Who do YOU forgive for?
So what happens when someone else hurts us? What now? What do you do from there? We've probably all been hurt at some point in our lives. But after that happens, now what? Do we hold onto the hurt/offense? Do we allow ourselves to fall apart? Do we stay stuck in that moment longer than we should? Truth be told, we've probably all done some or ALL of those things before. I know that I have. At times I even let it consume me because I wanted to hold onto the anger just a tad bit longer until I got it all out of my system. MAN! What a total waste of MY emotional energy!! That actually caused me more stress & sickness in my mind and in my body than I realized at the time.
A good friend of mine suggests that when I have these types of feelings, I should go ahead and feel it, embrace it and then make the decision to move past it! WHY? Because the decision is ultimately MY decision to make and I can choose to hold onto the hurt/offense, sulk and get entangled in it, or I can choose to move past it and let the healing process begin.
Oftentimes we choose to sulk and to hold onto the hurt and the pain. Some people are still holding onto past hurts that other people have deposited in their lives, years ago. You can hear it through the negative words that they still utter about a person. What they don't realize is that the other person moved on years ago but they are the ones who are STILL holding onto the hurt/offense.
We've all heard it before... "Forgiveness is NOT for the other person, Forgiveness is for YOU". We can always move on from a person and most oftentimes we do just that! However, without forgiveness, we're the ones who choose to continue holding onto the memories of that person from years past, not realizing that they've already let it go & moved on. We become prisoners of our own thoughts because we choose to replay those old offenses in our minds. Once we decide to let those things go, those bitter memories won't continue to plague our thoughts and we'll begin to experience a new found peace of mind.
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