Forgiveness

Forgiveness comes from an open heart ... or it does not come at all.

I believe that there's two kinds of forgiveness.

The one that comes without conditions. This means you forgive and forget, never to think of or bring up again.

The other comes with conditions. This means you forgive with boundaries put in place.

I do believe that everyone of us practice both of these and given our life experiences we tend to lean towards one more than the other.

There is no wrong or right way to forgive, it is all about life experience.

Me personally, I tend to lean more towards forgiveness with conditions.

Forgiveness without conditions I tend to save for those that I love being around, people that deep in their core are good individuals.

I would like to share a personal example of both.

Forgiveness with conditions:

As you know I am a child of abuse. Abuse that if I had a loving and caring mother I would not have experienced because she not only allowed others to abuse me but also abused me herself.

My mother claimed that she had abused me because of who she was seeing or married to at the time. That she was in fear of her own safety, but I say bullshit to it because a real mother would put her own life in arms way to protect her child, which my mother was too selfish to do and when it was just her and I the abuse never stopped ... the only thing that did happened was that it was coming from one person and not two.

When I was nineteen I have forgiven my mother for my own well being, not for her.

Because of health issues including some residue emotional moments and the murder of my beloved sister in the hands of my mother and step-father this forgiveness does come with conditions. It comes with conditions to not only to protect me but also my children and their children. These conditions are that she is to never reach out to me. She has tried a few times after her murder trial just for me to remind her that she is not a part of my life.

There has been a few times in which I have reached out to her but only for answers to questions that I deserve not to show her any kindness ... I am polite, just not kind.

Forgiveness without conditions:

Before marrying my second husband I got along just fine with his family and it was joy to have them at our wedding. After I got married I had a disagreement that hurt our relationship. When I say OUR I am also including my husband. My husband and I had one view on the topic of how to blend family while my new in-laws had another view.

Our differences had caused a rip big enough that my husband and I went into hiding from his family. We knew we not only wanted to be a part of the family but also needed to be, we just needed to come to terms on what needed to be done.

I not only needed to forgive my in-laws for hurting me so deeply but to also ask for their forgiveness for shutting them out of our lives and for all the horrible things I had said out of my pain and hope that they would understand that time was needed for both sides in order to reflect on what we wanted and needed.

Unconditional forgiveness for my in-laws means that I love them to the point that I want them to be around, after all deep to their core they are good people and why wouldn't I want to be in the company of good people.

My thought is that rather with or without conditions one should forgive to protect themself from ALL hurt because it is easier to let love and light in when there is no hurting.