Quotes & Sayings About Forgiving The Past

The thought that makes most people the weakest is shame, which produces humiliation. The importance of forgiving yourself cannot be stated strongly enough. If you carry around thoughts of shame about what you've done in the past, you're weakening yourself both physically and emotionally. Similarly, if you use a technique of shame and humiliation on anyone to get them to reform, you're going to create a weakened person who will never become empowered until those shameful and humiliating thoughts are removed. Removing your own thoughts of shame involves a willingness to let go, to see your past behaviors as lessons you had to learn, and to reconnect to your source through prayer and meditation. — Wayne W. Dyer

The reason to forgive ourselves is not because we feel like it or because we want to see ourselves as blameless but because we limit what we can receive from God when we hold on to our past. He wants to do so much more than we could ever imagine. Forgiving yourself starts with believing in God's incredible love for you and accepting His amazing grace and mercy. If God Almighty can forgive us who are we to hold on to what He has not only forgiven but forgotten — Sue Augustine

It isn't until you forgive what's in the past that you'll be able to receive the gift of the present — Andy Andrews

Forgiveness of the present is even more important than forgiveness of the past. If you forgive every moment - allow it to be as it is - then there will be no accumulation of resentment that needs to be forgiven at some later time. — Eckhart Tolle

People spend thousands in therapy digging and digging in the past. When you dig and dig, you find relics. Try to forgive yourself and get back on that ride. — Richard Simmons

I had to learn to forgive myself, not to judge, but to learn from the past. They showed me how vital it is to accept, be truthful, and love myself. So I could do the same with others. — Marlo Morgan

Pops gave him a cool stare that settled Tom down - a thing not always easy to do. "Son, do you know what history is?"
"Uh ... stuff that happened in the past?"
"Nope," he said, trying on his canvas change-belt. "History is the collective and ancestral shit of the human race, a great big and ever growing pile of crap. Right now, we're standin at the top of it, but pretty soon we'll be buried under the doodoo of generations yet to come. That's why your folks' clothes look so funny in old photographs, to name but a single example. And, as someone who's destined to buried beneath the shit of your children and grandchildren, I think you should be just a leetle more forgiving. — Stephen King

Forgiving does not erase the bitter past. A healed memory is not a deleted memory. Instead, forgiving what we cannot forget creates a new way to remember. We change the memory of our past into a hope for our future. — Lewis B. Smedes

Harping should be limited to musical instruments. - Charmainism — Charmaine Smith Ladd

I once read that forgiveness is giving up all hope of having had a different past ... but forgiving is not the same as obliterating memory. — Martha Beck

My past life is abundantly full of God's mercy, and, above all sin, stands the forgiving love of the Crucified. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Time is an equal opportunity employer. Each human being has exactly the same number of hours and minutes every day. Rich people can't buy more hours. Scientists can't invent new minutes. And you can't save time to spend it on another day. Even so, time is amazingly fair and forgiving. No matter how much time you've wasted in the past, you still have an entire tomorrow. — Denis Waitley

I lied," I said ...
"I know it," he said.
"Then do something about it. Do anything, just so it's something."
"I cant," he said.
"There aint anything to do? Not anything?"
"I didn't say that," Grandfather said. "I said I couldn't. You can."
"What?" I said. "How can I forget it? Tell me how to."
"You cant," he said. "Nothing is ever forgotten. Nothing is ever lost. It's too valuable."
"Then what can I do?"
"Live with it," Grandfather said.
"Live with it? You mean, forever? For the rest of my life? Not ever to get rid of it? Never? I cant. Dont you see that I cant?"
"Yes you can," he said. "You will. A gentleman always does. A gentleman can live through anything. He faces anything. A gentleman accepts the responsibility of his actions and bears the burden of their consequences, even when he did not himself instigate them but only acquiesced to them, didn't say No though he knew he should. — William Faulkner

To forgive is to refuse to contaminate the future with the errors of the past. — Craig D. Lounsbrough

To forgive is merely to remember only the loving thoughts you gave in the past, and those that were given you. All the rest must be forgotten. — Marianne Williamson

The act of forgiveness is the act of returning to present time. And that's why when one has become a forgiving person, and has managed to let go of the past, what they've really done is they've shifted their relationship with time. — Caroline Myss

You cannot even touch my soul.
So I have emerged stronger,
Kinder, perceptive, forgiving
To embrace you with all the humility. — Balroop Singh

South Africans must recall the terrible past so that we can deal with it, forgiving where forgiveness is necessary but never forgetting. — Nelson Mandela

The past is stronger than my will to forgive forgive you, or myself, I don't know. — Shawn Colvin

Forgiving isn't forgetting. At the core of forgiveness is the understanding that the hatred and bitterness we hold onto destroys us.
Forgiving isn't meekness. It is letting go of the past, living in the present, and paving the way for the future.
In order to forgive, we must first grieve for what could've been and what never was. To forgive others, we must also forgive ourselves.
Perhaps, that is the hardest forgiveness of all."

