http://blog.myforgivenesskit.com/
See this website for more healing stories. This one is by Julette Millien:
I read a 'Note" this week by a Facebook friend and it was thought provoking. No, actually it was upsetting.
The writer suggested that because of the existence of eternal souls, when even a baby is sexually abused, the baby's soul has somehow drawn the attack onto itself. (The note said much more than this but this piece got the most attention)
Well that was a show stopper. Last time I checked, the note received 90+ comments!
You can just imagine how people who have struggled all their lives with the consequences of childhood sexual abuse, who might not be receptive to this 'eternal souls' concept, felt as they read those words.
As a survivor of childhood sexual abuse (CSA,) I spent much of my life getting over the blame/guilt trip that is very common among survivors. As a child and well into adulthood, I was sure I caused those horrible events. Seeing this new perspective - that my soul was partly responsible for manifesting the abuse - took some effort.
Once I got past my own experience and emotions though I was able to at least hear the debate and even accept parts of the argument.
What I accepted and what I disagreed with it is not really my focus in this writing. Though I would love to explore those ideas further.
Today I want to highlight these questions:
* In terms of your healing process, whether from CSA or any other violation, WHERE ARE YOU?
* Are you able to read or hear opinions that differ fundamentally or partly, with your beliefs about the incidents and NOT be forced into reliving the pain of the event?
* What is your reaction upon hearing that (someone thinks) you had a part in a violation that has caused you tremendous pain and damage?
Here's the thing to consider. If you are truly interested in releasing the baggage of personal abuse or violation, commiting to these three things is vital:
1. Accepting your self as whole and valuable, as is, is mandatory. No one's opinion or belief can/should really alter your value.
2. Being honest with yourself to be able to recognize old unresolved pain for what it is, is crucial
3. Having the courage to recognize, acknowledge and seize an opportunity for growth and healing is essential
Without these three conditions, you'll find the healing process like a roller coaster ride. Up, down and all around.
Conversations, writings and people will be able to easily trigger emotions and memories while you miss one opportunity after another for deep and profound healing.
You see, the healing process is alive and organic. It doesn't happen once and then you stop.
We live in a world of constant activity and challenges.
An easily bruised sense of self is at the mercy of all things, all people, if it's pegged to past healing experiences or to past insights.
So here's a useful goal. Get to a point where you're able to withstand ANY opinion or belief and participate in the process, respectively agreeing to disagree if necessary WITHOUT flashbacks, rage, hurt and/or attacks on the bearer of the news.
Sometimes, depending on the view expressed, a certain amount of passionate disagreement is necessary but boy does it take supreme discipline to NOT get your personal story, (from a perspective of pain) entangled with your position!
I thought long and hard, even said a prayer, before making my first comment at this provocative note. I realized quickly that the writer's view was simply that: her view!!
It had absolutely NO bearing on me and my responsibility or lack, for my childhood abuse. NO bearing on my value as a human being, made in the image of God. None whatsoever.
By relaxing my own personal and internal defenses, I was able to recognize the aspects of truth. I was even able to locate those beliefs that were completely consistent with my own intellectual and spiritual understanding of our universe. My mind and heart was able to expand to take in something new.
If I had just clicked off based on my first, huh?! I would've missed a great opportunity to soften my heart even more.
I encourage you to grab all opportunities to respond to a variety of "triggers" and, the more the better.
Surviving abuse or violations of any kind, does something to our hearts, our love center: Most times it brusies, scars and toughens up our heart.
We need real life experiences - challenging ones even, to give us the practice and workout required to limber up once more.
Being able to love like I've never been hurt is my goal, every day. What's yours?
Where are you in your healing process?
Posted by Julette Millien at 9/19/2008 4:22 PM
Saturday, September 27, 2008
Famous Quotes on Forgiveness
http://www.myforgivenesskit.com/famous_forgiveness_quotes.html
What famous people said about Forgiveness
The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong. --Mahatma Gandhi, Indian Political and Spiritual leader of non-violence
The more I can love the world, The sooner I shall be able To forgive the world. Sri --Chinmoy, Indian philosopher, spiritual teacher (guru), musician, and author
If we really want to love we must learn how to forgive -- Mother Teresa, Catholic Nun & Nobel Peace Winner
We must develop and maintain the capacity to forgive. He who is devoid of the power to forgive is devoid of the power to love. -- Martin Luther King, Jr.
