Thread: Is Emotional Condemnation Required to Prohibit Repeating Past Mistakes?

I agree that hate only hurts you and everyone around you. Being upset and angry can be a good thing and can force you to act in productive manners, however hating people and holding grudges doesn't help you at all. If someone makes a mistake, and they admit it and take steps to prevent them self from making the mistake again in the future, what does holding a grudge do?

I think what is really required to solve our problems is understanding. With understanding we can tell why people do what they do, and we can correct the problems we face together. I truly believe in forgiving everyone for anything without exclusion. Even if a person commits murder, if there is a way to ensure they will not harm anyone in the future, I will forgive even them. That is not to say we should let people run free and do anything we want, because we shouldn't. We should defend ourselves but we shouldn't defend our self out of hate, which leads us to committing our own crimes against the people we hate.

Violence and things like jail are things we resort to when we have a break down of communication and understanding. It is what we resort to when we have given up and have nothing left to do. Since we can not currently solve all issues, we rely on them way to often. However we also resort to those things even when we do have understanding, like how we throw people with medical conditions into jail. Ideally we should never resort to violence no matter what, and we shouldn't have jails at all. All problems in the world can be fixed through communication and understanding where the other person is coming from.

So when you can forgive and try to solve differences of opinions, and things people do to each other on purpose, forgiving mistakes and accidents should come even easier. If a person did something and they didn't even mean to do it, then why punish them, why hurt them? They didn't mean to do it, it was just a lack of understanding. If a kid lights a fire and burns down a house by accident, what does throwing them into jail solve? Nothing. They know they are wrong, and teaching them the dangers of fire can be done. If they now understanding their mistake, and there is no chance of them doing it again, the only reasonable thing is to forgive them.

Hypothetically speaking, and leaving jail and other state regulated justice out of it, what if someone betrays your trust and show no remorse for it? They take advantage of you, do something you believe to be unforgivable, receive no punishment and show no remorse.

Is it justified to hold a grudge at this point? Or, more to the point, is it healthy to hold a grudge? Do you gain anything from holding a grudge? Does your emotional pain help to motivate your actions regarding this person, and other people you may trust in the future? Or does the mind learn how to properly deal with people without further tormenting itself with hate? Is it more effective with the emotional condemnation? Is it less effective?

Wear the grudge like a crown
Of negativity
Calculate what you will
Will not tolerate
Desperate to control
All and everything
Unable to forgive
Your scarlet letterman

Clutch it like a cornerstone
Otherwise it all comes down
Justify denials and
Grip 'em to the lonesome end

Clutch it like a cornerstone
Otherwise it all comes down
Terrified of being wrong
Ultimatum prison cell

It depends on what they did. In a lot of cases you can simply leave the situation and you never see the person ever again. The problem is solved since they are removed and it doesn't matter how much of a jerk they are, you will never see them. In some cases, you can continue being friends and just never trust them again.

As an example, I know someone who is very bad with money and I lent them money in the past they didn't pay it back. I didn't hold a grudge, since that wouldn't solve anything. I simply continue being their friend and never lend them anything, ever again. If you know they can't be trusted, then don't trust them. If you got a friend who isn't reliable, never ask them for a favor to do something important. You know they will probably let you down if it comes to something important but situations like that don't occur that often.

Like I said, it is really an issue of understanding and knowing the limits of people. Usually the pain caused by others isn't something they did, but of them failing to meet some expectation you set. If you set unrealistic expectations, then you will be upset often. If you know a person is a liar and a cheater, and expect nothing from them, then it really shouldn't bother you when they lie. It is just who they are.

So most of the time, instead of holding a grudge you should just learn from your own mistake and lower your expectations of that person. If your expectations are very low, then don't bother hanging out around them or talking to them. No reason to get upset and hold a grudge.

Okay so moving forward

What do you do when someone hurts your feelings? Do they deserve to have their feelings hurt, in response? Should you like them less? Lower your expectations of them because they hurt your feelings?

Sometimes when someone hurts my feelings, I think about how worthless they are as a person, and it makes me feel better. I think, "Well, that's not the type of person I'd care to be liked by, in the first place." And this alleviates the butthurtedness I get from being insulted, but it's also kind of a cop out. Sure, it feels better to decide their opinion isn't one worth considering, and that there are plenty of people who don't feel that way about me, but it's hard to say if it's really a justified response. I also like to think, "It's not personal, even though they directed it at me, it's really about them." And this also helps, it especially helps me forgive them, but it also feels sort of like alleviation for the sake of it.

