Hi Friends,
A couple of weeks ago I had met a person who seemed quite amazing. They had their life set, had accomplished most of the goals they’ve placed on themselves to achieve and was a hard worker at anything they tried to do. They had quite a similar mindset as I had to most things we talked about. However under their white amazing clouds of goodness laid these dark and dense set of clouds that could lay down heavy thunder of rain and lightning at any given moment. These dark clouds I found were their incredible ability at holding grudges for people and not being able to wrap around the concept of “forgiveness” in their heads.
The month of Ramadan is just around the corner for us and at any Masjids you go to today, there will be a 90% chance that Imams will be delivering sermons about forgiveness. It is such an important aspect that I think a lot of people struggle with wrapping their heads around it today, and there’s usually two causes for this I’ve come across:
1. Their skewed view of what forgiveness means, and how they would approach it
2. The aggressor must have done something so bad, that the action they had done is unforgivable
Both of these points go hand in hand like a vicious cycle. I’ll try to cover these two points so please stick through this so you can see what I mean. Also please read my post well before commenting as I think a lot of people may get me wrong.
Often times Forgiveness is defined as the intentional and voluntary process by which a victim undergoes a change in feelings and attitude regarding an offense, lets go of negative emotions such as vengefulness, with an increased ability to wish the offender well. This definition I find is a nice one, but is overly too complicated (thank you Psychologists).
Over time I had come to realize that forgiveness is basically the “letting go” of any anger and negative feelings we may have of another person from a transgression or act they had committed to us, and not letting it eat us away day by day. Negativity and Positivity is like the milk you add to your tea, as you put more into your tea, it changes its consistency to meet that of milk. Any negativity you keep in yourself will later cause unnecessary negative value in your own personal life and those around you.
So now, how would you approach this? This person clearly did something bad to you, why the hell would you forgive them?? Why would I let this person go??
I can already guess you can feel the fury and anger of how a person like this may feel. Our humane empathy is amazing, in that it lets you get a glimpse at the feelings of others and helps us to understand them. Grudges at the end of the day will be the only thing you are holding against that person, and whether that person was punished or not for their act, you still have this heavy chain of negativity chained to your ankles as you carry with you for the rest of your life. The dark clouds will always be above your head following you. Why carry all this extra baggage with you?
You might ask me now, what if a person committed such an act, that no matter what would be unforgivable? How would you forgive one for cheating? Murder? Rape?
See unlike Allah (s.w.t), we humans are pretty weak when it comes to forgiving, as He is the only one who would forgive any sins you’ve committed. Any sins (except for Shirk) that you could think of. When it comes to such acts, these are mostly the ones that would cause people to hold grudges, and not being able to forgive, which comes back to my first point:
Forgive others for you, not them.
Don’t think of forgiveness as something like giving a free pass to someone after they did something wrong to you. This is an incredibly dangerous view. Please do not do this.
Treat forgiveness as a letting go of all the negative baggage and grudges you hold, as there is no point in you holding them. Holding them deep with you will only cause damage to you and those around you at the end of the day and not to the person that did you wrong. Forgiveness isn’t something that can be taught with books, or dugsi. It is a learned trait you acquire after you experience quite a lot of dark times. I believe those that are able to forgive the best, were those that had the worst inflicted on them.
Another thing that you could try to help you in forgiving a person is coming to an understanding on what their intention could be. This concept I’ve covered in an old thread of mine, which you can go and read up if you like.
http://www.somalispot.com/threads/the-importance-of-looking-at-the-intentions-of-ones-actions.2187/
So friends, together with letting food and water go for majority of our days in this month of Ramadan, try to be mindful about the negativity you carry with you, and letting that go as well. Embrace yourself as you let all this go.
A couple of weeks ago I had met a person who seemed quite amazing. They had their life set, had accomplished most of the goals they’ve placed on themselves to achieve and was a hard worker at anything they tried to do. They had quite a similar mindset as I had to most things we talked about. However under their white amazing clouds of goodness laid these dark and dense set of clouds that could lay down heavy thunder of rain and lightning at any given moment. These dark clouds I found were their incredible ability at holding grudges for people and not being able to wrap around the concept of “forgiveness” in their heads.
The month of Ramadan is just around the corner for us and at any Masjids you go to today, there will be a 90% chance that Imams will be delivering sermons about forgiveness. It is such an important aspect that I think a lot of people struggle with wrapping their heads around it today, and there’s usually two causes for this I’ve come across:
1. Their skewed view of what forgiveness means, and how they would approach it
2. The aggressor must have done something so bad, that the action they had done is unforgivable
Both of these points go hand in hand like a vicious cycle. I’ll try to cover these two points so please stick through this so you can see what I mean. Also please read my post well before commenting as I think a lot of people may get me wrong.
Often times Forgiveness is defined as the intentional and voluntary process by which a victim undergoes a change in feelings and attitude regarding an offense, lets go of negative emotions such as vengefulness, with an increased ability to wish the offender well. This definition I find is a nice one, but is overly too complicated (thank you Psychologists).
Over time I had come to realize that forgiveness is basically the “letting go” of any anger and negative feelings we may have of another person from a transgression or act they had committed to us, and not letting it eat us away day by day. Negativity and Positivity is like the milk you add to your tea, as you put more into your tea, it changes its consistency to meet that of milk. Any negativity you keep in yourself will later cause unnecessary negative value in your own personal life and those around you.
So now, how would you approach this? This person clearly did something bad to you, why the hell would you forgive them?? Why would I let this person go??
I can already guess you can feel the fury and anger of how a person like this may feel. Our humane empathy is amazing, in that it lets you get a glimpse at the feelings of others and helps us to understand them. Grudges at the end of the day will be the only thing you are holding against that person, and whether that person was punished or not for their act, you still have this heavy chain of negativity chained to your ankles as you carry with you for the rest of your life. The dark clouds will always be above your head following you. Why carry all this extra baggage with you?
You might ask me now, what if a person committed such an act, that no matter what would be unforgivable? How would you forgive one for cheating? Murder? Rape?
See unlike Allah (s.w.t), we humans are pretty weak when it comes to forgiving, as He is the only one who would forgive any sins you’ve committed. Any sins (except for Shirk) that you could think of. When it comes to such acts, these are mostly the ones that would cause people to hold grudges, and not being able to forgive, which comes back to my first point:
Forgive others for you, not them.
Don’t think of forgiveness as something like giving a free pass to someone after they did something wrong to you. This is an incredibly dangerous view. Please do not do this.
Treat forgiveness as a letting go of all the negative baggage and grudges you hold, as there is no point in you holding them. Holding them deep with you will only cause damage to you and those around you at the end of the day and not to the person that did you wrong. Forgiveness isn’t something that can be taught with books, or dugsi. It is a learned trait you acquire after you experience quite a lot of dark times. I believe those that are able to forgive the best, were those that had the worst inflicted on them.
Another thing that you could try to help you in forgiving a person is coming to an understanding on what their intention could be. This concept I’ve covered in an old thread of mine, which you can go and read up if you like.
http://www.somalispot.com/threads/the-importance-of-looking-at-the-intentions-of-ones-actions.2187/
So friends, together with letting food and water go for majority of our days in this month of Ramadan, try to be mindful about the negativity you carry with you, and letting that go as well. Embrace yourself as you let all this go.
