Four Stages of Forgiveness
- to forego — to leave it alone
- to forebear — to abstain from punishing
- to forget — to aver from memory, to refuse to dwell
- to forgive — to abandon the debt
How does one know if she has forgiven? You tend to feel sorrow over the circumstances instead of rage, you tend to feel sorry for the people rather than angry. You have nothing left to say about it. You understand the suffering that drove the offense to begin with. You prefer to remain outside the milieu. No longer waiting for something. There is no lariat snare around your ankle stretching from way back there to here. Most certainly there is now a fresh Once Upon a Time waiting for you from this day forward.”
Paraphrased from the chapter Marking Territory: The Boundaries of Rage and Forgiveness by Pinkola-Estes
Also:
“Women who are tortured often develop a dazzling kind of perception that has uncanny breadth and depth. Although I would never wish anyone be tortured in order to learn the secret ins and outs of the unconscious, the fact is, having lived through a gross regression causes gifts to arise that compensate.
If a woman will return to instinctual nature instead of sinking into bitterness, she will be revivified.”