what is Forgivness?

THEN:
When you have been wronged, when your heart has been broken, when your trust in others has been shaken to the core, when the life you carved out has been snatched away form you, when you have been betrayed and left alone, abandoned, to fend for yourself - by the very person whom you loved deeply - the world as you know it begins to disintegrate. Your cardinal points shift dramatically; you do not understand for the longest time what and how the reality surrounding and defining you has crumbled away. Your horizon shrinks and folds in on itself, suffocating you; The elements itself take on another, stranger, alien form - the sky isn't the same sky, the sun and the light it emits takes on a different color, the wind, rain, moon, and stars all shift and rearrange themselves to reveal an hither to unknown world. Your mind is shocked, your body in trauma, your emotions numb - you go on because you know no other way.

This kind of hurt is hard to forget and harder to forgive. It settles in your bosom and makes home in your very essence. You become the hurt and anger and shame and grief and stop being what you were. You carry it around your neck like the dreaded scarlet letter for there is no you without it. How then does one get pass this?

NOW:
Forgiveness is a passive act. You don't have to have to act out, one need not proclaim it to a large public, no declarations have to be published to forgive the wrongs that have been done to you. It is a place, a destination you arrive at by inwardly giving up your right to hate the person who hurt you. I believe we come to a resolution within ourselves to let go off the heavy burden of having to dislike, feel embittered about and resent the other person. You of course have the moral authority to those negative feelings, you can even seek revenge, that is totally plausible, and even acceptable for we have an instinctive urge to be on an even keel with others. But once you choose to forgive, by giving up an integral right, you gain the lightness of being.

It may seem very little, this elusive 'lightness of being', but it isn't so. By deciding silently, in your heart, to forgive those who have harmed you grossly - you take the first step towards rearranging your reality and your world once again but now to your specifications. This is a huge gift we give to ourselves by letting go and actually forgiving people who have maligned us. We empower ourselves to redefine our cardinal points to how we want them to be. We become the harbingers of light and awareness to our world, and instead of the hurt governing and shaping us, we sculpt our surroundings the way our heart and soul desires.