Ok, let’s face it. We’ve all experienced hurt in our lives. Little hurts. And major MACK TRUCK SIZED HURTS!!!
The question is – what do we do with our hurts?
Do we keep holding on to what ‘He said. . . ‘ or what ‘She did . . . ‘, carrying our hurts around in an invisible nap sac on our back, wondering what that foul smell is that keeps wafting in and out of our lives as we hold onto our festering anger and hate?
Or do we perhaps put the nap sac down. Open it up. Take a good heartfelt look at our hurt and decide whether or not it might be time for us to forgive and move on, so that we ourselves can live a happier, healthier and more light-filled life?
It’s often quoted that ‘refusing to forgive another is like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die.’ In the end we’re the one that suffers.
We all know we need to forgive and move on. However, what if the person we need to forgive the most is OURSELF? How do we actually do that when we’re both the perpetrator and the victim? The accuser and the accused? The blamee and the blamed?
How BIG A Person ARE You?
It takes a big person to forgive another. And sometimes it can take an even bigger person to forgive them self.
Whether we’re a perfectionist, a saddist, or just outright stubborn in our nature, when we refuse to forgive ourselves it’s kind of like a double whammy in the forgiveness world.
It’s not just a win-lose, it’s a lose-lose. Because the person we’re angry with can’t apologize and make amends given that the person that’s angry with them refuses to forgive. So we keep ourselves trapped in the pain of our own anger and self-imposed hurt.
Why Our Resistance To Forgive Ourself?
The question is, why do we NOT want to forgive ourselves?
I mean, we all mess up from time to time. We make a decision that we wish we hadn’t. We take our eye off the ball and miss a great opportunity. We open our mouths and say the wrong thing. We try to keep the peace and then wish we’d stood up more for ourselves.
We all say and do things that with the benefit of harry hindsight we wish we’d done differently. So why is it so difficult to forgive ourselves?
There’s several reasons we refuse to forgive others, most of which are based around protecting ourselves.
We refuse to forgive another person, in the hope that they’ll feel our pain and will acknowledge what they’ve done and take responsibility for the hurt they’ve caused, so we can then feel more safe in the knowing that they’ve learned from the situation and won’t do it again.
Often times once we've been reassured that the wrong-doer has learned their lesson, then forgiveness comes easily.
So why can’t we apply the same principle to ourselves? If we make a mistake, we then:
Acknowledge what's happened
Clarify what we’ve learned from the experience
Forgive ourselves in the knowing that we're all human, we all learn from our mistakes, and we it's ok to give ourselves a big hug and get on with enjoying the here and now, instead of keeping ourselves prisoner in our past
It’s a pretty simple formula. . . Acknowledge, clarify, forgive and move on !
Apply Your Self LOVE
When you think about it, forgiving yourself is the ultimate act of self LOVE.
To be able to love yourself enough to be able to say to yourself:
'You know what. . . I don’t have to be perfect. . .
we’re all human and we all learn by our experiences. . .
and I love myself no matter what because deep down inside
I know I’m an incredibly magnificent Divine Being and
life’s too much of a precious gift to keep wasting my future on
worrying about my past. So I now choose to forgive myself and
get on with being the beautiful me that I AM!!! '
That’s true self love in action. Forgiving yourself in such a way that you release yourself from the poisonous energy of your own anger, hurt, judgement, and blame and instead choose to give yourself permission to learn and move forward. To stop beating yourself up and start living the gift that is your life more fully.
That’s the gift of forgiveness, motivated by the power of self love.
And you hold the power in your heart and mind to do so, if you so choose.
It’s your life. To forgive or not to forgive? That is the question we need to ask ourselves in the understanding that there is no right or wrong. There is simply the choice. And preferably a heartfelt one.
Until next time…
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'Written by healer and author Juliet Martine, www.julietmartine.com'