Tiny Buddha

Tag: forgiveness

  • Choose to Forgive and Grow from Your Pain, Because You Deserve to Be Happy

    Choose to Forgive and Grow from Your Pain, Because You Deserve to Be Happy

    Sad Man

    “Bad things do happen; how I respond to them defines my character and the quality of my life. I can choose to sit in perpetual sadness, immobilized by the gravity of my loss, or I can choose to rise from the pain and treasure the most precious gift I have—life itself.” ~Walter Anderson

    “Are you really okay?” I lost count of how many times my immediate family and friends asked me this question.

    My positive, light-hearted attitude seemed to be difficult for people to comprehend, but for me it was the only option and means for survival.

    I remember the situation like it just happened yesterday.

    I was driving home during a holiday weekend after hanging out with a couple of friends and received a text message stating, “This is his girlfriend.”

    At that precise moment, it felt like my heart stopped beating for a minute.

    I had to pull over at a gas station to catch my breath and allow the tears to flow down my cheeks so that the road could be visible again.

    I responded to the text and told her to call me. I spent over an hour listening to another woman cry and try to understand what was happening.

    The man that I had been dating for over a year had been with this woman for over five years and to put the icing on the cake, they live together.

    Fact vs. Fiction

    Imagine meeting your dream guy at a wedding party mixer. He was handsome, ambitious, athletic, family-oriented, fun, and the list goes on.

    He was the epitome of a typical “perfect mate” list so many people draft hoping to find that person.

    We had amazing chemistry, always laughing and enjoying good conversations. We spent a lot of time talking about our dreams, ambitions, family, and personal obstacles. It just seemed so easy, perfect in a sense.

    He and I both lived in different states, so we made travel arrangements to see each other.

    I would complain about us not seeing each other as often as I would have liked to, but his gentle reminder about the nature of his demanding job would quickly stroke my compassionate, understanding side.

    It was not until I moved closer that I began to question his behaviors.

    Originally, we lived over ten hours apart, but after I relocated due to a job promotion, we were now three hours apart. The excuses about not being able to travel due to his work schedule were a tad irrelevant at this point.

    His stories about his car being in the shop, which restricted his travel, and the story about his coworker moving in with him temporarily due to some personal problems did not seem to make sense after a while, but sometimes you want to believe the best in a person despite what your instincts are telling you.

    It was not until my hour-long conversation with his live in girlfriend of five years that I realized the extent of the lies he’d told. This dream guy was not the person I thought he was. I had been awakened from the dream.

    You Have a Choice

    It was at this moment, I had to make a decision. Did I want to react from an emotional, hurt place and focus on my pain? Or did I want to help this woman who had plans to marry this man, who lives with him, who has made many more sacrifices than I ever did to be with him?

    See, this woman had been with him to aid him while he transitioned careers, when his family disowned him, when he had nothing. Listening to her story tugged at my heartstrings and made me for a brief minute forget about my feelings.

    So many times in life we get so focused on ourselves and do not lend ourselves to be in the moment and hear others. Yes, what happened to me was like a scene out of your favorite Lifetime movie, but my situation was nothing in comparison to hers.

    I had the option to easily remove myself from the situation and allow time to heal the wound, while she had to literally undergo a complete lifestyle change.

    Life is about choices.

    You can choose to stay in bad circumstances.

    You can choose to listen to your instincts and your gut feelings that tell you something is not right.

    You can choose to support a complete stranger and be the listening ear during their time of need.

    You can choose to release a situation—the pain, the hurt, the sadness, the anger.

    And more importantly, you can choose to forgive someone you never received an apology from. Forgiving an individual who you feel may have hurt you initiates the healing process.

    The first step in the healing process was being able to truly address how I felt about the situation. Unfortunately, I did not have the opportunity to speak to this person to get an explanation or an apology, and I had to learn how to process my feelings without internalizing them.

    Using techniques such as journaling and exercising, as well as speaking to close friends and family about the situation, really helped with getting my thoughts out.

    However, I believe allowing myself to learn and grow from the experience is what helped me to move forward.

    It’s so easy for us to embrace the victim mentality and place blame on other people for their wrongdoing, but this is the very type of mentality that keeps us angry, bitter, and hurt.

    There is healing in accepting your role in each situation, and for me that was accepting the fact that I chose to avoid the signs.

    I wanted to believe that this person truly loved and cared about me and would never hurt me, so I chose to look the other way, and that is not a demonstration of self-love.

    Over the course of time, I was able to embrace the fact that every being is flawed and we all make mistakes. By no means was I or am I perfect, so who am I to hold this grudge and anger toward another being?

    At times, I thought to myself this man is delusional and absolutely crazy for trying to live a double life. However, for a brief moment, I realized he was probably miserable and seeking an escape from his reality and at that moment, I felt bad for him.

    For me, forgiving this man was pivotal for my life and well-being, because I was able to learn the value of self-love again.

    I found strength, joy, overwhelming gratitude, and peace. I also learned one bad relationship is not an indication that every relationship will be horrible.

    Choose to grow from your pain and learn to forgive, because you deserve to be happy.

    Sad man image via Shutterstock

  • How to Let Go of the Pain of Anger and Blame

    How to Let Go of the Pain of Anger and Blame

    Sad Woman Crying

    “Resentment is like drinking poison and then hoping it will kill your enemies.” ~Nelson Mandela

    Has anger ever filled you up so completely that you felt you’d explode?

    Two months after I had a baby I suddenly found myself inextricably angry. Yes, I felt the joy and happy stuff that everyone tells you about.

    But having a daughter also triggered a flash flood of buried anger, blame, and resentment. And it was all directed to one person—my mother.

    A therapist told me once that my mother had “verbally abused” me. That launched a fifteen-year process of rehashing and blaming my plethora of emotional issues on my mother.

    But no matter how many therapists or coaches told me that she “didn’t form a proper attachment” or whatever, I always defended her. That is, until I became a mother myself.

    When my own nurturing instinct kicked in, I realized what I’d missed out on as a child. I was overwhelmed by “how coulds.” How could anyone treat a little girl that way?

    The anger overtook me. It was like a well of blame had opened up and I had fallen in. Something had to shift.

    In truth, it happened fast. You might think it would take years to let go of anger and blame so strong it feels like it’s coming out of your eyeballs.

    But once I realized how to let it go, all at once, poof, I was free. Now years later, I’ve never looked back.

    How did I do it? I discovered the profound meaning of two words: perspective and compassion.

    Life is Like a Box of Hair Dye

    My mother grew up in the South in the sixties. I’ve watched enough Mad Men to know that life for women in my mother’s generation was very different.

    Women’s value was heavily dependent on their looks and the look of their houses. Combine that world-view with a heaping helping of stress from an overwhelming job and you get a picture of my mother.

    Think of an uber stressed-out Betty Draper. At thirteen, when my blonde hair started fading to light brown, she started dying it. “Boys won’t like you with brown hair,” she said.

    Yelling was the norm and more I cried the more she yelled. I was an only child, lost in a world where my looks and image were tantamount to survival and nothing I did was enough.

    The Blame-Spin Cycle

    Getting stuck in blame feels like walking through an endless maze, looking for cheese that doesn’t exist. That’s what therapy felt like.

    The more I re-counted the past, the madder I became and the more hopeless I felt. I was spinning in an endless cycle of blame, anger, and resentment.

    What is the end game? What do I do with the fact that my mother’s behavior may have caused me pain later in life?

    It was a well-meaning friend who finally cracked the code, over wine and panic one afternoon. I had called her over because I felt too emotionally unstable to be alone with my infant daughter.

    “Why don’t you just ask her why she did it?” she asked.

    That had never occurred to me.

    I’d Like Perspective with a Side of Compassion Please

    “It was the only way I knew…” she explained, after I found the courage to ask her why she had treated me so harshly.

    My mother then went on to recount tales of her childhood. You know the beginning of Cinderella, when she spends her hours cleaning endlessly at the whim of a demanding mother?

    That’s the image that came to mind as my mom recounted years of cleaning and re-cleaning my grandmother’s house. The family was not allowed to leave the house to do any activities until the house was spotless.

    And of course, the cleaning always took up the entire day, disappointing my mom and her sister every time. My grandmother, it turned out, had been an even stronger product of her environment.

