Saturday, September 29, 2007

Coffee Break #2

The Power of Forgiveness


I forgive you” Common 3 words people can use to accept apology. I was thinking what these words really mean and how we can know that we really forgive by heart. While I was thinking questions start to come to my mind:

Why should we forgive and why some people cannot forgive?

How can I test my forgiveness if it’s really from heart or just words?

What are types of forgiveness and How Can I forgive really from heart?

What the effect of forgiveness on my spirit, mind and whole life?

In this Coffee Break I want to share with you my thoughts about Forgiveness

Usually in our daily life relationship with people we can have conflicts that cause anger, fight, quarrel, hurt and upset. It’s normal because every person is unique in terms of thoughts, personality, education, background, culture, etc…

Such conflict can lead certain person to have some negative feelings toward another one. You can think about this negative feeling as black dot in the heart which can be big or small based on the situation and how painful it was for you. For sure the situation that causes such negative feeling is something happen in the past even if it was just minute ago.

Assume that someone hurt you in the beginning of the day and you developed such black dot in your heart toward him/her. Watch yourself and ask Am I comfortable? Is my productivity the same? Do I feel peace of mind?

I know that the size of that black dot and its effect depend on the situation itself and how much your hurt from it, But I want to talk about the fact that we cannot feel peace of mind with such black dot in our heart. Think about this as you are carrying the person that hurt you on your shoulders and when you remember the past situation you feel bad or say it was going to be better if I did such and such !!.

I believe if you seek happiness, peace of mind and save your energy you should learn how to STOP carrying all your negative past on your shoulder, move such people away from your shoulder and clean all black dots from your heart to move faster in your life.



Can you really forgive?

Can you really fully forgive other people not partial forgiveness as most people do? To test yourself think about any situation you were hurt by someone and check the following:

Did you tell that person that you forgive him/her?

Did you find logical and acceptable reason for what he/she did to you?

Do you believe that there’s good reason for what happened even if you cannot specify?

Did you gain experience from what happened help you to avoid having the same negative feeling in the future?

And the KEY question
Do you feel ANY pain when you remember that person and the situation?


If your answer for the last key question was Yes it means that you still carry what happened on your shoulders and have the black dot in your heart.


Some people can say but I really forgave that person and do NOT have any hate in my heart. I say it’s not matter of hate the person or no, but s the negative effect on YOU still exists or no? I mean the negative emotion or pain you have when you remember the situation.

What about time I think it can remove the negative effect on me? It depends on the size of black dot itself for example this is true in daily simple conflicts that happen at work, street, school, etc… that last for only few minutes or even hours, But I’m talking about repetitive memories that when you remember you feel pain for some time until you forget again.

Such type of repetitive bad effect memories will NOT healed by time. Unfortunately there’re psychological theories say that it will increase by time. It’s like small ice ball going down from mountain and getting bigger by time.

The good news you can go back with your mind to the past and destroy the small ball. Insha’Allah based on your comments and questions we can later on discuss this in more details.

What is the objective from this Coffee Break?

Forgiveness is one of the BEST habits you can ever develop to have happiness and peace of mind. The simplest way to achieve forgiveness is to make it on 2 levels at the same time mental & emotional level.

You should forgive with both your mind by finding good reasons behind what happened or learn from this, and to forgive by your heart by cleaning it from any negative emotion toward that person & PRAY for him/her because we created different, sinful and with weak points including You.

Stay with yourself and reconsider the situation that you feel pain when you remember and find what you learned from it. Ask yourself what will gain from feeling bad!! It’s enough past is a box select from it ONLY what give you strength at the current moment.

(added on 20 October)

Forgiveness is strength some people think that forgiveness is applied when you cannot defend yourself or when you are weak. It’s totally the opposite because forgiveness is more difficult and need more effort than revenge. Forgiveness is not related to continue or break the relationship because it’s separated issue. To forgive doesn’t mean that you have to continue the relation if the other party abuse this.

Healthy relation should be win-win relation full of care and love from both parties. Whatever happened you are not victim because you have the power of choice. Forgiveness does not mean you leave or lose your rights at all. We are talking about marriage relation Not war.

Forgive regardless you decided to continue or break the relation.

Forgive to be stronger.

Forgive without being abused.

Forgive to protect you energy.

Forgive and keep your rights.

Forgive and correct your spouse.

Just Forgive...

If you want to be happy and have peace of mind develop the habit if forgiving immediately and never allow the black ball to grow in your heart.

2 comments:

voicy said...

nice post
i had a small comment for now, that forgiveness is not just an individual action, it has to be done by both parties, having the knowledge and understanding of the importance and power of forgiveness effect on one's life, both people in conflict need to work together to forgive one another.
But always forgiving from one side while the other keeps doing the same mistakes over and over again, unaware that he is wrong and hurting others will lead him to abuse the forgiving party.
Forgiving should be to some limit and then a choice should be made, either both parties settle their problems or they break up.

Tamer said...

I'm totally agree with you for this I added new section to confirm what you said in this comment. Please review and feel free to correct me.

Thanks Amado for your valuable comment ;)