Reply #10: A New Earth, ch. 3

[eilen]

talks about forgiveness. He starts by identifying grievance on page 66.

"A grievance is a strong negative emotion connected to an event in the sometimes distant past that is being kept alive by compulsive thinking, by retelling the story in the head or out loud of "what someone did to me" or "what someone did to us". A grievance will also contaminate other areas of your life. For example, while you think about and feel your grievance, its negative emotional energy can distort your perception of an event that is happening in the present or influence the way in which you speak or behave toward someone in the present. One strong grievance is enough to contaminate large areas of you life and keep you in the grip of the ego. It requires honesty to see whether you still harbor grievances, whether there is someone in your life you have not completely forgiven, an "enemy". If you do, become aware of the grievance both on the level of thought as well as emotion, that is to say, be aware of the thoughts that keep it alive, and feel the emotion that is the body's response to those thoughts. Don't try to let go of the grievance. Trying to let go, to forgive, does not work. Forgiveness happens naturally when you see that it has no purpose other than to strengthen a false sense of self, to keep the ego in place. The seeing is freeing."

I had a prime example of a person who would not forgive. My father never let anything go. He carried grievances like people collect coins, taking them out, shining them up and reliving each of them, his emotion was his time travel, every reliving brought back the emotion like it happened yesterday, not 35 years ago. It was heartbreaking that he could not break out of it, or, I should say, he never communicated any insight that holding on to these grievances was not serving him and were causing him an unhappy life. He chose not to take responsibility for this, instead, continued to be the victim of circumstance, evil ex wives, malicious schoolmates, greedy brothers, ungrateful children, unfeeling parents etc. It was sad.