    Why are people the way they are? If you can ask yourself that question before passing judgment, you can save yourself tremendous mental energy.

    When I started understanding the world for my mother and grandmother, I was flooded with intense compassion. Think of Biff in any Back to the Future movie, when manure was inevitably dumped on his head—that was what happened to me with compassion.

    Suddenly I realized that no one is to blame. If I blame my mother for my problems, then I have to blame my grandmother for my mother’s problems. And then I’d have to blame the Great Depression and society for my grandmother’s problems.

    I just don’t have enough space for all of that anger.

    Getting perspective on a situation and fully understanding the whole story is like pulling back the curtain and finding the little man with the booming voice in The Wizard of Oz. It loses its power over you.

    Could my mother have made different choices? Of course she could have. Did she do the best she could with who she was back then? Yes, I believe she did.

    Setting Yourself Free

    What happened happened. No amount of blame, resentment, or anger at my mother will make it not have happened. It is just what happened.

    We can let what happened control us and we can live in blame and anger, or we can let it go and free ourselves. When you hold on to anger, it’s you who suffers. You’re the one who has to live in your head.

    Forgiveness has nothing to do with the other person. You don’t have to tell him that you forgive him, or even talk to her again if you don’t want to.

    This process is simply about changing the way you see someone so that you can stop wasting valuable emotional energy. If you are holding onto resentment or anger, today is the day to set yourself free.

    Right now, think of one person who isn’t safe to walk down the streets of your mind without being attacked.

    Picture your story about that person. Then try to tell the story again from her perspective.

    What is the back-story? Think about her childhood; when did she get hurt?

    Find some way to see the story that allows you to feel compassion. It may not be easy at first, but there is always an answer.

    The forgiveness journey is worth taking 1,000 times over. I can’t even begin to describe how much this idea shifted my experience in life.

    Letting go of the anger feels like flying. By getting perspective on the story and uncovering compassion, you have the power to set yourself free.

    Sad woman image via Shutterstock

  • Letting Go of Anger: Forgiveness Is a Choice and a Process

    Letting Go of Anger: Forgiveness Is a Choice and a Process

    Forgive on Stones

    “Forgiving someone doesn’t mean condoning their behavior. It doesn’t mean forgetting how they hurt you or giving that person room to hurt you again. Forgiving someone means making peace with what happened. It means acknowledging your wound, giving yourself permission to feel the pain, and recognizing why that pain no longer serves you. It means letting go of the hurt and resentment so that you can heal and move on. ~Daniell Koepke

    My father leaned back in his overstuffed recliner, eating the double-chocolate raspberry gelato I had just bought for him as he stared entranced at the television.

    His feeble body was bent over in pain and his feet were as swollen as sausages. A wave of sadness mixed with acceptance rolled through me and I felt peaceful.

    My father is slowly deteriorating from Parkinson’s disease, and at the age of eighteen, it’s a difficult experience for me to go through. Heck, going through death at any age is difficult.

    For years, my relationship has been very tense with my father. I used to have major “daddy issues” and held onto a lot of pain from my childhood.

    When I was younger, he wasn’t always the nicest man, especially when it came to disciplining. I can remember him screaming at me to get on the ground and do push-ups for back-talking my mother.

    His eyes were full of hate and anger, and for the next ten years I would hold a deep resentment for him centered around memories such as those.

    This past May, I graduated from high school and was faced with the path of choosing a school. I’m a very serious musician, so I auditioned at eight schools all over the country, and got accepted to six.

    It was a major accomplishment. But, as my anger continued to brew for my father and his health deteriorated, I realized that he wouldn’t be here much longer. If I wanted to make things right and receive closure, I had to act now.

    I decided to take a gap year to spend time with my father and take some much needed time for myself. Most importantly I wanted to learn about ultimate forgiveness.

    Giving up all those schools and scholarships was difficult, but what I realized would be more difficult was giving up the healing process I could go through right now regarding my past relationship with my dad.

    So here are three lessons I have learned from going through this process with my father. I’m sure I will learn much more in the year to come, but I believe I have learned some valuable lessons thus far.

    1. Life is too short to hold onto regrets.

    When a life or death situation happens, you soon realize that some things really don’t matter. I could easily hold onto resentment for my father’s actions, but you know what? I don’t want to be thirty-five or sixty-two regretting that I never made peace with him while he was still alive.

    I could wait, because forgiveness doesn’t require his participation, but why prolong my unhappiness? An added bonus has been my ability to enjoy getting to know him a bit from a loving perspective.

    2. Forgiveness is a process; it’s not magic.

    This is a common misconception. Saying, “I’m sorry,” and expecting everything to fade away and be sunshine and roses is ridiculous. You will be angry and feel those resentful feelings again and again. But, you have a choice.

    When you have those feelings, you can question them. Is it really worth it? Can you see it another way? Are these hurtful thoughts bringing you peace? I choose peace.

    3. Real forgiveness does not require two people.

    My father has no clue that I am going through this process or even that I have held some major resentment. If I felt sharing with him would help the forgiveness process, I would share. But in my opinion, it all has to do with me giving up blame.

    My, father, like many people, had a very hard life and abusive parents as role models. He honestly did the best he could.

    This is not excusing his behavior. However, I realize that holding blame just eats me up in the inside. I would rather forgive his behavior and look at how it has benefited me than hold resentment.

    I appreciate the sacrifices he has made for me and realize he was the exact father I needed for my self-growth process. If it weren’t for him, I probably would not have developed such a positive, meaningful relationship with my mother.

    I know his sickness will only get worse from here and I’m at peace with that. I’m happy that my sweet father is transitioning to a better place and am thankful for all of the life lessons he has taught me.

    Remember that life has an expiration date, which should push you to live the fullest every day. And it should be an even greater reminder to love deeply and always, always forgive.

    Forgive on stones image via Shutterstock

  • 5 Crippling Lies About Forgiveness (and the Truths That Set You Free)

    5 Crippling Lies About Forgiveness (and the Truths That Set You Free)

    “Forgiveness has nothing to do with absolving a criminal of his crime. It has everything to do with relieving oneself of the burden of being a victim.” ~C.R. Strahan

    It’s not fair, is it?

    Getting hurt. All over again.

    It wasn’t so bad forgiving them the first time. You rose to the occasion. You became the bigger person. You tried to move on.

    You thought you had to. After all, they did ask nicely.

    You just knew you’d be BFFs again and go right back to, “Let’s go for Jamba Juice!”

    But it didn’t go down like that, did it?

    No BFFs. No Jamba Juice. Not even a check-in text.

    You put it all on the line and forgave them. Now they’ve let you down again, and you can’t help but think it was the biggest mistake you ever made. And on top of it all, you can’t stop wondering why it all happened to you.

    I used to wonder that too.

    When I was fourteen, my mom sent me away. She thought it would be nice if there were a nun in the family. And I was going to be it.

    I had never been further than my Mamaw’s house. I had just shaved my legs for the first time and gotten my room back after the toddlers moved into the new add-on.

    Now, I’d be sharing a room with three other postulants over 1,100 miles away—sleeping on used hospital beds. In silence. For six years.

    My life, as I knew it, had ended.

    I wasn’t allowed to spend holidays at home. I never got another birthday present. And for six years, all I wore was a homemade blue habit with a plastic collar I had to scrub with a toothbrush.

    But then I got out. And my life ended all over again.

    Where do you fit when you don’t fit anywhere? I didn’t know anyone. No one knew me. My little brothers and sisters were all teenagers by then. My dad had married the woman he’d had an affair with. And to top it all off, my mom wouldn’t let me come home.

    I just wanted to move on. I thought forgiving everyone would make it okay. Forgive my family for giving me away. Forgive the nuns for going all American Horror Story on me. Forgive the Catholic church for expecting me to make up something to say in confession every week. Forgive my parakeet for dying while I was gone.

    The more I told myself to stop being angry, the angrier I got. The more I tried to let it go, the more it haunted me at every turn.

    After six years, I should have been an expert at forgiveness. But in reality, I was as clueless as a homeless kid trapped in a grown-up twilight zone.

    In the end, forgiveness actually became my ultimate game-changer. But only after I saw through the lies people led me to believe.

