Sue Moon’s Blog

Abusive behavior can be as small as a dark look or as big as physical torture.
I have been thinking about one of the yoga principles a lot lately, and that is Ahimsa, non-violence. What is violence? I was talking with a family member the other day and they were lashing out about their predicament and I felt covered in sharp, stinging, silver needles. Was this person deliberately abusing me? No, just venting. Just venting, think about that. I excused myself as quickly as I could, took some deep breaths and refocused. Phew! I think most of us are so asleep we don’t hold ourselves accountable for what we put out to others. If a kind act like a smile can change a person’s day, think what a dark look or negative words can do to a day.
So, of course, when I went to my favorite astrology site this morning, the below excerpt jumped out at me.
Forgiving the Sources of Abuse
When people in a family abuse each other by whatever means, or when we are abused by one who we thought was our friend, it arises from the choice of the abuser to externalize that behavior. While I agree that we must come to true peace and forgiveness toward those who have abused us, it does not make it right that it happened to begin with, nor does it mean we should believe it taught us much of anything. We do not have to go to jail to know we don’t need to be there.
We are here to learn what is venerable, what is worthy, what evokes our highest ideas and feelings and actions. Abuse does not further these. While I agree we’re all learning to come to a measure of peace and forgiveness in our lives, we can learn these best through beneficial interactions. And we can come to peace and forgiveness easier in the face of inadvertent well-meant misguided behavior than those things which were not necessary to begin with.
We are here to learn how to forgive consciously those things we suffer as a result of karma. But karma is not linear in the sense that an abused being abused others in previous times. Karma is created, perpetuated, or destroyed by a being’s choices. An abuser is under no law to perpetuate abuse in any given moment.
That’s why regarding abuse, I believe true forgiveness can only arise once the abusive behavior stops. As long as the abuse continues, then what is there to forgive? At that point the lesson is not to allow kindness and compassion to be taken for weakness. -Wilkinson