Excerpt From: Kelly, Kathryn. "Misbehavior." iBooks.
This material may be protected by copyright. — Kathryn Kelly

Her years in Gibson started a healing process. It began with faith, and forgiving. But healing didn't mean forgetting.

But maybe forgetting wasn't necessary. The memories of her childhood provided a backdrop, a place to begin the changes that would make life better. She knew who she didn't want to be. — Brenda Minton

Second only to the sea, the Miami sky has been the greatest comfort in my life past 50. On a good day, when the wind blows from the south, the light here is diffuse and forgiving. — Iggy Pop

Whenever we forgive, in small ways at home, or in great ways between nations, we free ourselves from the past. — Jack Kornfield

The choice to follow love through to its completion is the choice to seek completion within ourselves. The point at which we shut down on others is the point at which we shut down on life. We heal as we heal others, and we heal others by extending our perceptions past their weaknesses. Until we have seen someone's darkness, we don't really know who that person is. Until we have forgiven someone's darkness, we don't really know what love is. Forgiving others is the only way to forgive ourselves, and forgiveness is our greatest need. — Marianne Williamson

Forgiving ourselves for all the woulda-shoulda-couldas in life, and sometimes forgiving others for actions that we feel undercut or undermine our good, can be very challenging. But forgiveness of the past and mistakes, our own mistakes as well as the mistakes of others, is imperative if we are to dwell fully in the present and experience the miracles that are only available to the forgiving and loving mind. — Marianne Williamson

Forgiveness is a gift to yourself. It frees you from the past, past experiences, and past relationships. It allows you to live in the present time. When you forgive yourself and forgive others, you are indeed free. — Louise Hay

Forgiving isn't something you do for someone else. It's something you do for yourself. It's saying, 'You're not important enough to have a stranglehold on me.' It's saying, 'You don't get to trap me in the past. I am worthy of a future. — Jodi Picoult

The truth is, forgiving is a rather simple concept to grasp. It is often imagined that when you forgive, you have to reconcile with someone and yet this is a larger team in which forgiveness is just a player. — Stephen Richards

A while ago?" Anaxantis asked. "Yes, he raped me a while ago. Exactly nine months and two days ago. What's that? Nine months or nine minutes. It's the same. And it is in the past, you say? Then why is it still happening, every day, every time I close my eyes? Every time I hear someone behind me, and I don't know who it is? How is it that I get an almost irresistible urge to kill anyone who happens to touch me unexpectedly? Tell me, Hemarchidas, how do I forgive, let alone forget, something that is still happening, that keeps happening over and over? How? How do I do that? — Andrew Ashling

Forgiveness is the process of dropping off your emotional baggage. — Tim Fargo

Forgive and call back the energy wasted on past events. — Caroline Myss

We must beware of the Past, mustn't we? I mean that any fixing of the mind on old evils beyond what is absolutely necessary for repenting our own sins and forgiving those of others is certainly useless and usually bad for us. Notice in Dante that the lost souls are entirely concerned with their past! Not so the saved. — C.S. Lewis

We want to remember the lessons of our past because they have a lot to teach us. That way, we can avoid the mistakes and fools of our past. Forgiving is not the same as condoning or approving. — Jessica N. Watkins

You are not, though, forgiving so as to let others off with things. You are forgiving so that you can empower yourself to get over it and become strong. — Stephen Richards

Forgiving the past means remembering the love there, and releasing all the rest as the illusion that it really was. — Marianne Williamson

But the human spirit is resilient. God made us so. He gave us the ability to forgive. To leave our past behind. To look forward instead of back. — Elizabeth Smart

First, forgive. Second, forget by choosing not to dwell on that which is forgiven and in the past. We have no right to keep in front of us what God has put behind Him. — David Jeremiah

Why is it so important for me to forgive that son-of-a-bitch? I'm not the one at fault here. It shouldn't be about me. He's the one that did wrong. Screw his feelings. He should feel like he's hated for what he did." Lisa added another used tissue to the growing pile on the table.
Lyn warmly smiled. "Forgiving Byron isn't for his sake, it's for yours. The block in your life's road can only be removed if you forgive him for what he did. If you don't, you'll just keep bumping into that block again and again. The life you live will be miserable. You'll never be able to break the chains of the past."
Lisa listened and let the words sink into her subconscious. She realized the only way to get to the end of the road was to take the first step. There was a block preventing her from moving forward in life. She had to find a way past it. — Dane Hatchell

