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In Daoism is there something that comes close to ‘being forgiven for your sins through confession’ in the Catholic church?
This question came to me because of treatments I am doing on 3 female family members with very severe abuse. I have one of the victims and one of the abusers who was a victim herself in my practice plus another family member who is a sort of catalysator.
The question came how this ‘abuser who is abused herself’ will be able to ‘dissolve’ the hurt and pain she suffered AND caused. How to help her to look into the mirror and accept herself for what she did. To me that is a nearly impossible mission considering the huge damage and deep hurt.
In the Catholic church you can receive ‘absolution’ and forgiveness for your bad deeds.
I also do not want to put everything on the plate of ‘karma’ and come with that sort of approach, again that makes it sort of a simpel way out.This caused hurt is so huge, I mean HUGE, I really wonder if these wounds can ever be ‘healed’…. I do not like to give up on people and I do very much support both the victim and abuser/victim, but I do wonder how much in an alchemical sense I can offer to make a change or be of help in this very traumatized family dynamic.
This said, I can switch to you Chris and give you a big smile 🙂
I would agree what someone has said to me, that nothing inherently in itself is good or bad in the universe it just is. In my opinion what turns something into it being bad is a judgement and the counter force to that is foregiveness/acceptance, returning to non-judgement. She doesn’t accept herself, suffers, etc. because she is still carrying that judgement. I guess when they want to foregive and be non-judgemental it will be dissolved. It is hard for anyone else to do much as they aren’t carrying around the judment.
Here are some suggestions/guesses for helping them:
teach them 6 healing sounds/fusion
Mantak Chia’s dvd emotional healing
ask your spirit guides for help
do a recapitulation
use mental techniques to face/deal with/burning the issueI’m falling asleep, I’ll see what comes to mind tommorrow. Hope I’ve been helpful.
Hi Wendy
Well first of all I have no real answer to your question, if there is a comparison in taoism for what is offered in the chatolic church. That question should indeed imply that there was a similar expression as sin in the taosit vocabulary, but I do not think there is such a consept in taoism, beacase it doesn´t seem to fit. The only concept I can remember that is similar perhaps is the consept of evil forces, which not mean evil in the christian perspective but evil as forces or energies or conditions that are evil to your health. At least the way I can understund it at the moment. So I don´t think you will find a similar solution to as in the chatolic church, but you never know 🙂
What I also think is that this persons might need help from you as well as from a professional psychoterapist. Or to work true the 12 step program that as far as I know actually work quite much with acceptance and forgiviness to yourself for what you have done, and also work with all the bad feelings you have to meet going true such a process.
I should also want to add that I think that the capability for forgivness of others as well as yourself is infinite, there is no limitation to that capacity in people, but it might help with a religious belief system or a contact with the higher spirit, (which I not want to define 🙂 what it is, I think you know better than me yourself) Or you might call it GOD if you like.
But of course this processes are not easy and are wery painful. And they take wery long time.
I can understund if you feel incomplete in some sence if you realy want to help but you feel that the issues are so big that your help might not be enough. I think the healing you might be able to give and the exercises in this system are realy greate to deal with the feelings in the present moment and that they will help to dissolve some of the issues. But I also as I said think that you also need to realise that you and your help might not be enough and that the person should have some other help beside of your help and that in the long run you all have to trust in the higher forces or in GOD.
Be careful of not burn yourself out by wanting to help to much! But still be there with the persons.
Hope I could contribute with something to your question, even though there realy not was the answer you asked for.
Blessings
SD
I would concur with SD here, and recommend that they
seek some professional counseling and therapy.Healing Tao techniques can only do so much.
In Daoism, nothing is really a sin, as everything is
an expression (in one form or another) of the lifeforce
and its interaction in our “mundane world”. The idea of
sin is born from the idea of judgment, and the lifeforce
is not a judge . . . it just unconditionally accepts and loves.In dealing with pain, ultimately the most fundamental tool
that one should return to, is the Inner Smile. Ultimately,
cultivating a feeling of deep unconditional acceptance
of the way things are, and the things that led to the
current situation, is what brings healing. Deep Healing Qigong
can be another useful tool.Those things . . . AND TIME.
Some things just take the passage of time, and there is
no getting around it.In abuse:
For the victim, forgiveness must first come toward oneself
before one can forgive the abuser. Even though the victim
is not at fault, deep down there can be a feeling of guilt
as though it were somehow their fault that caused it. This
has to be released and healed before any forgiveness of the
abuser can indeed happen.Forgiveness of the abuser (by the victim) can only come
when the victim has forgiven him/herself, and enough time has
passed by to which the victim can see that the abuser is
“no longer” the same person they were when the abuse happened.