    Can You Trust Everything You Believe About Forgiveness?

    There’s a whole lot of noise out there about forgiveness. And you know what noise does? It chats up your Inner Victim and distracts you. The louder the noise gets, the quicker you need to call in your Inner Skeptic. Because some of the noise is nothing but big, fat lies.

    Lying to yourself while you forgive someone is worse than not forgiving them at all.

    If you want to open your heart to freedom, you must open your eyes about forgiveness. Here are some crippling myths about forgiving that leave you victimized and the truths that will set you free.

    Lie: When I forgive, I have to forget what happened and move on.

    Truth: Remembering how you got hurt empowers you to forgive and create the life you deserve.

    When I got home, I tried to forgive my mom for making me grow up isolated and alone. I thought I had to forget that I’d never been allowed to talk to a guy who wasn’t a relative.

    The one awkward time I got asked to dance at a happy hour, I freaked out and started picking an imaginary bug out of my drink. Right then, I wanted nothing more than to crawl into that cup and float around with the ice cubes.

    Acting like the convent never happened was like walking through a minefield with my eyes shut and a great big target on my back. When you forget, you don’t know how to navigate. When you can’t navigate, you fake it.

    Faking it is not forgiveness. Faking it does not set you free and keep you safe.

    That’s why it’s important to remember. Remembering what happened gives you a compass for where you want to be. It lets you go easy on yourself while you design how it’s going to be from now on.

    Remembering how I was kept isolated told me that I didn’t deserve to be lonely any longer. Once I knew I could surround myself with loving relationships in my life, I was open to forgiving my mom.

    Honoring your reality lets you build the life you deserve and empowers you to forgive.

    Lie: Forgiveness wipes the slate clean and gives them another chance to hurt me.

    Truth: Forgiveness doesn’t invite you to get hurt again. Forgiveness empowers you to teach others how to treat you differently.

    Forgiving someone takes a lot of honesty. Honesty about yourself and how you deserve to be treated, and honesty about the one who hurt you and how they’re inclined to act around you.

    You don’t cause the way someone else acts, but you can invite them to act differently with you. If they don’t want to play nice, you get to change the way you show up around them.

    When my brother texted me that they all changed their minds about picking me up at the airport, I got frantic. It was Christmas. Mom’s house was an hour away. And all the rental cars were taken.

    When you trust people to be exactly who they are, you can adjust your expectations of them accordingly.

    I told my family that I wanted control over my travel arrangements and would get my own room and join them for dinner.

    The long drive gave me time to think and see them honestly after they let me down. Right then, I decided that I wouldn’t rely on unreliable people any longer. Suddenly, I wasn’t expecting them to rescue me. And I was able to forgive them.

    Forgiveness lets you see your offender honestly and puts you in charge of how you’re treated.

    Lie: I have to forgive someone or they won’t heal and be forgiven.

    Truth: When someone asks for forgiveness, they want their own peace back. And that’s not even something you can give them.

    One of the biggest truths I learned is that forgiveness heals me. I can’t do someone else’s healing for them.

    The only time my mother ever asked me to forgive her was late at night, in the privacy of her own living room, at the bottom of a bottle of Sandeman’s Port.

    “Will you forgive me? For everything?”

    “Sure. Yeah. Of course,” I’d say. But next year would only find her crying at the bottom of another bottle. I wanted her to be happy. But I couldn’t go there for her.

    Setting people free to walk through their own darkness is the truest test of your own freedom.

    Lie: I can’t forgive someone who doesn’t deserve to be forgiven.

    Truth: Forgiveness doesn’t give others what they deserve. Forgiveness gives you the only chance of ever getting what you truly deserve—your freedom.

    Freedom means you let go of hurting and decide to take the good stuff for a change.

    Letting yourself feel better takes a lot of trust. Trust that there’s enough good stuff out there for you. Trust that even if the bad guy gets some, there’s still always plenty for you.

    My early phone chats with Mom always ended badly. She’d start in with, “Remember when you guys used to—” And I’d cut in that, “No, Mom. I don’t remember. I never lived in that house. I was in a convent.” As soon as she’d come back with, “Well, I hope you don’t think that was my idea!” the F-bombs would hit the fan.

    I thought I never could forgive her if she wouldn’t admit all that happened to me. Truth is, I don’t think she’ll ever understand all that happened to me. And eventually, it didn’t matter. I stopped waiting for her to deserve it and just gave myself the good stuff anyway.

    Forgiveness isn’t about balancing the scales of justice. Forgiveness is about attaining your own freedom along the way.

    Lie: I can’t forgive until I know the reason this happened to me.

    Truth: You may never know the reason anything happened. But you can create your own reason for everything that happens now.

    What happened to you wasn’t fair. But “why?” is a question you could be chasing to your grave.

    Why torture yourself trying to make sense of what didn’t make sense? You already suffered through what actually happened to you. Why keep feeding the story with endless possibilities of terrible endings?

    I wasted a lot of time wondering why. I wanted it all to somehow make sense. If it wasn’t my fault, it had to be somebody else’s. Because what’s more pointless than thinking that I sacrificed my entire youth for absolutely no reason at all?

    Finally, I gave myself my own reason. I needed a reason to live now.

    If I was going to live, I was going to love living.

    The day I gave myself a reason to live was the day I stopped looking for the reason my youth had died.

    That was the day that I became free.

    Freeing yourself from the burden of “why?” sets you free from an eternal blame game with no end in sight.

    How to Break Free Once and for All

    Can I get real with you for a second?

    We’ve all got an inner victim. Our own personal champion of lies and no way out. And it needs us to believe it.

    Here’s the thing—lies get bigger when you believe them. But so does the truth.

    Stop pointing fingers at the lies you’ve been led to believe.

    You are not a victim. You are strong. And free. And powerful in your truth.

    There’s not a thing standing in your way.

    Set yourself free already! Take the good stuff for a change.

  • Forgiving and Refusing to Let Bad Things Change Us

    Forgiving and Refusing to Let Bad Things Change Us

    Woman watching sunset

    “Humbleness, forgiveness, clarity and love are the dynamics of freedom. They are the foundations of authentic power.” ~Gary Zukav

    It was a little after 9:00 PM when my mother’s next-door neighbor called upset, hysterical even. Within seconds of hearing her voice, I knew something wasn’t right.

    I was getting one of those calls that everyone dreads. Deep breath. She said that my mother had been brutally attacked and had been taken to the hospital.

    Breathe Leslie.

    “What happened?” I asked in my calmest voice, trying hard to listen and not react. “Where is she? What hospital?”

    A family friend had taken advantage of my mother’s kindness. My mother had prepared a special birthday dinner for him, but that wasn’t enough. He wanted more, he wanted money, so he hit her repeatedly over the head with a wooden statue, hoping that she would give in.

    For years, he helped Mom with odd jobs around the house, and now he was her assailant. The amount of blood loss, the tears, the hurt and betrayal—it was the beginning of the longest year of my life.

    Prior to this incident, I was obsessed about living “the dream,” but the truth is I wasn’t happy. I was a control freak who suddenly felt out of control. My desire to marry and have the perfect family no longer seemed important.

    After waiting for hours in the hospital, I entered my mother’s room and broke down at the sight of her ballooned face and shaved head. She was unrecognizable.

    How could he have done this to the sweetest woman on earth? She’s alive, so why am I still angry?

    Many of my friends and family members thought I’d be more equipped to handle an incident of this magnitude, since I’m a licensed social worker who works with non-profit organizations and families. But it was beyond challenging, and there was still so much work and healing to be done.

    Some days later, my mother told us the entire story. She said that when the wooden statue broke, her former handyman grabbed a large crystal vase to continue the beating.

    My mother was fighting back and yelling at him to stop. Then all of the sudden he turned around, gently set the vase on the dining room table, and walked out the front door.

    He had spared her life, and yet I still felt surges of anger flood my body several times throughout the day.

    My mother didn’t start to resemble herself until her second week in physical therapy. Her hair was growing back and she could smile again. I felt relieved because it meant that she had survived.

    As soon as she was able to formulate thoughts and words, she expressed her well wishes toward her attacker. By the time her physical therapy sessions had ended, she had completely forgiven him.

