About Forgiveness

The words below by Alice Miller about forgiveness are very true, but I would take it even a step farther, from my experience admitting the truth is a must, but we must also feel the whole range of our repressed emotions within the context of our own childhood, otherwise the compulsion to repeat or reenact our childhood drama will continue endless one way or another.

“…preaching forgiveness is not only hypocritical and futile but also actively dangerous. It masks the compulsion to repeat.

The only thing that can protect us from repetition is the admission of the truth, with all its implications. Once we know as accurately as possible what our parents did to us, we are no longer in danger of repeating their misdeeds. Otherwise we will do so automatically, and with all the tenacity at our disposal we will resist the idea that we can---and indeed must---break off our infant attachment to parents who abused us if we want to become adults and live of our own in peace. We must give up the confusion we lived in as infants, the confusion stemming from early attempts to understand abuse and give it a meaning. As adults we can do that; we can learn to understand how morality in therapy gets in the way of the healing of the wounds we carry around inside us.” From the book “The Body Never Lies: The lingering Effects of Cruel Parenting” by Alice Miller page 152