If the abuser has grown and changed, if the victim has forgiven
themselves, the forgiveness of the abuser is automatic, because
any anger is toward a person that no longer exists. It takes
more work to hold on to the anger than it is to let it go.The latter comment is from some personal experience. I had
a family member who gave me a couple instances of child physical
abuse when I was small (inappropriate enough that the court had
gotten involved). The thing is, I have absolutely no anger toward
this person today, and have totally and completely forgiven this
person, and have done so a long time ago. Reason: The person has
completely changed, and they are not in any way the same person they
were when the abuse happened. So the person who did the abuse
does not exist anymore. So any hurt/anger is long gone.For the abuser, if they want to be forgiven . . .
First, they have to forgive themselves and let it go.
Second, if they feel they need forgiveness from the victim, then
they should make a sincere effort to change who they are.
Upon doing so, forgiveness by the victim is automatic.So I suppose this is where the alchemy comes in.
It is a vehicle to speed up change.But ultimately, any healing that is desired to happen, is
going to take a period of TIME. There aren’t really any shortcuts.TIME and perhaps some professional therapy for those in dire need.
My love to your group,
StevenThank you all for your replies.
To clarify a bit without going too much into detail out of respect.
The victim that I am seeing (there are more) has ‘professional help’ in hospitals, but has no significant deep ‘healing’ there, other than ‘help’ her to get some better sleep.
The abuser/victim spent 7 years in prison for her ‘deeds’ without counseling or help. She had multiple personalities that took over doing the ‘bad deeds'(those personalities were created when she was a victim herself).Anyways, my therapy goes far beyond just some healing tao help.
I am a multi-level therapist for many years and deal with a lot of disorders, be it personal, be it as a couple, be it as a group (like this family).My question was about the abuser, and as your shorter reply implies Steven, that issue is much more difficult… the guilt of what you did to others (your closest flesh) is in my opinion the deepest. Unless we bring our guilt outside of us and let ‘God’ deal with it. Again I understand that this is maybe the ONLY way to face yourself in the mirror. Letting God take over, and feel how that superpower ‘forgives’ you, so we can transfer our personal guilt and deeds unto him/it. He will deal with it, he is omni-present and omni-wise. If you can feel acceptance from God, you at least can look into the mirror without seeing a monster.
Maybe that is why many inmates become religious, as the only way out to face yourself. I believe that…What you say about change is true, BUT, the more aware you become of what you actually did the more severe the guilt grows. Awareness is tough, realizing the hurt and pain you caused is a horrible awakening.
Before and still she puts all her deeds on the other personalities, she can ‘not yet’ face the fact that she actually had something to do with it ‘herself’.
Yet the victim is absolutely wanting that she takes responsability for at least parts of what she did. That is the only way for her to forgive the abuser. As long the abuser talks as if the other personalities did these things, the victim can not come to terms.So what I am after is how to bring back her ‘own memories’ and being able to face them as something she did as her ( at least some parts because surely those other personalities DID take over and acted out). But at the same time offering trust that accepting her own actions, people still love her despite (like me as her therapist and her sister who came back in her life after 30 years and is her protector right now). Love is the only cure.
Not an easy task, I can tell you, surely if you spent 7 years behind walls, as an inmate you live in a micro world full of deceipt, lies and pain.
What I am trying to do is taking her to a place in her that feels innocent and pure. Bringing her to a place inside herself that feels truthful and beautiful. Learning her to see herself as a pure woman with a pure heart.
I am believing that when you can touch that pure heart (without connecting with some god or religion) we can work and make her face what happened to her as a child and how she became an abuser despite her initial very good intentions to become a good person. When it becomes too difficult to face facts bringing her back to that pure place.Instead of putting the guilt onto a God, I hope to bring her deep inside herself, in her own pure sanctuary, that was not spoiled and not hurt.
Somewhere very very very deep and hidden, very very hidden and tiny tiny small…. but I trust it is there, in every human being, it has to be there… that is my ‘God’, my believe… 🙂 I am a true believer of the Heart 🙂I was unsure of talking about this on a public forum, but by doing, I feel an even stronger commitment to them. Offering a healing loving heart to so much deep abuse, of 5 generations in every possible direction of relationships, I feel deep respect, humility and wonder, that is absolutely effecting my own life.
As one of you said, to not take it too personal, I AM touched very deep inside of myself, because this is not just a ‘healing’ of one family history, this is about the horrible dynamic of men and women all over the world, this is about misunderstanding, feeling unloved and not respected, in reaction hurting others. This about the worst case scenario where people are hurt and want to hurt as revenge and as a way to tranfer their own pain to kill ‘innocence’ in others. I want to be touched by it because it brings me deeper and deeper into my own pure place of innocence. In helping them, I am healing myself. So I do not fear them, I love them for what they offer, they are my teachers of how to connect with that pure place inside of each of us…
Innocent Love to All,
Wendy
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