“Forgiveness is an act of creation. You can choose from many ways to do it. You can forgive for now, forgive till then, forgive till the next time, forgive but give no more chances it’s a whole new game if there is another incident.You can give one more chance, give several more chances, give many chances, give chances only if. You can forgive part, all, or half of the offense. You can devise a blanket of forgiveness. You decide”
~ Clarissa Pinkola Estés, from “Women Who Run With The Wolves”
~~~
CLARISSA PINKOLA ESTES
(1945 – )
Mother
Poetess, author, editor
Post-trauma recovery specialist, psychoanalyst
###
Below The Salt News Archive 
I have never liked the word “forgiveness”. But then I am not religious. It implies acceptance and absolving the other person.
Since I find the most damage is done to yourself by hanging onto the memory, I prefer “ignore”. That implies the other person isn’t worth wasting your time thinking about.
LikeLike
Jean, you always make me think! I love that! I’m not “religious” either. And I think we are not so dissimilar in our approach.
I view forgiveness as an evolving process. For me at least, I can’t ignore what happened, because that would feel like I was trying to hide it… I don’t necessarily want to forget it, or accept it as right, or absolve the other person (or myself). I do recognize that all of us are human, that I don’t know all there is to know about it, but I’ve reached a point that I no longer want invest myself mentally and emotionally to find all the answers. I’ve learned what I need from it for now. To move forward, I give myself permission to disengage from what happened.
As Ms. Estes says, we craft each forgiveness a little differently.
LikeLike
One of my favorite books of all times. GREAT choice.
LikeLike
Hate to confess, I haven’t read the book yet. I have heard high praise from others. With your recommendation I will have to move it up to the top of my Must Read pile for sure!
LikeLike