Letting Go And Learning To Forgive.

An introspective on the pain we hold onto and why we shouldn’t.

               I’d like to begin with one of my favorite quotes, “Forgiving isn’t something you do for someone else. It’s something you do for yourself.” – Jodi Picoult

So why is this one of my favorite quotes? It’s because it is for your own inner peace that you forgive someone. So that you can stop thinking about them and feeling hurt when you do. If you can’t forgive someone, it begins to turn into hatred and bile. It forces the hurting emotions to rise up and make you believe you need to take action. This is because you are still actively hurting. Forgiving is putting an end to your hurting. Now, don’t misunderstand me. Forgiveness is not easy and can take a very long time to come to depending on what was done to you. It’s still a goal you should put time into walking towards, so let me give you a few ways that I have learned to help me in forgiving someone.

Relax       

First let’s get rid of this idea that you can force yourself to forgive someone. You can’t. If your heart isn’t feeling it, it won’t, but there are ways to coax yourself into relaxing into forgiveness. Let’s start with that. Taking a breath and relax yourself. See if you can take some time away from your issue to see how that makes you feel? Even if its just a short meditation or bath in which you allow yourself to be however you are, with no pressure to push forward.

Shift Your Perspective

Another thing that tends to help me forgive, honestly more than anything else, is to walk a mile in their shoes. Now I am not telling you to go steal their shoes and walk in them, so lets stop that silliness right there. What I am telling you is to see if you can understand things from their side. Maybe you’re thinking someone hurt you on purpose, but when you really think about it, they never knew what they did would hurt you. Continuing that line of thought, maybe if someone stole from you it was from a place of need or sickness. Maybe it’s a cry for help and by realizing their side of the story it may make you more empathetic to them than you were, thinking only about how you feel. Truly getting into the other persons mind, accepting that maybe there are truths to their side of the story may change everything about your own perception of events. So I’d give it a try.

Remember

 Lastly I’m a big fan of the idea to always forgive but never forget. You shouldn’t forget that someone stole from you, even if you forgive them, because you need that knowledge to help prevent the problem in the future. You also need to remember to keep them held accountable. Not all people are worthy of forgiveness either, or just because you forgave doesn’t mean they corrected the behavior wholesale. Some weaknesses of the mind take a long and large amount of time and patience to work through. Dealing with someone who has lied to you is also difficult because while you may forgive, you need not to forget so you can help keep them and yourself honest with the situation.

Forgiveness is honestly a beautiful thing to work toward, and it does also help keep our relationships healthy moving forward. People are not perfect, and we all make mistakes. A little bit of forgiveness helps us all to keep from severing relationships that are good on the whole prematurely and at the end of the day, there’s nothing better than being about to be around people for many years who love and forgive you for who you are.

A Broken Watch

The broken watch you wear

Is made of your iron ichor

The shattered glass reflects your face

Which sours with each forgotten tick

How long has it been?

And how long until you let it go?

When most people stare into a mirror

They don’t look for what was, but what is

So why can’t you?

Clawing at a door of metal is futile

You must seek another way

But sometimes it is closed for good

And you must learn to bear the weight

There’s no more sense in speaking now

You must choose this for yourself

Or stay as time and passion’s slave

And never live another day

Past the time your watch did stop