How often we find ourselves turning our backs on our actual friends, that we might go and meet their ideal cousins. ~ Henry David Thoreau
Forgiveness is a subtle art that has huge benefits. One of the reasons it is not more widely practiced is that we don't preface our forgiveness with acceptance. Many well-intentioned people try to jump over their negative feelings to achieve forgiveness. Perhaps some people can seal off their negative feelings with a shift to forgiveness, but most of us find that unless we achieve an organic forgiveness, the negative feelings keep coming back.
The art of organic forgiveness rests on fully acknowledging your negative feelings for the person you're trying to forgive. When you can celebrate your anger or sadness about the person, you can often feel the blossoming of a more permanent form of forgiveness. the negative feelings you nay have about the other person usually recede and disappear only after they are fully acknowledged. (Excerpt from A Year of Living Consciously by Gay Hendricks)
I think this is the main reason why people who are estranged cannot wholly heal and bridge the chasm of bad feelings, the negativity is still in the system. We do have to fully acknowledge its existence and deal with it before the relationship can be redeemed.
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