I Want to Forgive but I Go Back to Resentment After Forgiving. Cycle Repeats!! by Vejay Mehta

I you can’t adjust according my wishes then get out of this house, stay separately!! Father thundered.

Son was Shocked to his very core. This was the second time Father had uttered the dreaded word. Son lowered his head and went to his room, looked at his wife. No words were necessary, they knew intrinsically that the time of separation had come. Having reconciled the first time in a very painful manner few weeks before, there was no way to go through it again and no assurance that it wouldn’t repeat again in future. Right from childhood father had bought up his sons with story of staying together. They were told to be together like all the figures in a fist, like two eyes which have different position but always look in the same direction. Now the same Father, son were breaking up one of their own figure and had smashed up one of the eyes ( figuratively) . The hurt was deeper with the daughter-in-law who was pledged into keeping the family together before marriage and she choose that over her career after MBA. After 8 years of married blissful life in a joint family, it was difficult to accept the break-up.

Years had passed but the hurt was as painful as ever. How could he do that Father was wrong!! More time passed and many lessons of forgiveness were read and vouched for but whenever they confronted the family, the pain re-surfaced and wounds were fresh and oozing!! More time passed and then son opened his heart to his friend who gave a very important piece of advice and that what i want to share with you, hoping that you too could be able to forgive not because you read it but because of a deeper connection with forgiveness and your own self.

Friend said, Look you will never be able to move ahead in life, if you keep playing that victim card, you have to forgive them for what they did!! and its really really difficult when you know that they are wrong. But then Somewhere deep inside, look again and you will find that if they were wrong , then you had allowed them to go wrong. You are responsible for creating that wrong situation however minor it might be. Whatever that was your mistake is not the point. Point being that you must forgive yourself for allowing this wrong situation to come up, to happen. However subtle it may be, you have to accept it and forgive yourself first. Unless you forgive yourself, you can’t forgive them!!

it takes two to tango, it takes two to clap!! somewhere we are wrong too even though our share of mistake would be relatively nothing some time the our mistakes are not at all directly related to the situation but it contributes indirectly to the wrong situation!! and deep within the heart when no one is looking , we know somehow we had played a role contributing to the bigger wrong!!

As soon as its our fault, it becomes easy to forgive. After all we are forgiving ourselves! and its very very easy to forgive self because you see we can rarely punish ourselves, we have the whole world for that, don’t we!! 😉 ;-). Its’ hardwired in our brain to survive for which we stand up for ourselves and that makes us go easy on ourselves, makes it easy for us to forgive ourselves and once you are have forgiven yourself, it becomes easy to forgive others because we have to stay consistent to our behaviour, thoughts and justify our commitment.

Son forgave himself and that helped him forgive the family. in more meaningful and deeper sense. Slowly , gradually the pain began to recede and a new expression of peace began to find its way.

Forgiveness has to find its origin within self for self without which forgiving other is never complete. You forgive but just one more spark and you find yourself resentful again. Then you forgive only to be reminded of the wrong in another conversation and there you are again being resentful and being the victim! Cycle goes on and on. But when you forgive your own self, you get a sound footing in your mind of yourself, an acceptance that pervades your being and is powerful enough to take you out of the dreaded chakravyu of Forgave , resentful, forgave resentful……

To Forgive others, forgive your own self first!! . Self-forgiveness make it easy to forgive others because you know that you too were there.

Try it out.

Think of the wrong doing.
Think and list out what did you do and how it built up the wrong situation.
Now its only about you
Forgive yourself for whatever you did.
Notice how you feel and then look at those you are fighting to forgive. Forgive them
Feel the Peace. Repeat this at different time for it to settle down in you, deeply!!