Although you should not erase your responsibility for the past, when you make the past your jailer, you destroy your future. It is such a great moment of liberation when you learn to forgive yourself, let the burden go, and walk out into a new path of promise and possibility. — John O'Donohue

We must abandon completely the notion of blaming the past for any kind of situation we're in and reverse our thinking and see that the past always flows back form the present. That now is the creative point of life. So you see its like the idea of forgiving somebody, you change the meaning of the past by doing that ... Also watch the flow of music. The melody as its expressed is changed by notes that come later. Just as the meaning of a sentence ... you wait till later to find out what the sentence means ... The present is always changing the past. — Alan W. Watts

Each of us can do a little better than we have been doing. We can be a little more kind. We can be a little more merciful. We can be a little more forgiving. We can put behind us our weaknesses of the past and go forth with new energy and increased resolution to improve the world about us, in our homes, in our places of employment, in our social activities. — Gordon B. Hinckley

But what? But it was just so much easier to deal with the old pain by ignoring it? Forgetting it? Andy's presence meant having to actively work at forgiving him, and that was hard. Forgetting was much easier than forgiving
forgiving was an on-going process that had to continue past the dramatic declarations of apology and absolution. — Diana Killian

Forgiving yourself means that you give up on your hope that the past will be different. — Edward M. Hallowell

I've learned that the creative life may or may not be the apex of human civilization, but either way it's not what I thought it was. It doesn't make you special and sparkly. You don't have to walk alone. You can work in an office - I've worked in offices for the past 15 years and written five novels while doing it. The creative life is forgiving: You can betray it all you want, again and again, and no matter how many times you do, it will always take you back. — Lev Grossman

Forgiveness is not the misguided act of condoning irresponsible, hurtful behavior. Nor is it a superficial turning of the other cheek that leaves us feeling victimized and martyred. Rather, it is the finishing of old business that allows us to experience the present, free of contamination from the past. — Joan Z. Borysenko

The practice of forgiving is a sequential practice that begins with excusing someone. — Stephen Richards

Once we have forgiven, however, we get a new freedom to forget. This time forgetting is a sign of health; it is not a trick to avoid spiritual surgery. We can forget because we have been healed. But even if it is easier to forget after we forgive, we should not make forgetting a test of our forgiving. The test of forgiving lies with healing the lingering pain of the past, not with forgetting the past has ever happened. — Lewis B. Smedes

The past doesn't determine your future unless you carry it with you into the present. Forgiving yourself and others, you free the universe to begin again at any moment. — Marianne Williamson

I try to incorporate faith every day, to not remind myself of past failures, to learn how to forgive and to trust the future. — Vanessa L. Williams

There is a fine balance between honoring the past and losing yourself in it. For example, you can acknowledge and learn from mistakes you made, and then move on and refocus on the now. It is called forgiving yourself. — Eckhart Tolle

One of the great healing balms of the Holy Spirit is forgiveness. To forgive is to break the link between you and your past. — T.D. Jakes

Back when he had first come to the monastery, they had given him a very simple ritual called Forgiving the Day. Even the youngest child could do this; all it required was looking back over the day and dismissing the day's pains as a thing that were past while choosing to remember as gains lessons learned or moments of insight. As initiates grew in the ways of Sa, it was expected they would grow more sophisticated in this exercise, learning to balance the day, taking responsibility for their own actions and learning from them without indulging in either guilt or regrets."
p. 240 — Robin Hobb

Your greatest healing lies in forgiving all that has wrong and hurt you. — Lailah Gifty Akita

Do not be deceived that you are weak because you have forgiven; instead be rest assured that you are now showing great strength - after all, forgiving is one of the most difficult things to do. — Stephen Richards

Forgiveness doesn't make one person better, or the other guy smaller. Forgiving is just letting go. It's turning back toward being what we really are. — Edward Fahey

Sometimes we carry unhappy feelings about past hurts too long. We spend too much energy dwelling on things that have passed and cannot be changed. We struggle to close the door and let go of the hurt. If, after time, we can forgive whatever may have caused the hurt, we will tap 'into a life-giving source of comfort' through the Atonement, and the 'sweet peace' of forgiveness will be ours ("My Journey to Forgiving," Ensign, Feb. 1997. 43). Some injuries are so hurtful and deep that healing comes only with help from a higher power and hope for perfect justice and restitution in the next life ... You can tap into that higher power and receive precious comfort and sweet peace. — James E. Faust