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Aug. 27th, 2004 11:32 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
johnpalmerForgiveness...
People say to forgive, and it'll help you heal, but what do you do when it's unforgivable? Or, if there's no admission of wrongdoing? Or...
And at one point, it hit me.
There are three types of healing involved in forgiveness.
There's healing of the other person; the other person had a 'moral injury', and did something wrong, and has healed, and you're acknowledging that. Part of that healing would be the person's understanding of the nature of that fault; how could a person heal a moral injury if they don't even acknowledge that there is an injury?
There's healing of the relationship; it might have changed - we heal from amputations! - but it's once again healthy, and no longer specifically injured. Note that sometimes an entity, even at its healthiest, might not be very strong, but at least it's not still bleeding.
And then there's the healing of the self... when the event has hit some level of closure, even if it's not satisfactory, when the final stage of grief (acceptance) has been reached.
All three of these types of healing are, I think, being covered by the one word "forgiveness". And, because of that, a lot of notions get confused. But it is possible to heal the self though acceptance, and a type of 'forgiveness', even when the other person, or the relationship, can't be healed.
People say to forgive, and it'll help you heal, but what do you do when it's unforgivable? Or, if there's no admission of wrongdoing? Or...
And at one point, it hit me.
There are three types of healing involved in forgiveness.
There's healing of the other person; the other person had a 'moral injury', and did something wrong, and has healed, and you're acknowledging that. Part of that healing would be the person's understanding of the nature of that fault; how could a person heal a moral injury if they don't even acknowledge that there is an injury?
There's healing of the relationship; it might have changed - we heal from amputations! - but it's once again healthy, and no longer specifically injured. Note that sometimes an entity, even at its healthiest, might not be very strong, but at least it's not still bleeding.
And then there's the healing of the self... when the event has hit some level of closure, even if it's not satisfactory, when the final stage of grief (acceptance) has been reached.
All three of these types of healing are, I think, being covered by the one word "forgiveness". And, because of that, a lot of notions get confused. But it is possible to heal the self though acceptance, and a type of 'forgiveness', even when the other person, or the relationship, can't be healed.