As forgiveness can illumine A human life, Even so love can enlarge A human mind. --Sri Chinmoy Indian philosopher, spiritual teacher (guru), musician, and author.
Father, forgive them; For they know not what they do. --Jesus Christ Luke 23
As long as you don't forgive, who and whatever it is will occupy rent-free space in your mind. --Isabelle Holland
Humanity is never so beautiful as when praying for forgiveness, or else forgiving another. --Jean Paul Richter
If we could read the secret history of our enemies, we would find in each person's life sorrow and suffering enough to disarm all hostility. -- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
The moment that one sincerely and freely forgives another, something wonderful and good happens to both the forgiver and the forgiven. The capacity for both to love one another is increased and strengthened.-- Arly Prior
Only the brave know how to forgive; it is the most refined and generous pitch of virtue human nature can arrive at. -- Laurence Sterne
Forgiveness breaks the chain of causality because he who forgives you—out of love—takes upon himself the consequences of what you have done. Forgiveness, therefore, always entails a sacrifice. -- Dag Hammarskjöld, 20th century Swedish diplomat
A wise man will make haste to forgive, because he knows the full value of time and will not suffer it to pass away in unnecessary pain --The Rambler, an 18th-century English periodical edited by Samuel Johnson (1752)
God forgives sins committed against Him, but offenses against man must first be forgiven by the injured person. --Joseph HaCohen, 1st-2nd century Talmudic sage (Tanna)
I can forgive, but I cannot forget, is only another way of saying, I will not forgive. Forgiveness ought to be like a cancelled note—torn in two, and burned up, so that it never can be shown against one. --Henry Ward Beecher, 19th-century American abolitionist and clergyman
If you forgive people enough, you belong to them, and they to you, whether either person likes it or not—squatter's rights of the heart.--James Hilton, 20th-century English novelist
In contrast to revenge, which is the natural, automatic reaction to transgression …, the act of forgiving can never be predicted; it is the only reaction that acts in an unexpected way and thus retains, though being a reaction, something of the original character of action.--Hannah Arendt, 20th-century American political philosopher
Forgiveness is better than punishment; for the one is the proof of a gentle, the other of a savage nature.--Epictetus, 1st-2nd century Greek Stoic philosopher
He who forgiveth, and is reconciled unto his enemy, shall receive his reward from God; for he loveth not the unjust doers.--Koran, sacred book of the Moslems sura 42
I learned that true forgiveness includes total acceptance. And out of acceptance wounds are healed and happiness is possible again.--Catherine Marshall
If you can’t forgive, don’t ask to be forgiven.--Anonymous
If you haven’t forgiven yourself something, how can you forgive others?--Dolores Huerta
It is a verry delicate job to forgive a man, without lowering him in his own estimashun, and yures too.--Josh Billings, 19th-century American humorist
Lead us not into the temptation of believing that we have truly forgiven, while rancor lingers.--Katherine Zell, 16th-century German church worker and hymnist
Love is an act of endless forgiveness, a tender look which becomes a habit.--Peter Ustinov, 20th century British actor, writer, director
Marriage is three parts love and seven parts forgiveness of sin.--Langdon Mitchell, 19th-20th century American playwright and poet
Mutual forgiveness of each vice…. Such are the Gates of Paradise.--William Blake, 18th–19th-century English poet
Once a woman has forgiven her man, she must not reheat his sins for breakfast.--Marlene Dietrich, 20th-century German-born American film actress
Since nothing we intend is ever faultless, and nothing we attempt ever without error, and nothing we achieve without some measure of the finitude and fallibility we call humanness, we are saved by forgiveness.--David Augsburger, 20th-century Mennonite clergyman and author
Some people give and forgive; others get and forget.--Anonymous Saying
The highest and most difficult of all moral lessons, to forgive those we have injured.--Joseph Jacobs, 19th-20th-century English folklorist, critic, and historian
The sweetest revenge is to forgive.--Isaac Friedman, 19th-20th-century Lithuanian rabbi
Their errors have been weighed and found to have been dust in the balance; if their sins were as scarlet, they are now white as snow: they have been washed in the blood of the mediator and the redeemer, Time.--Percy Bysshe Shelley, 19th-century English poet
We all like to forgive, and love best not those who offend us least, nor who have done most for us, but those who make it most easy for us to forgive them.--Samuel Butler, 19th-century English author
