Do you hold long-standing grudges? Or forgive and forget?

There's a good point in there--i shouldn't give people like Finn the time of day. I know it, and i'll try to do that.

It's the ego in us that keeps us thinking about, dwelling on, even obsessing about, the bad and terrible things that happened to us during childhood. I don't think, however, that we can ever forget these things without forgiveness.

The ego will continue, forever, to bring to our minds all the negativity experienced. Once one of our torturors come to mine all of them come marching through. Of course, when the negative thoughts yet again come to mind, leaving us helpless blobs in our remembering, we have to change our thinking to something positive that also happened, even alongside it.

Just think, Those people are dead and forgotten, the actions quit long ago, they no longer exist. Just let the past go. Each time it pokes it's ugly head in your thoughts (that's the only place where they exist), bring a picture in your mind of something or someone you once, or still, love. Transfer that feeling to the situation in your thoughts, it's gone. I used to see my youngest son with his wife as they were being married. Or, my first puppy love. Or a beautiful beach. Or, getting A in a college course. Or the 1st time I saw my by-line in a newspaper. That's who you are.

We are not our ego, we are not these bodies. We are the spirit within that communes with our creator, the body only facilitates. The battle is between us, the spirit, against the ego. We are children of God, sons of God. That is the image from which we were created. We are Godlings. The ego has no power, unless we give it power. Remember all those little ditties we learned as children: A candle can put out a room full of darkness. I think I can, I think I can.

It is all in our thoughts. The only thoughts we give those we feel hurt and maimed us should be pity. Poor souls, who is fighting for THEM? I read somewhere recently we save ourself thousands of years of karma just by turning around, changing, living as if we know what and who we are. Not just flesh and bone, but spirit. Tell your ego it's time for he/she/it to go, now. Stand up and let the world know you know exactly who and what you are. Show all those ghosts back there, by your success. Every hair on your head is accounted for. You are loved. Believe it. It isn't so if you don't believe it.

I've had a lot of people who've helped me. I choose to remember those, only.

Some stupid, dumb things happened to me as a child. But, big BUT, there was always something happening in my life at the same time that made me happy. Lots of nature, friends I loved, fun we had. I choose to remember that. I happen to think there is always a way OUT of these rememberings in our minds. There is a ray of sunshine there, that is a promise. Choose to see that.

I'm going to change my sig. line to read:

Everything you experience in life is total insanity, covered over with the thinest veneer of rationality to make it palatible. .........John Hough

I'm not the believer that you are, Pem, but I agree with your resultant point of view, remembering the joys, and, for me, the richness I see in life around me.

Adds, I don't forget the big stuff, but it fades. Sometimes understanding things outside myself helps that along.

Forgiveness is a word I distrust, sort of like Hallmark Cards (did I tell you about the time I was in one of their commercials? oh, never mind.) Human understanding, I can see as the road to take. And leave, if that applies.

Yeah, I think you remember the good. Did I tell you I once sat on the backseat of a convertible in a fur coat and hat, along with other convertibles carrying same? We were an ad. I could never be a model because, well, Im not shaped right and not photogenic. I have Indian crinkles around my eyes and lotsa laugh lines.

So, what did you do for Hallmark?

I talked with my sister for first time in long time. She picked up the phone, acknowledged me, and I said, "Hi honey." That is what we called each other in then hickified Texas. She simply became herself again, and I felt love for her. That sob damn husband of hers is dead.

god damn.

my quoting you was not sarcasm. I was GLAD to see someone else speaking up too and what you said should be repeated again and again because you are right.

but what the hell ever.

OK, fair enough . . . i apologize for having gotten that wrong. Not that one needs forgivenss to move on, but i hope you'll understand that in the climate of this site, one tends to mistrust what one reads.

i absolutely understand .


this is what happens when a good thread gets finn types in it...

See, this is where I think some people make the assumption that just because we mention something, or bring it up as pertaining to the topic here, that it's eating at you.

For instance, when I mentioned the car/Idaho thing, it wasn't with reliving it, or feeling bad, or dredging up memories that I thought about afterwards.
Mags said something I thought was funny, and I remember thinking something similar which, looking back is pretty damn funny.

99% of the time, if the subject of someone or something unpleasant from the past comes up in conversation, that's all it does, it come up as pertinent to the conversation at the time, and that's all.

It truly is, almost all the time, just a cigar.

Do I have a grudge against my ex husband? Naw.
Do I think he's an asshole? Yeah.
Why? Because he is an asshole, ask anyone.

Do I forgive him?
For what? Being the asshole he is?

Do I forget?
No, and that's not holding onto it. I have a brain that retains information, and I'm not going to pretend I don't remember something I know happened.

