Forgiveness - Why & How

"As long as you don't forgive, who and whatever it is will occupy rent-free space in your mind."  — Isabelle Holland
Many people find it extremely difficult, if not impossible, to forgive — whether themselves, a parent or other family member, friends or acquaintances, a boss or co-worker, or even a total stranger  — for doing or saying something which created pain for themselves or someone else.
"Whatever we have done, we can always make amends for it without ever looking back in guilt or sorrow."  — Eknath Easwaran
DO NOT confuse forgiveness with approval for bad behavior. You don't forgive yourself or anyone else for them — it's for YOU. Refusing to forgive only continues to hurt you!
"I can change. I can live out my imagination instead of my memory. I can tie myself to my limitless potential instead of my limiting past."  —  Stephen Covey
Forgiving the inappropriate behavior of either yourself or someone else has important benefits and absolutely no disadvantages:
Get off the emotional roller coaster of anger, resentment, and desire for vengeance. Admit out loud to yourself all of your intense feelings about a painful experience. Allow all of your hidden thoughts and feelings to finally surface in order to set them free.
"Learning to be aware of feelings, how they arise and how to use them creatively so they guide us to happiness, is an essential lifetime skill."   — Joan Borysenko
Stop living in the past and peacefully move onto to living your life. Accept that whatever happened can never be undone. When you start to relive a bad experience, imagine grabbing you mind with your hands and physically turning it in another direction. Focus on and be grateful for the good things in your life NOW. Emotionally refuse to continue being a victim of someone else's bad choices.
"The period of greatest gain in knowledge and experience is the most difficult period in one's life."  — Dalai Lama
Accept bad behavior (both small, insignificant or major, immoral situations) as an immature, desperate, or ignorant choice; and/or seek legal justice. Take action to ensure a bad situation will not occur again, but then just let go of trying to change something which has already happened.
"To attain knowledge, add things every day.  To attain wisdom, remove things every day." — Lao Tzu
Learn to stop taking everything someone else says or does personally. Life always includes both injuries and healing, so view life and situations in perspective. Understand that — just like you — everyone is doing the best they can to protect themselves from being hurt. Essentially, that means YOU are seldom the most important person in anyone else's life, just as few others are more important to you than you are to yourself.
"Let him who would enjoy a good future waste none of his present."  — Roger Babson

1 comment:

  1. Glenda, I like your message here. I try to live by this. I have done a lot of forgiving over the last few years and it feels good and right. Even now as I set a boundary, I forgive the behavior in myself and the other that warranted the need to take a break.

    ReplyDelete