    We knew he had a history of substance abuse, and his defense attorney tried to plead mental illness. He may have been under the influence of drugs when he attacked her, though we can’t be sure.

    Regardless of what compelled him to commit such a horrible act, my mother recognized a hidden blessing in this tragedy: she’d wanted to move closer to her family for some time, and she’d been putting it off until this incident.

    This was the catalyst for something that’s made her genuinely happy, and that helped her let go and forgive.

    A Testament of Love and Forgiveness

    In the book, The Giant Within Us, it reads, “Forgiveness is the miracle of a new beginning. It is to start where we are, not where we wish we were.” I kept hoping to be where my mother was in her process of forgiving, but I wasn’t. This frustrated me.

    When it came to me letting go of the hurt and anger, my approach was vastly different than my mother’s.

    Three practices that worked for me were:

    • Practicing yoga and meditating
    • Expressing gratitude coupled with positive thinking
    • Energy healing

    In the morning, I practiced yoga and meditation, which introduced calm to my day and helped me realize there was so much for which to be grateful.

    When the hurt and anger resurfaced, I brought my attention to my mother’s smile and the sound of her sweet voice until my thoughts faded into nothingness again.

    On the days when I felt extremely low, doing my best in the moment and being positive were equally important. I spent some afternoons walking on my treadmill while watching sci-fi movies. It’s all I had energy for at the time and I told myself that it was okay.

    Months after the attack, a friend suggested that I reach out to an energy healer or practitioner because I was having trouble sleeping. The sessions were relaxing, which greatly decreased my overall stress level.

    The result was that I felt more balanced and clear-headed, and over time the pain and anger disappeared.

    My mother joined a Senior Citizen Center to spend more time outdoors and enjoy life with her peers. She also found peace through engaging in therapy sessions to address her post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

    It’s interesting how my journey of forgiveness involved going inward, whereas my mother focused on external activities. However, we both learned that forgiveness means taking back the power we may have given to someone else for their wrongdoings.

    It’s a personal choice that requires a great deal of commitment, compassion, and patience.

    My mother’s response to the world before and after her attack is to do her part by expressing love, gratitude, and compassion. Her attitude contributed to her steady recovery.

    Mom refused to let the incident change her, and that’s why she’s not only surviving but thriving. Whenever something bad happens, we have a choice: we can get bitter or we can get better. My mom chose the latter. Which will you choose?

    Woman watching sunset image via Shutterstock

  • Let Go of Past Mistakes: 6 Steps To Forgiving Yourself

    Let Go of Past Mistakes: 6 Steps To Forgiving Yourself

    “At any given moment, you have the power to say: This is not how the story is going to end.” ~ Christine Mason Miller 

    Sometimes you do or say things you regret. If you’ve experienced this recently, you might be struggling to forgive yourself, especially if your actions hurt someone you love.

    A few months ago, I had a falling out with a friend. It happened like most misunderstandings do: swiftly and unexpectedly. I barely had time to comprehend what was happening.

    My friend was trying to convince me to join him in a business venture, which I politely tried to decline. After a while of us going back and forth, my patience was wearing thin, and he began to appear less like a friend and more like a pushy salesman.

    He then made a comment that I interpreted as a personal insult. I immediately became angry and lashed out. I thought I was justified in my reaction, but upon reflection, I realized that I had misunderstood his words and rushed to judgment.

    Even after a follow-up conversation, with my apologies and all, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I had made a terrible mistake. I feared that our relationship would never be the same.

    That episode in my life led me to think about the ways we get hung up on our personal failures. They can threaten to keep us stuck in the past and define who we are going forward.

    My personal reflection and experience yielded the following seven steps to forgiving yourself:

    1. Name what you have done.

    Before you can forgive yourself, you must gain some clarity about what happened. Begin by writing down the details of the events and your own actions that contributed to the situation.

    Resist the need to blame any other people or external circumstances, and focus only on yourself. You may experience intense vulnerability when you do this exercise. Engage this vulnerability by compassionately owning it rather than suppressing it.

    In my own situation, I justified my actions by focusing on my friend’s uncharacteristically aggressive behavior. Once I was willing to focus on my own behavior, I could see more clearly that I had judged his words too quickly.

    2. Ask for forgiveness.

    Asking for forgiveness is not easy. Your willingness to approach a person you have hurt means you’re admitting you have done wrong and are sorry for it.

    Avoid minimizing your responsibility by using phrases like, “I’m sorry if…” or, “I’m sorry but…” I knew that I needed to apologize to my friend and take full responsibility for my actions. I simply named the wrong I had done to him and asked for forgiveness.

    3. Forgive yourself every time negative thoughts intrude.

    Sometimes we struggle to forgive ourselves, even when we have been forgiven.

    After my friend and I had resolved our situation, I continued to experience guilt and negative thoughts about my actions.

    I eventually learned that self-forgiveness is not a one-time deal—it’s a gradual process. Every time self-loathing thoughts surfaced, I would take a deep breath and exhale all the negativity I was feeling. You can do some similar act of kindness toward yourself when negative thoughts emerge.

    4. Show up and let yourself be seen.

    This idea comes from Dr. Brené Brown, whose research on vulnerability and shame has helped many people gain the courage to show up for their lives rather than sit on the sidelines—or worse, hide in shame.

    When facing painful personal mistakes, the temptation to shut down and disengage is strong.

    I found myself avoiding interactions with my friend because I was afraid he would judge me or remind me of what happened in the past. Once I had the courage to show up, I quickly discovered that my fears were unfounded.

    If you struggle with showing up, know that you have gained much wisdom that can help your future relationships thrive if you have the strength to show up and try again.

    5. Be grateful for your mistakes.

    It might seem strange to express gratitude for our mistakes, especially the embarrassing and painful ones. But think back to a time when you exercised poor judgment or did something you regretted. How has the experience changed you? Did it make you wiser, stronger, or more discerning?

    I learned the dangers of having a quick temper and rushing to judgment. Now when I am upset, I try to give myself some time and space to reflect rather than react. I am thankful for the opportunity to grow in these ways.

    And if you can learn to see your mistakes in such a light—as opportunities to grow—you can be grateful for them too.

     6. Radically love all of who you are.

    Joseph Campbell once said, “The privilege of a lifetime is being who you are.” So be who you are, not who you used to be. Celebrate who you have become in spite of, or even because of, your past mistakes.

    My own mistakes and flaws have helped me become a better person to my friend, and that will ultimately strengthen my friendships going forward.

    So love all of who you are, including your past mistakes, and you’ll only grow stronger from them.

    You Are Worthy of Forgiveness

    These steps are not always easy to follow—especially during times when we have truly messed up. But we can recover from our mistakes, learn from them, forgive ourselves, and move on with our lives.

    You are worthy of your own love and forgiveness. Believe it with every fiber of your being.

    Commit to practicing these steps daily, even on those days when you’d rather not.

    Resolve to forgive yourself. Resolve to free yourself of the past. Resolve to live in the present. And look toward the future with hope and optimism.

  • The Power of Apologizing: Why Saying “Sorry” Is So Important

    The Power of Apologizing: Why Saying “Sorry” Is So Important

    Little Girl Apologzing

    “Sincere apologies are for those that make them, not for those to whom they are made.” ~Greg LeMond

    When I was growing up, every time I took my sister’s toy or called my brother names, my mother would grab me by the wrist and demanded that I offer an apology. What’s more, if the apology didn’t sound meaningful enough to her, I had to repeat it until my tone was genuine. An apology was the basic reaction to any mistake.

    Now that I’m older, I see apologizing as more than just a household rule. My younger self didn’t understand the complexities of human pride and self-righteousness, but my older self does.

    Now, I see family members refusing to talk to each other for years after an argument just because neither side wants to be the first to let go of their pride and “break down and apologize.” But who decided apologizing was a sign of weakness?

    I think we’ve reached a day and age where showing emotional vulnerability can be viewed as a positive rather than a negative quality.

    People are becoming more aware of ideas like empathy and sensitivity, and everywhere we are being encouraged to talk about our feelings, to seek help, and to connect with others. Gone are the days of keeping everything bottled up inside to suffer alone.

