The definition of forgiveness is giving up your just right to revenge

"The definition of forgiveness is giving up your just right to revenge."

Is the endless activity of tit for tat stoppable without this precept?

Yet I wonder, can a bully ever by retrained to serve as a useful member of civilization, without experiencing the pain he/she gives others. To discover that to bully means getting bullied right back, instantly. And therefore maybe figuring out that bullying is not the best mode of relating.

It may be too much to ask of bullies, to teach them to identify with others that can be hurt, and feel their pain as if his/her own, to see what it is like. (Hopefully to not sadistically want more of it, however, as some psychotic phenomenon.)

The taking of revenge seems to be instinctive effort to let the wanabe bullies be aware of the painful mess he/she can do, so as hopefully to later choose a more happy wholesome outcome for all concerned.

Yet clearly in practice, as in Israel-Palestine and Ireland-North-Ireland, the tit-for-tat just goes on and on. You hit me I hit you back. And then the other says and does the same thing back. Back and forth, on and on. Is the lesson being learned, to not hit "me"? Apparently not.

(I resist repeating here, the ancient mammalian archetype of the two stags, battling each other with their horns to the death, that only one of them will have the two does to breed; instead of each having one doe to breed, as 50-50 implies.)

The technique of applying "the definition of forgiveness is giving up your just right to revenge" has been brought and shown to be effective several times in the progress of civilization. It can work.

Yet it is also demonstrable that a bully will use you as a doormat on and on without end, unless something stops him/her from doing it. Forgiveness, turning the other cheek, does not always get the bully to lay off.

But it does keep oneself from adding to the wrongs being done, the bad karma being made. So this forgiveness may not be part of the solution; but it is preventing oneself from becoming part of the problem.

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However, there is more. What appears to be a new tool for ending this endless Hatfield-McCoy phenomenon that people sometimes choose to play, appeared quietly about a dozen years ago and has been getting the field testing done ever since. Although its intent is not to relieve the impasse of feuds, it may incidentally be able to resolve the problem.

It goes by the simple name of "Emotional Freedom Technique," abbreviated "EFT." It is a technique for giving a person emotional freedom so as to clear trauma's energy patterns from the person.

The scientific principles by which it works have yet to be acknowledged; but that it works and works very well, has been proven tens of thousands of times in field testing; oneself can test it by following a simple procedure. The problem is, that it's theory of operation involves an ancient understanding of the human being, that is not yet acknowledged by today's cadaver-measured medical system's understanding of the human being. It requires a plain let's see if it works attitude, to discover its truth for oneself. Generally it involves calling up a trauma in memory and holding it there while tapping a few times on a few points on the face and upper body, such as the inner eyebrow point, the outer edge of the eye socket, under the eye, between the nose and upper lip, between the lower lip and chin, on the hollows below center of the collar bone, a few inches under the left arm's location, the top of the head and the edge of the hand. Then notice the intensity of the trauma's distressing energy; it normally has reduced way down, perhaps no longer can be found at all in the memory of the event. Simple to do, yet profound in what it does.

As for EFT's potential involvement in resolving tit-for-tat messing around, it can be pointed out that the result of doing EFT on oneself or on others, is that the event's memory remains quite clear, but the trauma's disruptive energy is so thoroughly gone that it often is not even remembered as ever existing. There is no vision nor energy for driving oneself to take revenge. Other far more effective paths for solutions can then be sought and found. The Hatfield-McCoy tit-for-tat knee-jerk game is seen for what it is; and much more pleasant options are far more interesting than making more mess.

The Emotional Freedom Technique uses the hypothesis that people have several specific internal energy flow systems, and those systems get disrupted by trauma that locks in those disruptions, to forever after disrupt the person. Bullies use the technique of beating up on someone once, to form a trauma imprint that the injured person must thereafter obey the bully, fantasizing the traumatic disruption pattern would be repeated physically if ever not obeying the bully. The EFT protocol involves calling up the trauma in memory and holding it in one's attention, while tapping a few times on each of the end-points of those energy flows, thus balancing one's energy flows; and the trauma pattern's disruption is then gone. It does not matter if one agrees to the energy-flow hypothesis; the EFT protocol just works, regardless of the belief system.

Now, those who use bully techniques in today's world are not just the ones using bombs and guns, or being dictatorial tyrants in the Middle-Eastern countries, or religious sect obedient fanatics. There is a hierarchy of bullying, and sometimes can be reflected in parts of the corporate or political org chart. Thus to let EFT erase all that buildup of trauma enforcing chain of obedience, is probably not appreciated by the powers-that-be, since it might undercut all their years of clever abusive fighting to get to the top. Thus EFT gets suppressed from general awareness; and all then continues to work as before, business as usual, top dogs stay on top.

Nonetheless, EFT remains a potential game-changer, in the phenomenon of the otherwise probably endless tit-for-tat revenge game that we as humans have the instinctive option to play. We have another option besides that of saying "the buck stops here" in the game of tit-for-tat abuse, by applying "the definition of forgiveness is giving up your just right to revenge." We now also can use EFT's protocol to neutralize the energy that compels us to seek revengeful activity, or even to continue to monsterize the ones making the most recent tit-for-tat move. We can see the world clearly, at long last, for what it is. And make our decisions from that wonderous place. We can choose to no longer be part of the problem, and to instead be part of a real solution, since we are no longer dancing endlessly to the tune of the trauma.

And then perhaps becoming a humanity, more worthy of the name.