rePost: Learning to Be Forgiving:Guilt and forgiveness – Part 1 at Paulo Coelho’s Blog

Let’s just say I am not the ost forgiving person in the planet. I remember slights as far back as the second grade, but I remember because I believe I have something that could be called emotional memory. I tend to remember events, facts etc related to intense emotions that I feel. This means both extremes, happiness and sadness makes a mark on me that is hard to erase and so easy to recall and even easier to reinforce.
Forgiveness I think is a function of acceptance. Read the story accompanying the excerpted news. it’s quite good.

The story clearly illustrates our own problems with guilt and forgiveness. When we were children, we would often overhear our mother saying: ‘My child only behaved foolishly because he got into bad company. He’s a very good boy really.’
And so we never took responsibility for our actions, never asked for forgiveness and ended up forgetting that we must also be generous with those who offend us. The act of forgiveness has nothing to do with feelings of guilt or cowardice: we all make mistakes and it is only by occasionally stumbling that we can improve and progress. On the other hand, if we are too tolerant of our own behaviour – especially when this hurts other people – we become isolated and incapable of correcting our path.
Guilt and forgiveness – Part 1 at Paulo Coelho’s Blog.