    As we move forward in this time of self-knowledge and self-discovery, it’s vital to acquire the ability to recognize our own mistakes. Nobody is perfect, and we all will do something to hurt another person at some point in our lives. The difference, however, lies in acknowledging that we have done something wrong.

    This was hard for me to grasp, because I was taught that an apology should be an automatic response.

    It took me a long time to realize what it meant to say “I’m sorry” from the heart. Apologizing just for the sake of apologizing is meaningless. We cannot genuinely apologize if we can’t admit to ourselves that we made a mistake.

    This is where humility comes in. Can we look at ourselves in the mirror and say that it was at least partly our fault? Can we take that responsibility?

    Placing the blame on someone else is easy. Making excuses and skirting the subject is easy. Assuming the full weight of blame on our own shoulders, however, is very hard.

    I learned this the hard way with a childhood friend of mine. As we grew older, we started becoming more competitive in the things we did together, and eventually the playful competition went a little too far.

    It became a game of silently trying to prove who was better, and we ended up hurting each other over our pride.

    We refused to apologize or even address what was going on because neither wanted to be the one to “give in.”

    The tension kept growing, breaking apart our friendship. I wish I could go back now, because if I had taken responsibility for the mistakes I made, we probably could have resolved it easily and saved our friendship.

    Instead, I let my pride take priority over my relationships with the people around me.

    Learning to apologize is the first and most important step in the healing process. Not only does it show the recipient that you acknowledge their right to feel hurt, but it opens the way to forgiveness.

    It seems so silly, really. I mean, it’s only two tiny words. How can something so small be so powerful?

    Well, there have been various scientific studies on the power of apologizing, which have demonstrated that when the victim receives an apology from his offender, he develops empathy toward that person, which later develops more quickly into forgiveness.

    This is due to the fact that when we receive an apology, we feel that our offender recognizes our pain and is willing to help us heal.

    Timing is an important aspect to keep in mind, as well, because sometimes the other person might not be ready to accept your apology. Sometimes we need to allow time to heal the wounds a little bit before we come forward to say “I’m sorry.”

    An apology cannot undo what has been done, but it can help ease the pain and tension of the aftermath. It gives hope for rebuilding, and puts value on the relationship rather than the individual’s pride.

    Sometimes people don’t even realize the hurt they are creating around them by failing to take responsibility for their actions. Maybe it’s you, maybe it’s someone you know, but everyone knows someone who has suffered from this at some time.

    Now is the time to make a change.

    Often times those two simple words are worth more than a lifetime of excuses and explanations.

    Choose the path of humility. Choose the path of healing. Choose love above pride. Choose to apologize.

    Little girl apologizing image via Shutterstock

  • How to Make Ordinary Relationships Extraordinary

    How to Make Ordinary Relationships Extraordinary

    Happy Couple

    “In the end, who among us does not choose to be a little less right to be a little less lonely.” ~Robert Braul

    I’ve been married to my wife for almost ten years, most of them involving struggle and drama.

    I had two failed marriages before that.

    This qualifies me to give relationship advice because, well, let’s just say I’ve made every mistake someone could possibly make while attempting to be in a relationship, so I’ve definitely figured out how not to do it.

    Blunders, confusion, and oversights, not to mention abject failures, have bludgeoned me into a few realizations—the most important one was that being a self-absorbed, insensitive jerk wasn’t exactly working for either one of us.

    For so many years, the best relationship I can remember having was with my dog.

    The thing is, watching Beauregard chase sticks, or sitting on the couch together watching football while he scratched himself behind the ear, was hardly going to be the next best-selling romance novel.

    Don’t get me wrong; it wasn’t terrible. I mean, my wife Jeannie and I have never fought very much, but there was always an undercurrent of dissatisfaction and frustration.

    It wasn’t terrible, but then again, it wasn’t great either.

    Shouldn’t it be great?

    Almost ten years into my third marriage, I decided that’s it’s never too late to take responsibility and be the catalyst for change.

    My wife is a sensitive, caring, nurturing woman who loves her children and, I believe, loves me.

    And I love her. I’m a devoted, faithful husband. So what was the problem?

    Well, we had begun moving in our own little worlds. Together but separate. Our own interests and separate friends. We’d pass each other in the hallway occasionally.

    Taking her for granted just snuck up on me. She deserved better, and I knew it.

    Looking back, I can’t believe the amount of resentment and heartache I put her through, yet there she was almost ten years later—despite the frustration and bitterness, she was hanging in there with never a thought of giving up.

    Then I had an epiphany.

    If I were going to have the kind of extraordinary, fulfilling relationship with my wife that I knew we were capable of and deserved, I’d have to bring some focus and intention to the situation.

    How to Become the Partner Your Significant Other Deserves

    Bringing her flowers or cooking him his favorite steak dinner once every six months is kind of like putting a Band-Aid on a broken leg. It’s a nice gesture, but ultimately it won’t fix the problem.

    No, I decided to take a more fundamental approach—changing my attitudes and behaviors so as to create a different paradigm to work from.

    Here are the changes that had the greatest impact on transforming our relationship.

    Give in once in a while (even if you think you’re right).

    Picking your battles can relieve a lot of pressure. It dawned on me that I just didn’t need to be right about everything.

    I stopped digging my heels in and standing my ground about things that didn’t make that much difference in the first place.

    Sure, I still needed to set my boundaries, but now I make certain it’s something that’s truly worth fighting for. I found that most of the things we were getting upset over really weren’t that important for me to be right about.

    I found that if you can just let go and give up your addiction to being right all the time, things will smooth out substantially.

    You know the old saying. “Would you rather be right or happy?”

    Forgive yourself.

    Sometimes I feel like a mistake machine waiting to be turned up to nine on the screw-up-o-meter.

    We all charge off in the wrong direction occasionally, but some of the rock-headed things I’ve managed to pull off have been world class!

    I concluded that the only way to feel good about myself was to forgive myself.

    Once you’ve forgiven yourself, you can then ask your partner to forgive you. This will allow for a fresh start, and you can begin relating to each other in a more open and loving way.

    Tell the truth (but maybe not every fact down to the smallest detail).

    Being honest and forthright is the only way forward.

    I’ve always been faithful, and I’ve been honest about the big stuff.

    It was the $100 power drill purchase or the traffic ticket for sliding through the stop sign that I’d sweep under the table occasionally.

    I’ve learned that it’s about integrity and how you feel about yourself.

    Now I try to be open and aboveboard about everything I do. Even if I think it’s trivial and unimportant.

    That being said, its best to be more sensitive to your partner’s feelings by not needing to share every detail about things in the past that have no bearing on the present or future.

    For instance, things like the intimate details of prior relationships.

    (There is a big difference between being open and honest and insensitively over-sharing.)

    Practice random kindness and generosity.

    I know I mentioned earlier about how bringing her flowers or cooking him a nice dinner was just a Band-Aid.

    Be that as it may, I’ve found that occasionally surprising your partner with something great can move the needle toward extraordinary quite quickly.

    It doesn’t have to be anything expensive. (Or, it could be if it makes financial sense.) Just do something nice.

    You know your partner, so you know what that thing is.

    You’ll be amazed at how good it will make you feel to do something nice for somebody just because that person is your best friend, and they deserve it.

    The reaction you get just might be extraordinary

    Giving your all is the key.

    It can be very frustrating to feel that you’ve given your all to a relationship and not gotten as much (or anything) in return.

    It’s been my experience that you can’t change or “fix” the other person unless that person really wants to change. But if you can stay in good communication with your partner, make sure your boundaries are set, and most importantly (if the relationship is important to you), don’t give up, there is an excellent chance your partner will sooner or later have an epiphany like mine.

    This is what Jeannie did, and it’s one of the main things that eventually led to me waking up like I did.

    The most important realization was that I needed to give much more to the relationship than I had been giving.

    It’s Never Too Late

    Every relationship is different, but I believe that if you practice the above advice, as well as maintain good-quality two-way communication, your relationship will move from ordinary to extraordinary.

    All that’s required is a little focus and intention.

    Jeannie and I could have muddled along the way we were, and things would have been okay, but I chose to make an effort to make it extraordinary.

    What about you?