We pardon to the extent that we love.--François, Duc de La Rochefoucauld, 17th-century French writer and moralist
You ought certainly to forgive them as a Christian, but never to admit them in your sight, or allow their names to be mentioned in your hearing.--Jane Austen, 18th–19th-century English novelist
A sin concealed needs two forgivings.--American proverb
A man cannot be "friends with" God on any other terms than complete obedience to Him, and that includes being "friends with" his fellow man. Christ stated emphatically that it was quite impossible, in the nature of things, for a man to be at peace with God and at variance with his neighbor. This disquieting fact is often hushed up, but it is undeniable that Christ said it, and the truth of it is enshrined in the petition for forgiveness in the "Lord’s Prayer."--John Bertram Phillips, 20th-century English Bible translator, writer, and broadcaster
Forgiveness is God's command. --Martin Luther
The best thing about giving of ourselves is that what we get is always better than what we give. The reaction is greater than the action. --Orison Swett Marden
Forgiveness is the oil of relationships. --Josh Mcdowell
We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light. --Plato
If I owe Smith ten dollars and God forgives me, that doesn't pay Smith. --Robert Green Ingersoll
I can have peace of mind only when I forgive rather than judge. --Gerald G. Jampolsky
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned. --St. Francis of Assisi
Forgiveness is a virtue of the brave. --Indira Gandhi
If the other person injures you, you may forget the injury; but if you injure him you will always remember. --Kahlil Gibran
He that cannot forgive others, breaks the bridge over which he himself must pass if he would ever reach heaven; for everyone has need to be forgiven. --George Herbert
Love thy neighbor as thyself: Do not to others what thou wouldn't not wish be done to thyself: Forgive injuries. Forgive thy enemy, be reconciled to him, give him assistance, invoke God in his behalf. --Confucius
When you are happy you can forgive a great deal --Diana, Princess of Wales
Click here to for information on next Forgiveness TeleClass or seminar.
What famous people said about Forgiveness
The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong. --Mahatma Gandhi, Indian Political and Spiritual leader of non-violence
The more I can love the world, The sooner I shall be able To forgive the world. Sri --Chinmoy, Indian philosopher, spiritual teacher (guru), musician, and author
If we really want to love we must learn how to forgive -- Mother Teresa, Catholic Nun & Nobel Peace Winner
We must develop and maintain the capacity to forgive. He who is devoid of the power to forgive is devoid of the power to love. -- Martin Luther King, Jr.
As forgiveness can illumine A human life, Even so love can enlarge A human mind. --Sri Chinmoy Indian philosopher, spiritual teacher (guru), musician, and author.
Father, forgive them; For they know not what they do. --Jesus Christ Luke 23
As long as you don't forgive, who and whatever it is will occupy rent-free space in your mind. --Isabelle Holland
Humanity is never so beautiful as when praying for forgiveness, or else forgiving another. --Jean Paul Richter
If we could read the secret history of our enemies, we would find in each person's life sorrow and suffering enough to disarm all hostility. -- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
The moment that one sincerely and freely forgives another, something wonderful and good happens to both the forgiver and the forgiven. The capacity for both to love one another is increased and strengthened.-- Arly Prior
Only the brave know how to forgive; it is the most refined and generous pitch of virtue human nature can arrive at. -- Laurence Sterne
Forgiveness breaks the chain of causality because he who forgives you—out of love—takes upon himself the consequences of what you have done. Forgiveness, therefore, always entails a sacrifice. -- Dag Hammarskjöld, 20th century Swedish diplomat
A wise man will make haste to forgive, because he knows the full value of time and will not suffer it to pass away in unnecessary pain --The Rambler, an 18th-century English periodical edited by Samuel Johnson (1752)
God forgives sins committed against Him, but offenses against man must first be forgiven by the injured person. --Joseph HaCohen, 1st-2nd century Talmudic sage (Tanna)
I can forgive, but I cannot forget, is only another way of saying, I will not forgive. Forgiveness ought to be like a cancelled note—torn in two, and burned up, so that it never can be shown against one. --Henry Ward Beecher, 19th-century American abolitionist and clergyman
If you forgive people enough, you belong to them, and they to you, whether either person likes it or not—squatter's rights of the heart.--James Hilton, 20th-century English novelist
