Preethama
Talk, empty talk, we talk nothing but talk.
But how good is all this talking? How relevant or significant is it individually? Or as a whole as well? Just as much as one struggles to open up and talk their minds out, it’s equally as hard to forgive oneself let alone forgiving another.
It can be said that this steadfast society has created some ridiculous expectations for each individual to meet in order to be accepted and the competition an individual has to face and reach to not just to be number one but to even make it past the so-called failure is quite absurd.
This weirdly structured society has never been able to evolve in the things that actually matter but mostly evolve in everything else. These unchangeable things are either referred to as traditions, cultures, rules etc. Basically, they are stereotypes and prejudices CONSTRUCTED with the hope of keeping the society in tacked.
Let’s take the most understandable example, sex education. The ancient history has much information about sex education. There are vast extensive literature and several works of art that portray them very distinctively.
The words such as love, lust, pleasure, desire, sex and other synonyms that relate to them have been spoken about very openly back then. Yet now in the so-called modern times, it’s considered a sin to think about these things. It’s believed that there is an age to experience each of these and when one doesn’t follow this age line then it is a crime.
Honestly, I do believe there is an age to experience certain things. But this doesn’t mean one doesn’t have thoughts about such topics from a very young age. Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis, showed how children experience the sexual tendencies at a very young age. A child gets attached to their opposite sex parent and that’s what’s reflected in the YouTube videos we see “see how babies react to theirs parents kissing”.
And its from that very age the duty of parents to subtly express how certain process are natural. Or as Freud said they become repressed thoughts that result in different behavioral traits. But instead of that, sex education is something that not spoken about at all.
And so, this results in a behavior such as gaining pleasure by breaking the rules or even the thought about breaking the rules causes anxiety and stress. One of the manifestation portals of self-harm arises from here as well.
But what has this got to do with forgiving oneself. Almost everything we know is learnt in some form or other. The ideas, rules and etc., dictate how we respond externally for our personal internal experiences. These internal experiences refer to our personal emotions, the chemical reactions as a result of experiencing an external stimulus and etc. It brings about two distinctive personality traits which are:
- Rebelling against the rules in order to not feel the guilt of doing what is not right according to the individual.
- Feeling uneasy with even the thought of going against the rules.
What’s important to understand is that each individual undergoes different internal reactions apart from the above mentioned two distinction as the main defining traits. And is important to understand what goes within in order for any one to be able to realize that somethings aren’t necessarily mistakes.
Forgiveness is an act of releasing the feeling of resentment towards others. Inability to forgive has now become a reflex action. People find it difficult to forgive others as well as themselves. But its well known that with forgiveness comes inner peace. So how does one forgive?
As said earlier almost everything is learnt, it is difficult believe that one is eligible for forgiveness when it has been taught for centuries that ‘its WRONG’. Well in reality forgiveness doesn’t work based on eligibility but it’s simply empathy towards the other and towards one’s own self, and to feel calm from within.
Learning is a relatively permanent change, which means it can be changed but takes time and practice. Similarly, the idea of forgiveness needs to be learnt.
How to Unlearn and Relearn:
- Consciously make an effort to change the words we use.
- Positive thinking isn’t something that just bursts up one day. One has to consciously make effort to change every word in their sentence from negative to positive continuously.
- For example, ‘I can’t’ to ‘I could’ the ‘I would’ and so on.
- To consciously try to remind oneself that to understand the other persons perspective and also themselves.
- Try to accept what happened the situation and understand what had happened within us that caused a certain feeling.
Forgiveness happens to be conscious process and so is making efforts to forgive. Forgiveness is acknowledging and accepting the reality of any situation and trying to stay in peace. Let’s try to forgive ourselves and others and let our emotions flow thereby attain inner peace.
References
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/mindful-anger/201409/how-do-you-forgive-even-when-it-feels-impossible-part-1
https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/topic/forgiveness/definition#:~:text=Psychologists%20generally%20define%20forgiveness%20as,they%20actually%20deserve%20your%20forgiveness.&text=Forgiveness%20does%20not%20mean%20forgetting,mean%20condoning%20or%20excusing%20offenses
https://medium.com/lessons-from-history/what-sex-was-like-in-ancient-india-ec6081cbab77