    Embracing couple image via Shutterstock

  • How to Free Yourself from Bitterness by Forgiving Others

    How to Free Yourself from Bitterness by Forgiving Others

    Free Woman

    “Forgiveness is not an occasional act, it is a constant attitude.” ~Martin Luther King Jr.

    “Stop the world, I want to get off!” I felt like screaming this phrase at the top of my lungs during a difficult period of my life. Obviously, stepping off terra firma into outer space was not an option; what I desperately needed was to be free of chronic fatigue, stress, anxiety, and negative emotions and behaviors.

    Sleepless nights spent rehashing painful events past and present also needed to end.

    Leading up to this period, I had struggled through a lengthy and emotional divorce proceeding and, along with my children, had been dealing with the aftermath of betrayal. Circumstances leading to the divorce from my husband dictated that I be the primary custodian of our children even though we shared joint custody.

    I had been a stay-at-home mom but now needed to return to work. I found a full-time job with flexible hours, and things were going fairly well. I was determined to make the best of this new life.

    And then my ex-husband took my son away—something so painful for me at the time that I could barely breathe. My youngest son was persuaded by his father to move out of my home to live full-time with him.

    The only consolation was that we lived in the same small town. I wasn’t prepared for this move and the potential implications. Then came another blow—my ex-husband took my son and moved out of town.

    In the face of another loss and what would become estrangement from my son, I filled with resentment. I used up tremendous amounts of energy trying to keep my emotions under control.

    Angry actions and words burst forth randomly. Before long, resentment grew into an ugly root of bitterness. I didn’t understand this metamorphosis or my inability to contain my anger.

    Bitterness is characterized by intense antagonism or hostility. It is toxic, self-destructive, and hurtful to others in our sphere. If the root is not cut out, it will spread and choke joy and contentment right out of our lives.

    You can unintentionally make yourself bitter in various ways:

    Stuffing it

    Following a hurtful experience, we move on without resolution, determined to leave it in the past. We decide to suffer in silence. We may even tell ourselves we don’t care. Resentment builds and beckons bitterness.

    Wallowing in it

    We can choose to nurture the pain of an offense, allowing it to fester into a giant open wound. We make sure that others realize we have been deeply wounded. This victim mentality oozes bitterness.

    Hanging on to it

    It’s possible that the offending party has asked for forgiveness. If our response was a mere, “Okay,” or a less-than-heartfelt (lame), “I forgive you,” the door to bitterness is propped open by resentment and an unwillingness to let go.

    All these behaviors are poison to the soul.

    How to know if you have morphed into a bitter old biddy:

    1. You exhibit undesirable behaviors such as impatience, caustic comments, cynicism, a judgmental attitude, and a lack of compassion.

    2. You realize that your behaviors are hurting those around you. Bitterness will inevitably rise to the top of our resentment pots and spill out all over undeserving bystanders.

    3. You re-live past hurts, keeping old issues alive; you fantasize about how things could have played out differently and picture the offender getting what he/she deserves.

    When I examined my behaviors and thoughts, I realized that I desperately did not want to be the bitter, angry person I had become.

    How it’s possible to forgive people when you have been devastated by their actions:

    Forgiving can seem like a big hurdle to jump. You may rather hold on to an old wound and refuse to forgive because the offender doesn’t deserve it, has not sought forgiveness, or demonstrated remorse. We can always find justification for refusing to forgive.

    An alternative is to pursue the process of letting go of the grievance. Perhaps you come to realize you played a part in what happened. Or you may develop a degree of compassion for the offender if you objectively consider their point of view.

    If there is absolutely no justification for what happened, you may take pity on a person who is so emotionally bankrupt that they willingly hurt others.

    It is a process and will take time, but the act of letting go in order to forgive is essential to your well-being.

    I would encourage you to count the cost of withholding forgiveness and then consider the following truths:

    1. Forgiveness is intentional, not a feeling born out of emotion, but rather a firm, once-and-for-all commitment. Waiting until you feel like forgiving or until you receive a request for forgiveness may never happen. It’s up to you.

    2. Forgiveness doesn’t hinge on the subsequent behavior of the offender. When we suffer a wrong, we choose to forgive and live in the freedom of forgiveness, or we refuse to forgive and live in bondage to bitterness.

    Maya Angelou once said: “It’s one of the greatest gifts you can give yourself, to forgive. Forgive everybody.”

    I chose forgiveness. I listed the still hurtful offenses of my ex-husband and one by one sincerely forgave him for each act. A heaviness that had been lingering over my soul lifted. It was liberating. Before long, I began to feel good about myself again.

    How you can navigate the storms in your life by cultivating a constant attitude of forgiveness:

    Maintain a few helpful ground rules:

    1. Try to forgive minor offenses by the time your head hits the pillow at the end of each day.

    2. If you have a mental list of unresolved past grievances, consider each one and forgive those involved.

    3. Choose to forgive without waiting for an apology. It also helps to remember times when someone forgave you—it’s humbling.

    4. Don’t allow your mind to dwell on previously forgiven offenses; you risk opening the door to resentment and bitterness a second time.

    You can experience the rich rewards of forgiveness.

    A forgiving attitude allows you to soar above painful memories and live life fully in the present.

    You will experience increased authenticity in friendships and more joy, intimacy, and fulfillment in close relationships.

    Guard these rewards carefully—no matter how deeply you are hurt or offended, do not allow bitterness the opportunity to take root within you.

    Woman in field image via Shutterstock

  • What Helped Me Forgive Myself and Honor My Needs

    What Helped Me Forgive Myself and Honor My Needs

    “To forgive is to set a prisoner free and realize that prisoner was you.” ~Lewis B. Smedes

    Have you ever tried to forgive someone who hurt you, and despite your best efforts, it was just too hard? So you beat yourself up because you were not able to forgive, and the pain was still there?

    I spent years trying to forgive others.

    I tried to forgive a family member for abusing me as a child.

    I tried to forgive my primary school teacher of seven years for constantly hammering that even though I was a straight-A student, I wasn’t allowed to be me, and I needed to change myself so I could be accepted and loved.

    I tried to forgive those who indirectly made me understand that their lives would have been so much better if I hadn’t been there, or if I would have been a boy.

    Although I had developed a strong resilience, which allowed me to build strength from these negative life experiences, they had left their mark, and I felt pain, resentment, and a feeling of injustice.

    I had been taught that I should forgive others for everything they did to me. But I couldn’t get out of my head and back to my heart, and I couldn’t manage to forgive them.

    I was still feeling stuck, trapped, and unable to let go, move forward, and honor my needs. I let the regrets of wasted time consume me.

    I realized I was making everything so hard on myself because I felt guilty.

    If these people had taken advantage of me in one form or another, somehow, to me, it meant that I did something wrong, that I was broken, that something was wrong with me, and that I didn’t deserve anything better.

    I just clutched to my guilt so tightly.

    And one day, I had a breakthrough.

    I realized that I needed to offer forgiveness, not to others, but to myself.

    I had no control over the decisions, thoughts, and actions of others, but I did have control over the blame I was placing on myself.

    It was time to let go of the pain, heal old wounds, move forward, and finally nurture myself and honor my needs.

    The first step I took on the path to self-forgiveness was to accept reality without blaming others.

    I would have loved to change the past and rewrite my history, but that was not possible. So instead of accepting reality and moving forward, I was drowning myself in blame and resentment.

    I couldn’t go on like that. I needed my life to move forward. I had created a lot of struggles and suffering for myself because I spent too much energy resisting the present moment.

    I needed to accept the reality I’d been given. Once I did, I was finally able to release all of the anger, blame, and resentment that had been built up in my mind and body.

    To me, accepting reality is a crucial step toward self-acceptance. And self-acceptance is one of the first steps toward self-forgiveness.

    The second step for me was to stop blaming myself and feeling guilty.

    Most of us have been raised in a culture that stresses dichotomous thinking—good or bad, young or old, guilty or not guilty…

    And once we stop blaming others, we usually blame ourselves. It must be someone’s fault, right?

    I blamed myself for letting this family member abuse me as a child.

    I blamed myself for not being able to change myself so I could be accepted and loved.

    I blamed myself for having made a financial mistake and not knowing how I would get out of debt.

    Once I had reflected on my negative experiences and identified what exactly I was blaming myself for and what exactly I was feeling guilty about, I took the next step and declared I was no longer going to blame myself for all this.