Big post, kiddo.

This was all early and I only know one side. We moved to Chicago for my father to start a department at Foote Cone and Belding, for tv. Which he did. Let's say 1951.

He shot some commercials in LA, where things were happening then, and I was in one of them as a cheapo hire and for the fun. Of course this was nepotism, but what do I know.

But stuff happened. It seemed that Hoover was after my father.
I really do not know. That was in HUAC time. He was fired.

That turns out to be regular in advertising, but it was a killer for him, he was never the same.

OK, this counts as part of my explanation for my takes on things.

I'm like most, not a fan of built grudges.

I can understand memories.

I don't hold long-standing grudges, because grudges cost energy and I'm lazy. Instead, I either forgive or evade grudge-worthy persons, depending on how much there is that I like about them.

...I rather look at that as efficient management and not laziness...

That is the best course of action, I am sure. It is not always possible for each of us to be that way. But, we could try.

Oh, hey, Chai, I know that you said that and I apologize for not acknowledging that both you and Shewolf, Edgar too, some others, have overcome some not-so-good past experiences. That's probably obvious to all here.

I'd also like to agree with SheWolf and say that anger taken to extreme is harmful but anger used to motivate is mighty healthy. Hence, show them by your success.

Things do get funny in the telling, that's for sure. I meet with several people every week for a certain kind of study. Our teacher (facilitator, whatever) said her first husband for so many years gave her a terrible time. Finally, she knew she had to do something when she found herself searching in the kitchen for a knife to kill him. Yeah, we all laughed. Doing the right/wrong thing is about the size of a hair.

One lady lives with her paranoid schitzophrenic mother. We were discussing the ego last week when she said she walked into her mother's room the day before and heard that chattering ego in her head clear as everything suggest she say, "Shut your mouth!" (to her mother). Funny, yes.

Most people don't notice this ego thing, but we all do eventually. And it doesn't matter what we "hear" in our heads. Few of us ever act on it, and that's what counts. I suppose religious people would call this temptation. Kinda lightweight ain't it? 'Oh, it's just temptation, yield not to temptation.' 'The devil made me do it ' another.

So, I didn't disagree, just left it out.

Many people do. I, by contrast, am on a mission to assert that laziness is a virtue. To many people sing the praises of hard work just because their culture has brainwashed them into believing in hard work for its own sake. That's a topic for another thread, however.

...in that case we are in agreement again...in essence, efficiency is against to much work...

When I was being bullied by my step father, he would present me with an onslaught of questions, some pointless, some meant to demean me. Always, he began by saying, "Snurd" - his nickname for me. He would leer at me, waiting for responses. My thought processes would freeze, like a possum playing dead. He knew it would prolong the agony if he waited me out each time. I was terrified of having no answer. "'Cause" and "I don't know" were all I could manage, every time. He would grin and move to the next question.

That is a small part of what I endured. The fact that it went on daily, over a long period of time, makes it much worse than a few minutes here and there would make. Even today, these same thought processes will freeze up if somebody triggers the memories. This morning, the new hand wanted to know which heat elements we buy out of the catalog. She pushed the open page at me. I could see two pictures of elements, but was not able to read and understand the information about them. Even with her trying to guide me through the process, I could not make a decision.

I once had a man tell me, with a little smile, "It is impossible to get you to answer yes or no to any question." He didn't know the half of it. When engaged in cursive writing, my hand jerks like the needle on a lie detector machine. The impulses are always shorting against one another.

I once read some books by and about Freud and mentioned it to a petty officer I knew. He said, "What did Freud do?" Although I had finished one of the books that same morning, I had to tell him I had no clue.

After my mom finally found the strength to get him out of the house, he took my brother Sam and I to the annual parade. Hopalong Cassidy and Pinky Lee were a part of it. After, when it was time to get in the car to go home, he asked me a question. I saw his lips move, but heard no sound at all. He repeated the question at least three times. Still not understanding him, I said, "I don't know." After he took us home and left, I asked Sam, "What was the question he kept asking?" "He wanted to know if you want him to come back home."

This was one form the bullying took. There were other activities, such as 'stuff the kid in a cardboard box and put a water hose in his face.' It was spread around to Sam and Roger. He brought his butcher knives in one night and informed sixteen year old Roger they were about to fight it out with the knives. Seven months pregnant mom pushed herself in the middle. It was eventually broke up by the police.

I should have had the gumption to find a way to kill him by then, but he got away with everything. Back in the 1950s, I would have been convicted of a crime for that, so the bad fortune would have continued anyway.

That was pretty powerful edgar.

Gads.
Love to you, Edgar.
I am so glad I met you.
You are such a grown man.