I certainly don't need to hold a grudge, and I agree with what you said about expectations, most of the time we're just reeling from having our expectations tarnished, and the remedy to that is to expect less.

So those are some opinions, but what's yours? Do you believe like LeVay said, that you must hold grudges if you want to protect yourself, or do you believe the Buddha, that the emotional baggage of hating others weighs you down and does nothing to protect you?

I agree more with Buddha on this one. Emotional baggage does indeed weigh you down. It does no one any good to hate and hold grudges; they are indeed harmful to your mind and your body.

What does forgiveness mean to you? Is it a way to let others off the hook or yourself? Must you condone someone's behavior when you stop letting their actions bother you emotionally?

Forgiveness isn't really letting anyone"off the hook". It's something that happens after the initial feelings and reactions to someone's actions (or your own actions) have subsided; you can choose to let them go and move on with your life, or you can choose to hold on to the bad feelings (which would be holding a grudge). There's really no set amount of time for this period; I would say it differs for everyone.

When you hold onto the bad feelings, you're only hurting yourself. Repressed feelings can manifest in a number of different ways, from stomach ulcers to even cancer in some cases. It's overall a healthy thing to forgive yourself and others.

I think that is actually kind of normal, and all of us is a little petty and want to hurt people who hurt us. The problem is that is doesn't actually solve anything. It is kind of like revenge, most people want it, many even enjoy it, but it doesn't solve the problem. Whatever happened, happened and it can't be undone. Hurting them, making them suffering, pretending they are inhuman scum, none of it actually solves anything.

At the end of the day, the best thing to do is just to ask yourself, what will solve this problem? If the problem is with your expectations being to high, you can lower them. When I say that, I am not really saying to expect that everyone is a bum and no one will do anything for anyone. I am not promoting a negative world view here. However, you need to understand that each person is unique, and each person has their own strengths and weaknesses. Don't expect people to play to their weaknesses, because they have trouble doing so. Even if they generally care and want to help you, they might fail if you expect them to overcome a weakness to help you.

I believe a practical approach is probably best, but I also think it's important to be assertive and honest with the emotional wounds that have been caused. I think it's unhealthy to write off damage that has been done to you by others simply because it would do no good to respond.

It's not healthy to hold a grudge, but it doesn't get rid of the reactionary grudge that forms when you decide there's nothing practical to do with it. Being passive is just as unhealthy and being aggressive. To be assertive, one must remain open, and express themselves in a way that can often leave them feeling vulnerable.

It's sort of like what gandhi said, in my opinion. While non-violence is best, not everyone is so advanced psychologically that they can act courageously with non-violence, and non-violence is no excuse to hide from responsibility. If it were a choice between cowardice and violence, violence is better. For many, it's enough to simply imagine retribution as a means to absolve themselves from the grudge created. For some, this is unnecessary.

I think it's important to take Buddha's message to heart, hateful thoughts and emotions damage you, not the one they're directed at. But being passive does not make them go away. In fact if you shy away from the battlefield you do not lose the hate, you simply bury it until it becomes so heavy you explode with an outburst. A false sense of stability is no excuse not to use courage, and courage is the only thing that heals the wounds. Courage is how you stop clinging because you face the shadow and heal it with your attention alone.

This could be another thread, but change comes from acceptance and surrender. The courageous action is to place unyielding attention upon the pain, without condoning it nor condemning it. We often try to change by condemning the parts of us we don't like, but this causes us to hide from something that will not go away until we face it. We do not need to actively attempting to switch this pain, we need only watch it.

It seems like your asking, should you fight fire with fire...and I think sometimes yes...but if you can take away the fire's fuel, it usually solves the issue with more finality.

If you fight mistakes with emotion, you are going to have to fight that emotion as well...any way you look at it, emotion is going to have a recoil effect. However, if you are able to feel an emotion, and think it through..it tends to work better...

Truth is..you cant stop yourself from feeling emotion...Who you are determines a lot of how you will feel in any given situation. The answer is not to repress, combat, or ignore the emotion. You gotta work with it, and really figure out the cause.

and another tool song...

I've been crawling on my belly
Clearing out what could've been.
I've been wallowing in my own confused
And insecure delusions
For a piece to cross me over
Or a word to guide me in.
I wanna feel the changes coming down.
I wanna know what I've been hiding in

My shadow.
Change is coming through my shadow.
My shadow's shedding skin
I've been picking
My scabs again.