Re: 42781 you are quite wrong

the other thing is that forgiveness is not making excuses for someone elses behaviour. it is choosing to let go even though they may have had absolutely no good reason to do what they did whatsoever. if you base your forgiveness on what kind of excuse you can come up with for their actions then your forgiveness will be limited, some actions have no excuse, what will you do then?

 No, forgiveness is most definitely not about "making excuses" for someone else (I never said that btw). It is about understanding others. And another "no": there is no such a thing as behaviour without reason. They may not have a reason for doing what they did, but there is always a reason why they did it! Simply put - there is no effect without a cause. And understanding those reasons, or at least understanding that there is a reason, no matter how hard it is for us to see it, is the first step towards forgiveness.

 One other way of "forgiving", which is practiced a lot, is - ignoring. That's what people do when they can't understand others. And this is actually wrong for many reasons. First, because in order to be able to ignore, one has to distance him/herself from others in order not to get hurt. The "further" we are from others, the harder for them to "touch" us. This is how some 90% of people live, and no wonder that most relationships are shallow and unsatisfactory. This also leaves people's emotional needs unsatisfied and as a result they rebel in other ways - drugs, physical abuse, arguments, etc. The other reason why ignoring others mistakes is wrong is because it is not forgivness, and WILL leave a trace of negativity in our subconsciousness which is then like a little match burning in a big forest...