emotional link that is stronger than steel. Forgiveness is the only way to dissolve that link and get free." - Catherine Ponder
"Forgiveness is the release of all hope for a better past." - Alexa Young
From: CZBZ Sent: 8/27/2005 10:02 AM When forgiveness is the higher principle in our hearts and minds, we will achieve it. but in my experience, it might come as a surprise package arriving when we least expected it. Trying to Move To Forgiveness too soon, can end up defeating ourselves with frustration and self-blame. It can also short-cut the Expusion Process as we hold the narcissist accountable for the wicked thing he did killing our love.
I stopped trying to 'consciously' forgive my X-husbaNd after reading numerous professional articles about the challenge it is to move a client through a process requiring anger, finger-pointing, externalizing, accepting all the nasty emotions people who intend to Forgive might feel guilty about reclaiming in themselves. Many of us have repressed a lot of those 'feelings' because we determined them to be wrong. One thing I had to unlearn was the stupid idea that 'if we think it, we are as guilty as doing it.' Well...if that's the truth then I am doomed to hell forever.
That's why this process of healing is so complicated and difficult to describe. We do everything we can to UNLOVE them and then, we do everything we can to LOVE them. But this time, there cannot be attachment or desire with our intentions to unconditionally love others. If there is, it is NOT unconditional love and we will hurt ourselves with unconscious condition to get something back for having loved them.
The prayer of my heart at night went like this:
"...please bless the N and his soulmate that they might find the same
peace and forgiveness I ask for myself."
And then, I let it go. I did nothing consciously to bring it about. I blasted the X-N AND his N/S-oulmate all the way from California to the North Pole and back again. I expunged the essential anger and blame and guilt...and ONLY after two years of this excavation and exhausting chucking, was a new peace restored even slightly. This is why I perceive FORGIVENESS as a state of being and NOT a conscious thought.
This excerpt was taken from a book written for therapist about the narcissistic family. I listened and followed their advice figuring they knew more about how to help me than I did:
"...forgiveness is not an essential part of this model...when confronted with the issue of forgiving the perpetrator(s), our belief is that the issue is more in the spiritual domain than in the psychological. Although the issue of forgiveness has been dealt with at length by Scott Peck, Bass and Davis, and others, we do not pursue it. In our experience, the self-imposed pressure to forgive the perpetrator often gets in the way of genuine recovery, as it can act to shut off the patient's necessary expression of anger and self-validation of feelings. When patients ask about the subject, we usually respond by telling them that in our experience, forgiveness is a feeling or condition of being more than an act. As such, it cannot be legislated or decided upon; if it happens, it happens on its own. Within this model, forgiveness is no more necessary than blame. The patient is asked for a reflection of reality, not a judgment call." (Pages 65-66, The Narcissistic Family by Stephanie Donaldson-Pressman and Robert M. Pressman.)
Love and hugs,
CZBZ
Total Members: 
