Your Forgiveness Story
Fernandez
How hard is it to forgive someone who hurts your son? Bullying is vey real these days and my son was a victim, not once, not twice, but many times. He is quiet and a good student and so some of the other boys would tease him, unmercifully. I went to the principal, who is a weak leader because she is afraid of conflict. I had enough and so after school one day, my son and I paid a visit to one of the boys’ home and had a very frank discussion with his mother. She was surprised to hear all of this. Yet, it helped because that boy did not say anything to my son after that. I had to forgive the principal most of all because she was passive and that is not right when children are being bullied. I tried to see her in her weakness, in her confusion, in her striving to be liked. I felt kind of sorry for her, although I will never put up with passivity that harms children. And, yes, I forgave the boy who bullied my son. I saw him as very angry, growing up without a father, and taking it out on others. I had to mix fairness with forgiveness, which I did with the visit to his home. So, that combination of “stop it” and “I love you unconditionally” both worked.
Anonymous
I was angry at my friend for not doing her dishes and cleaning the apartment but after I spoke to her about it she started cleaning and now we live in a more clean and happy place.
Anonymous
It may sound kind of unusual, but after visiting your site, I decided to forgive my high school basketball coach…..and I am now an adult.
How to begin. Well, this guy was into power. I remember so clearly one time in practice, he came up to me and said, “Do you know why I did not play you very much in the last game?” I looked at him with a kind of disbelief because, it was true, he benched me without warning. So, I said (politely, actually), “…..no.” He then went on, “You are not aggressive enough. I want to see you get in there and get some fouls on defense. Get aggressive.” He had never mentioned that to me before—being aggressive on defense. OK, I can do that.
Next game, he started me. I fouled like he asked. I fouled so much that I fouled out of the game before the first half was over. I was a fouling machine! And I scored in double figures to top off what I thought was my masterful fouling performance. So far so good. I was really looking forward to the next game, and when it started, I was not in the starting lineup. He hardly put me in the game! What’s up with this, I thought. The next day, the coach comes up to me in practice and asks, “Do you know why I did not play you last game?” I was kind of shocked and answered,”……..no.” He looked at me and said, “You foul too much,” and he just walked away.
As a teenager to get this kind of yo-yo treatment really hurt. I now see that the coach had a kind of dead-end job. He was a driver’s education instructor at the school, pretty low level stuff from an academic perspective. He was frustrated and he took it out on some of us kids. As I started to forgive him, I saw his pain, the pain of the dead-end job, of not really making it in his own world of teaching. Yeah, he hurt me, but it was because he was so hurt himself.
It’s over now and I can move on. I am surprised that something like this can stay with a person and leave doubts about one’s own abilities, not just as a ballplayer, but as a person. When I forgave, I looked the injustice in the eye, owned it as unfair, owned my pain, forgave, and stood up a little taller.
Dennis
Our 15-year-old son was killed when the car he was riding in was broadsided by a vehicle that ran a stop sign at 55 mph. Our son’s best friend and the mother of our son’s girlfriend were also killed in the crash. The driver of the other vehicle, a young man on his way home from a wedding reception, and his girlfriend who was riding with him, were not injured.
My immediate reaction to the senseless tragedy was to get revenge. I wanted to kill the driver who so carelessly killed our son. I thought about buying a gun to carry out my “make him pay” mentality, especially after a jury somehow found him not guilty of all charges related to the crash.
Although I never purchased a gun, I was tormented for years with the hatred I felt for the man who ended my son’s life so prematurely and my desire for revenge. Those negative emotions turned me into a bitter, resentful and unhappy person. They were, in effect, controlling my life and impacting the failing relationships I had with everyone around me. My life was miserable.
After years of anguish, an astute physician at the VA Hospital helped me discover a weapon much more powerful than a gun–the power of forgiveness. After recognizing the damage my emotional state was causing to my health, he referred me to a counselor who patiently walked me through the steps in Forgiveness is a Choice by Dr. Robert Enright. The path to forgiveness outlined in that book was one of the most difficult journeys I have ever undertaken because it focused first on me and not on the one who initially caused my grief.
By choosing to forgive the offender, I gave up the bitterness and resentment I felt for him that was so negatively impacting only my own life, not his. By forgiving him, I freed myself.
Anonymous
My first experience with personal healing coming from forgiveness happened in 1994, more than 17 years ago. I was directed into specific forgiveness by my sister, Dr. Annette Cargioli, D.C. She had learned to connect the pathways of emotions, illness and non-forgiveness in a powerful way. So powerful was the release and change in my mind and body that I continue to remember it, and have continued to learn and share these techniques with others.
My problem at the time was binge eating chocolate chip cookies. Annette ‘worked’ on me for about 40 minutes. She identified the conflict in my mind that kept me locked into this self-sabotaging binge-eating. She directed me with forgiveness statements about my true identity, and my self-damaging need to keep myself hurting and sick. She also used magnets placed on areas of my body. I felt emotions well up. I cried and then felt relief and change in my mind. I was not convinced at that moment I would not binge again.
I went home feeling lighter, and I had no need to binge for the next 10 months! This was huge for me. At the next episode of binge eating, I called Annette and she continued to work with me using forgiveness of my self-held beliefs to help me completely heal my cookie binge eating and over the next 4-5 years several other eating disorders I had came to the surface and left me. Now, I have a ‘normal’ relationship with food, and I’m soooo grateful for Annette saving me from my own self-destruction.