In contrast to revenge, which is the natural, automatic reaction to transgression …, the act of forgiving can never be predicted; it is the only reaction that acts in an unexpected way and thus retains, though being a reaction, something of the original character of action.--Hannah Arendt, 20th-century American political philosopher
Forgiveness is better than punishment; for the one is the proof of a gentle, the other of a savage nature.--Epictetus, 1st-2nd century Greek Stoic philosopher
He who forgiveth, and is reconciled unto his enemy, shall receive his reward from God; for he loveth not the unjust doers.--Koran, sacred book of the Moslems sura 42
I learned that true forgiveness includes total acceptance. And out of acceptance wounds are healed and happiness is possible again.--Catherine Marshall
If you can’t forgive, don’t ask to be forgiven.--Anonymous
If you haven’t forgiven yourself something, how can you forgive others?--Dolores Huerta
It is a verry delicate job to forgive a man, without lowering him in his own estimashun, and yures too.--Josh Billings, 19th-century American humorist
Lead us not into the temptation of believing that we have truly forgiven, while rancor lingers.--Katherine Zell, 16th-century German church worker and hymnist
Love is an act of endless forgiveness, a tender look which becomes a habit.--Peter Ustinov, 20th century British actor, writer, director
Marriage is three parts love and seven parts forgiveness of sin.--Langdon Mitchell, 19th-20th century American playwright and poet
Mutual forgiveness of each vice…. Such are the Gates of Paradise.--William Blake, 18th–19th-century English poet
Once a woman has forgiven her man, she must not reheat his sins for breakfast.--Marlene Dietrich, 20th-century German-born American film actress
Since nothing we intend is ever faultless, and nothing we attempt ever without error, and nothing we achieve without some measure of the finitude and fallibility we call humanness, we are saved by forgiveness.--David Augsburger, 20th-century Mennonite clergyman and author
Some people give and forgive; others get and forget.--Anonymous Saying
The highest and most difficult of all moral lessons, to forgive those we have injured.--Joseph Jacobs, 19th-20th-century English folklorist, critic, and historian
The sweetest revenge is to forgive.--Isaac Friedman, 19th-20th-century Lithuanian rabbi
Their errors have been weighed and found to have been dust in the balance; if their sins were as scarlet, they are now white as snow: they have been washed in the blood of the mediator and the redeemer, Time.--Percy Bysshe Shelley, 19th-century English poet
We all like to forgive, and love best not those who offend us least, nor who have done most for us, but those who make it most easy for us to forgive them.--Samuel Butler, 19th-century English author
We pardon to the extent that we love.--François, Duc de La Rochefoucauld, 17th-century French writer and moralist
You ought certainly to forgive them as a Christian, but never to admit them in your sight, or allow their names to be mentioned in your hearing.--Jane Austen, 18th–19th-century English novelist
A sin concealed needs two forgivings.--American proverb
A man cannot be "friends with" God on any other terms than complete obedience to Him, and that includes being "friends with" his fellow man. Christ stated emphatically that it was quite impossible, in the nature of things, for a man to be at peace with God and at variance with his neighbor. This disquieting fact is often hushed up, but it is undeniable that Christ said it, and the truth of it is enshrined in the petition for forgiveness in the "Lord’s Prayer."--John Bertram Phillips, 20th-century English Bible translator, writer, and broadcaster
Forgiveness is God's command. --Martin Luther
The best thing about giving of ourselves is that what we get is always better than what we give. The reaction is greater than the action. --Orison Swett Marden
Forgiveness is the oil of relationships. --Josh Mcdowell
We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light. --Plato
If I owe Smith ten dollars and God forgives me, that doesn't pay Smith. --Robert Green Ingersoll
I can have peace of mind only when I forgive rather than judge. --Gerald G. Jampolsky
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned. --St. Francis of Assisi
Forgiveness is a virtue of the brave. --Indira Gandhi
If the other person injures you, you may forget the injury; but if you injure him you will always remember. --Kahlil Gibran
He that cannot forgive others, breaks the bridge over which he himself must pass if he would ever reach heaven; for everyone has need to be forgiven. --George Herbert
Love thy neighbor as thyself: Do not to others what thou wouldn't not wish be done to thyself: Forgive injuries. Forgive thy enemy, be reconciled to him, give him assistance, invoke God in his behalf. --Confucius
When you are happy you can forgive a great deal --Diana, Princess of Wales
Click here to for information on next Forgiveness TeleClass or seminar.
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