    This was extremely liberating.

    I was now accepting reality without blaming anyone. I was one step away from being able to forgive myself, let go, and honor my needs.

    The third step toward self-forgiveness was to love myself fully.

    I knew if I wanted to let go of my past experiences, I had to work on loving myself.

    I managed to increase my self-love and forgive myself by consistently doing three simple things every day of the week.

    First, I started a gratitude journal, and at the end of each day, I wrote five different things I was grateful for. It helped me see my life and myself through a new, more compassionate lens.

    Then, I kept a list of all nice things that people said to me. I was mindful of thank-yous and compliments, and instead of focusing on the people who didn’t seem to appreciate me, I focused on those who I knew did love me.

    Eventually, I repeatedly said to myself, “I am valued, I am enough, I am not damaged or broken, and I love myself just the way I am.”

    Once you start looking, you can find so many reasons to love yourself fully. And the more love you feel for yourself, the easier it becomes to forgive your past.

    I was finally ready to forgive myself wholeheartedly…

    I forgave myself for making mistakes.

    I forgave myself for allowing negative energies into my life and letting those sit in my body for all these years.

    I forgave myself for not being who others wanted me to be.

    I forgave myself for allowing outside circumstances and people to dictate my self-worth.

    I forgave myself for not trusting my inner wisdom to know better.

    And most importantly, I forgave myself for carrying the weight of my guilt and self-blame.

    Forgiving myself wholeheartedly was liberating. It allowed me to be compassionate, accept myself, and let go of painful memories.

    Sure, I still doubt my worth sometimes, I still re-live some memories I wish I could just erase from my mind, and I still worry about not pleasing other people and being rejected. But I feel free, joyful, and whole.

    By forgiving myself, I was finally able to honor many of my needs that I had ignored before, even if it’s still a work in progress in some areas.

    I was able to honor my need to feel great in my skin and accept my body.

    I was able to honor my need to be myself and be loved for who I am, not for what I do.

    I was able to honor my need to let go and not feel like I had to be hyper-vigilant and in control all the time.

    You can do this too.

    If you’ve made financial mistakes, if you struggle with food, or if you feel resentment and anger toward other people in your life, take these three steps: stop blaming others, stop blaming yourself, and learn to love yourself fully.

    Your life will never be the same.

    Self-forgiveness will allow you to create more peaceful relationships going forward, it will boost your mood so you’ll no longer experience depressive feelings, and it will reduce stress in your life. You’ll feel better, and you’ll also be healthier.

    To me, self-forgiveness is one of the most meaningful lessons life has to offer. And I am so grateful for those times of trial.

    Don’t waste another day of your life.

    Forgive yourself and live fully!

  • A Reason to Forgive Your Parents (And How to Soften Your Anger)

    A Reason to Forgive Your Parents (And How to Soften Your Anger)

    “If you cannot forgive and forget, pick one.” ~Robert Brault

    I used to hate my parents.

    I despised them. I blamed them for most of my issues.

    I couldn’t do what I wanted to do in life because they would disapprove of it. I couldn’t be a cop or firefighter because those professions didn’t make enough money. I could only study a major that would be beneficial in getting me a job and not one that they thought was pointless, such as psychology or sociology.

    I hated my dad for never being there when I was a child. I hated him for always getting angry with me and yelling at me and making me go to my room to cry by myself.

    I hated my mom for not sticking up for me. I hated her for not sticking up for herself when my dad would yell at her. I loathed her for her laziness and blamed her for my own because she didn’t teach me to work hard on a task and to persevere through the tough times.

    For a few years I felt this intense dislike of them and never told them. My anger kept building and building, and you know who had to live with it and deal with it? I did.

    I smiled happily toward them and the outside world, but inside I was dying a slow death.

    Dwelling in anger and hate is like drinking a poison that slowly destroys your insides and kills you. There’s a reason why the Jedis in Star Wars say that anger and hate lead you to the dark side.

    The reason is because it will eventually cause you to lash out and cause damage to the people around you.

    And that’s what happened to me. My façade of happiness crashed down upon me after a few rough weeks during my junior year of college. I had a meltdown and attempted suicide.

    Most people will not act as extremely as I did, but that doesn’t mean their pain is any less than mine. I see others who carry lifelong anger and hatred toward their parents because of their childhoods.

    It’s a burden they carry with them, and they cope with it different ways, whether it’s through addiction, working too much, or something else that slowly erodes their insides because they fail to address the anger and hatred there.

    I struggled immensely after my suicide attempt. That first year, though, was when I started to realize something that would change my life for the better.

    Anger and hatred mainly affect the person holding them because they are the one who destroys their life and relationship because of it. You don’t forgive for others’ sake; you forgive for your own.

    When I realized this, I started on the long journey that is forgiveness.

    I wish I could say it is like the movies, but it isn’t, at least not in my experience.

    I have found that forgiveness takes a continual effort over weeks, sometimes months. It’s something you have to consciously do every time your anger arises.

    Your anger and hatred fade away over time as you consciously reframe your thoughts and feelings to ones of forgiveness.

    I started by first writing in my journal about what my parents didn’t give me when I was a child. I don’t mean things; I mean love, affection, and guidance.

    I then started to give myself those things.

    And then I learned how to see things from my parents’ angle and have compassion toward them.

    I realized that their parents didn’t give them all that they needed. I saw that they were just trying their best and they were human like me, which meant that they had flaws and made mistakes.

    I saw that they were every bit as lost as most of us are at times, because life has no guidebook.

    I saw the little child within them.

    As I started to forgive them, I became warmer toward them and appreciated them more. I started to say “I love you” to them, and surprisingly my dad started to say it back. He had never really said it to me before.

    I eventually had a semi-movie moment with my father after months of working on myself. I told him that I hated him for the longest time, that I know he was just trying his best, and that I forgave him for his mistakes. I told him I understood that I was an adult now and was responsible for my future and myself.

    My relationship with him changed dramatically after that moment.

    It isn’t super intimate but it’s better than it ever was. My father has said “I love you” to me without me saying it first. We smile at each other and have made each other laugh.

    I have become close with my mother after forgiving her. I trust her and confide in her about the struggles I go through. I am so grateful to have her in my life.

    I love them both very deeply and none of this would have happened if I didn’t learn to forgive.

    Learn to forgive others if not for their sake, for yours.

    I have learned that as I change for the better, so do all of the relationships in my life.

  • How to Let Go of Guilt and Regret and Forgive Yourself

    How to Let Go of Guilt and Regret and Forgive Yourself

    “Forgiveness does not change the past, but it does enlarge the future.” ~Paul Boes

    In October of 2010 I was engaged after only three weeks of dating. I was scared to tell my family, but I was terrified to tell my father. My parents divorced when I was five, and I couldn’t spend weekends at Dad’s because he lived thousands of miles away. I saved him for last and decided to take the cowardly way out by emailing him.

    It was not the best decision I’ve ever made. Not only did it infuriate and hurt him, it ended up producing a phone call that would alter my life forever. It was a call filled with horrible words that left me in tears and him hanging up on me. I’ve managed to erase most of the words from my head but not how devastating they felt.

    Six months later we were married in a private ceremony on a beach in Jamaica. After we got back I was still bothered by the fight I had with my father, but I tried to push it to the back of my mind.

    Shortly after, my father began reaching out to me through emails and voicemail. He wanted to meet my new husband and see me. Through email, things became pleasant and we made plans to come visit him in Florida that August.

    My father left another voicemail saying he was still waiting for me to call back and tell him about my trip, yet something was stopping me. Fear, dread, anxiety, and many other emotions made me freeze at the thought of picking up the phone and calling him.

    What if this phone call turns out like the last? Every day I came up with a new excuse and told myself I would call the next day. This was until I ran out of days.

    Two months later my oldest brother called me at work to tell me Dad had passed away that morning. He had been sick for some time, but because of our strained relationship and the strained relationship he had with most of my other siblings, I had no idea how sick. I do remember the first thought that went through my head. I can’t call him back….ever.

    After my father’s death I fell into a foggy depression. For a long time I was unable to focus at work, I isolated myself from all of my friends, and tried to avoid anything that required being social or productive. I was holding myself back from living and slowly dying myself.

