This starts with a quote

[The People]

"The great challenge is to acknowledge our hurts and claim our true selves as being more than the result of what other people do to us."

This is so true. It comes from a few paragraphs on forgiveness but I didn't copy it all. Forgiveness is a personal thing. For some it is the whole rainbow dot "I forgive you" sort of thing. For others like myself it is letting go so that I can get on with my life.

I am working on this. It is hard but slowly I am setting myself free. There are some that will never be checked off as "finished" but since I don't even know their names (red dot) all I can do is push them aside at try to get past the trip ups they placed in my path. Or pick myself up and dust myself off.

I became we because of them. But the core of us is still that little girl who loved the world and who was loved back. She is hard to find at times. Two comes the closest to the child I was. Determined, outspoken, loves to be loved...

I cannot believe I am writing this. 5 years ago I was still saying that they didn't deserve to be forgiven. That there was nothing they could do to earn that. But slowly, over time, I have changed. Life is still challenging. But much of that is of our own creation, old habits. There are sill good days and bad. I still become frustrated over things that people don't understand. Cannot understand. But I am now starting to realize that. People's inability to understand. How could they. Only another multiple can come close to understanding. And even here we are all in our own place at or own time.

This week I had to share the DID with someone because it was the only way I knew how to explain an issue I was having w/o lying. We don't like to lie. When I explained I could see puzzle pieces fitting together in her head. And she then commented on how much better I have been doing over the last few yeas. That she has noticed it. That felt good. Having to share was hard and it took a lot out of me but hearing that people noticed a positive change in me is something good. And I think this change is taking place because of the fact that I am letting go. Can I say that I have truly forgiven? I don't know. But I have given a lot away rather than carrying it around like hot coal in my brain.

[nats]

agreeing with you that at some point if we continue to heal some level of forgiveness will begin to happen no matter how we originally felt about forgiveness. it is part of letting go of the hurt and not allowing it to own us anymore...

[MakersDozn]

The People, this is a great post. It really resonates with us.

For us, it's not so much about forgiveness but about acceptance. Not acceptance in the sense of "it's okay that this stuff happened." It's acceptance in the sense of "This stuff happened, and there's nothing that we can do to change the past. And there are no 'do-overs' or getting back the time that we've lost to being and feeling hurt. But we do have the opportunity to live the rest of our life as we choose, and we need to choose to heal."

It's hard for Charity to let go of resentment and choose healing. It's hard for her to get past the stubborn insistence on waiting for a "do-over." But moving forward, even one small step at a time, is the only way to heal.

Mary and others