Forget to forgive or forgive to forget?

Totally 100%, unequivocally, absolutely, forgive to forget.

I don't know about you, perhaps you have a little switch in you brain that lets you turn off your thoughts, allowing you to forget; I possess no such switch.

Or maybe you can let things go in one ear and out the other. Can you? ......Words or deeds absorbed like little soldiers marching through a rugged, mine swampped tunnel, coming out unscathed on the other side.

At first the thought of forgiveness feels like throwing in the towel, like giving up, like losing the battle. We cannot conceive of a concession or concede to the offender. We will do anything to prove we are right, and they are wrong, including never talking to that person again, and or plotting schemes of revenge.

But forgiveness equals surrender and surrender equals peace. By definition, surrendering is giving up. This is quite a difficult concept for so many of us, because we equate giving up with admitted fault or failure, and or declaring victory for the offender.

When we are hurt, we feel emotions that are connected to our past; negative emotions such as anger, frustration, envy, jealousy and pain. We forgive to surrender and surrender to forget the negative emotions, the pain, the anger, etc. There can still be the memory of the offense, but with forgiveness, we can look right through it, like looking a concrete wall that suddenly transformed into glass.

Forgiveness is essential to forget the offense, enabling us to throw it in the trash or burn it in the fire. It is the only way to purchase the switch to turn off our thoughts and forget, and it's not available at Wal-Mart. It's somewhere inside of us, often refusing to be ignited for primarily one reason. The ego loves to be right. And the ego causes us pain.

Can any of us truly forget without forgiveness? If you can more power to you. For me, forgetting is only possible through forgiveness. Forgiveness is self care, a gift to ourselves and can be an olive branch to the offender. It does not matter if the offender receives or reciprocates the olive branch. It matters that we forgive to forget the pain that prevents us from living our best life.