Well I'm a woman, so maybe it takes a different approach for me. :-) I get what you are saying in terms of strategy, but I blame them for what has happened more than I blame the evil people in charge, because they gave them a free pass and supported the evil while I begged them to listen to the truth, and they mocked me, and now they gloat about "winning." And I'm supposed to forgive?
I'm not sitting around waiting for them to apologize--I've moved on in my life (over 1,000 miles away a few months ago, literally!), and I do believe that "the best revenge is living well." But I also learned over a decade+ of challenging inner work that it's pointless to try to force myself to feel things that I don't genuinely feel. Worse than pointless--it damages me, degrades my soul, and makes me into an emotional slave for others to vampire off of. They get to invalidate me, my views, and my perceptions, and then plant their version of "reality" in their place. I have ruined my own life by allowing this, and I know better now, but it's still hard because I am still afraid of rejection and easily intimidated.
I do not generally choose to show those people how I actually feel (only on rare occasions), but I can at the very, very least be honest and truthful with myself and accept how I truly feel--I don't have to "rise above it." If and when I feel like forgiving them and it comes from a genuine place/feels natural, then I will do so, but that is about the furthest thing from my mind right now. The best I can muster is sort of a cold politeness or phony niceness (while avoiding talking about our differences) and then I end up feeling sick and depressed/immobile afterwards--it just happened today. Hopefully with more time and distance, I can just forget about them, but I cannot fathom a circumstance where I would align with them without some serious admitting of their mistake and apologizing for how they've treated us for so many years. I also don't know how you can read about how the FBI is terrorizing MAGA protestors and think that any of these people giving those efforts a free pass (or outright supporting it!) deserves our forgiveness. I wonder how bad it will need to get before you accept what they truly are.
Well I'm a woman, so maybe it takes a different approach for me. :-) I get what you are saying in terms of strategy, but I blame them for what has happened more than I blame the evil people in charge, because they gave them a free pass and supported the evil while I begged them to listen to the truth, and they mocked me, and now they gloat about "winning." And I'm supposed to forgive?
I'm not sitting around waiting for them to apologize--I've moved on in my life (over 1,000 miles away a few months ago, literally!), and I do believe that "the best revenge is living well." But I also learned over a decade+ of challenging inner work that it's pointless to try to force myself to feel things that I don't genuinely feel. Worse than pointless--it damages me, degrades my soul, and makes me into an emotional slave for others to vampire off of. They get to invalidate me, my views, and my perceptions, and then plant their version of "reality" in their place. I have ruined my own life by allowing this, and I know better now, but it's still hard because I am still afraid of rejection and easily intimidated.
I do not generally choose to show those people how I actually feel (only on rare occasions), but I can at the very, very least be honest and truthful with myself and accept how I truly feel--I don't have to "rise above it." If and when I feel like forgiving them and it comes from a genuine place/feels natural, then I will do so, but that is about the furthest thing from my mind right now. The best I can muster is sort of a cold politeness or phony niceness (while avoiding talking about our differences) and then I end up feeling sick and depressed/immobile afterwards--it just happened today. Hopefully with more time and distance, I can just forget about them, but I cannot fathom a circumstance where I would align with them without some serious admitting of their mistake and apologizing for how they've treated us for so many years. I also don't know how you can read about how the FBI is terrorizing MAGA protestors and think that any of these people giving those efforts a free pass (or outright supporting it!) deserves our forgiveness. I wonder how bad it will need to get before you accept what they truly are.