snowdrops’s Reviews > The Forgiving Self: The Road from Resentment to Connection > Status Update

To be able to say without resentment, “I feel sad that our old chumship can’t be what it was, it hurts not to have you that way”, or “I feel sad that we’re breaking up, I’m going to miss you,” is not only to hold on to the goodness of what was and what remains, but to hold on to a strong, loving aspect of ourselves. It is the part that is able to let go, to rebuild, to make something positive out of crisis of change.

Some people live isolated, or nonintimate, lives in order not to have to revisit their pain and resentment, for the sake of self-preservation. They may be as afraid of what they will become and what damage they will do to others as they are of what harm may befall themselves if they open themselves to their feelings. So to forgive is to ask a lot of oneself. On the other hand, to not ask it is to forgo a lot.

Significant acts of forgiveness also entail letting go of a precious story we tell about ourselves, risking the awareness of a larger, less self-justifying truth.

What we do in the realm of forgiveness says a great deal about both how we mourn our losses and how well we have separated psychologically from our parents, two fundamental issues in emotional health and development.

Why do we stop talking to each other about things that bother us? Why do we experience ourselves as victims when we’ve been hurt by someone we love? Why would we choose to live in resentment rather than let go of it and live in a better place? What is this resistance to forgiveness all about? And is there a forgiving self in each person, a core of security and generosity, that can be located and built upon?