    My husband, who was my savior and biggest support system, helped pushed me toward the road to self-forgiveness by asking me this question: “Why can you forgive your father for being absent most of your life, yet you can’t forgive yourself for not calling him back? I don’t get it.” I didn’t either.

    It was time to let go of the guilt, and from then on as I began my days with sadness, I searched for different ways to get rid of it.

    Reach out to others who can help you understand.

    When I was feeling upset, I would ask my mom questions about my dad. I learned more about him in the short time after his death than I knew during his whole life. Her stories helped explain to me why he was the way he was, and in return it helped me realize why I was the way I was. His tendency to avoid confrontation and taking the easy way out made me realize I was my father’s daughter.

    Whether it’s a family member, a friend, or even a therapist, reaching out to someone may lead to answers that help you better understand yourself and your situation.

    Channel your present guilt and regret into something else.

    I didn’t risk calling my father, so I took another risk. For many years it had been my personal and professional dream to write and publish a children’s picture book. I started asking around if anyone knew of someone who could illustrate my story.

    When I asked my mother, she replied, “Your father. He was so good at drawing. He was so good at painting too.” Over time she showed me some of the ceramic pieces he painted years ago.

    Right then I felt even more determined to find an illustrator and self publish my story. Most importantly, it made me feel closer to him. Learning about his hidden talent was like a push from him to go through with my dream.

    What has been your life long dream? There’s no better time than the now to start going after it. The journey you take and the energy you put into it are worth the rewards.

    Change your environment.

    I started to surround myself with those who showed me that life is limitless, children. I took up a nanny job and started to spend more time with my nieces. There’s nothing like the excitement and positive outlook of a child to show you there is more to life than the bad things you experience. You cry over something, you pick yourself up, and start to play again.

    It was hard to let sadness consume me after spending the day with constantly laughing and eager to explore children. They reminded me to enjoy the little things I’d taken for granted. They reminded me the future will be okay.

    Migrate to positive people in your life or new ones you meet. A different perspective on life may help change yours as well.

    Stopped dwelling on the what ifs and focus on the positive results.

    I still hear his last voicemail in my head to this day. “Steph, I’m waiting for you to call me back and tell me about your trip.” No, I never called him back and our last conversation will always be a fight. But that fight sparked a reconciliation. It sparked effort on his part, effort I had been waiting for, for a very long time.

    You can’t go and change the past, so there’s no point in obsessing over it. Even if it takes you months to figure it out, search for the positive that resulted from your negative situation.

    Believe that you deserve to be forgiven.

    I still haven’t 100% forgiven myself, but I’m getting there. I consider myself lucky because on the days that aren’t so good and I can‘t call him back…ever, I get comfort from my biggest support system. It is the support system whom my father wanted to meet and get to know, my husband.

    When I remember the progress my father and I were making, it helps put me at ease and I can breath a little easier. It also helps me to hope and work for great things in the future. I deserve my own forgiveness and I know my father believes I do as well.

    Believe you deserve to be forgiven. We are not perfect but we are still worthy of happiness. Once you can accept that, self-forgiveness will follow and enlarge a future filled with greatness. The world is your canvas, but if you continue to let guilt hold you back, it will forever remain blank. Pick yourself up and start to play again.

  • How Understanding Can Lead to Forgiveness and Fulfillment

    How Understanding Can Lead to Forgiveness and Fulfillment

    Forgiveness

    “The only way out of the labyrinth of suffering is to forgive.” ~John Green

    I remember growing up in a lonely home. My parents were distant, and it seemed they didn’t care much about me. Their lives were all about them, so I didn’t care much about them.

    My sister and I hated Christmas and New Year’s Eve because we never got any gifts or toys during that period.

    We used to be so lonely at home, and we couldn’t play with the neighbors’ kids because our parents didn’t allow it. I grew up having no friends, up until when I was fifteen years old, when I became friends with a classmate.

    Fast forward to two years later when I was seventeen; I was going through teenage years alone, and like every normal teen, I struggled to be happy, but it was more than that. I refused admit that I was depressed until a friend noticed and talked to me about it.

    For the first time I experienced what it meant for someone to truly care about me, and I wished my parents could do the same.

    I became really close to this friend because she was the only one who was there for me. She was a cheerful girl whose parents showered her with love, and extended this love to others, as well. We spent all of our weekends together, usually watching movies at her house.

    We graduated from high school and started college together, and then I lost her in a tragic accident. I was in shock and wished I would die too, because life was meaningless without the only friend who stood by me for all those years.

    I broke down for months. I refused to go back to college, and my parents couldn’t understand why I was so down. It took me a year to recover.

    I forced myself to start life again. I reapplied for college to try to make myself move on, but it was hard.

    I didn’t care about making friends or joining other social activities because I was introverted and l always feared that people would judge me.

    In my search for happiness I enrolled in a yoga teacher training program. It was during that period that I learned things I never knew about life and happiness.

    I realized that all I needed to be happy was within me; I was whole and needed to seek happiness by healing myself instead of looking for it outside myself. Instead of feeling bad about my life, I started tobe grateful for it.

    And one great powerful lesson I learned was the importance of forgiveness. It took me back to the resentments I had towards my parents, and I realized that I had to forgive them in order to live a more fulfilling life.

    The courage came one evening when I boldly picked up the phone and called. We spoke for a long time, and in that discussion I discovered that they deeply regretted all the years they were absent in my life.

    In that moment I felt whole again; I felt my parents’ love come back to me, and I finally understood why they didn’t seem to care when I was younger.

    You see, after they had been married for several years, my mum discovered that my dad had had an affair with an old flame. This caused her so much pain that she shut down from her social life, and consequently, didn’t allow her kids to have one.

    Understanding them and their pain helped me to let go of the past and forgive them, because I realized they never intended to hurt me, even when they didn’t remember my birthday or prevented me from making friends freely.

    After that, I made a promise to myself to spend more time with them, helping them with cleaning, laundry, and other little things, to show them I’ve moved on and I care about them. I can’t go back and receive or show care in my childhood, but I can do something different now.

    I’m only human, so I can’t say the sad memories don’t pop up in my head once in a while. When this happens, I reverse my thoughts to focus on the good part of knowing I have my parents’ love and affection back.

    I’ve learned that we can’t experience the full joy of life if we don’t let go of all resentments, because it is in truly letting go that we make space for peace and fulfillment.

    It can be hard to forgive if the person who hurt you doesn’t express remorse, but that doesn’t mean they don’t feel it, or that there wasn’t pain behind their actions. If you don’t forgive, you’re choosing to cause yourself pain. When we hold onto bitterness, we slowly die on the inside.

    No matter what, life holds a second chance for everyone. We give it to others by forgiving; and equally important, in forgiving, we give it to ourselves.

    Love everywhere image via Shutterstock

  • Self-Forgiveness Is Essential

    Self-Forgiveness Is Essential

    Self-Forgiveness

  • What Forgiveness Is

    What Forgiveness Is

    Forgiveness

    Source: thehiyL.com

  • How Forgiveness Enables Us to Stop Hurting Ourselves

    How Forgiveness Enables Us to Stop Hurting Ourselves

    Healing

    “To forgive is to set a prisoner free and realize that prisoner was you.” ~Lewis B. Smedes

    I was planning a seminar event with one of my good friends. (Let’s call her “Randi.”) It was a great match; she had event planning and design expertise, and great energy in front of an audience. I understood the structure of such an event, and I authored much of the content.

    It was a powerful presentation and we were going to be a great team bringing the material to life. We spent months putting the seminar together: rehearsing, setting the date, booking the venue, designing the graphic announcements, and buying advertising. With only a few weeks to go, everything was in place.

    Then I got an email from Randi. She was still going to do the seminar, just not with me.

    She had a new boyfriend whom she felt he was more suited to her vision of how to present the material. Without consulting me, Randi changed the graphics for the presentation, one of the presenter names, and charged ahead with her new version of the seminar.

    To be honest, I was shocked. I had spent a significant amount of time and money up to this point, and leveraged all of my contacts. I thought we made a great team, and I trusted her without question to carry out the tasks we had agreed upon to make the seminar a reality.

    I immediately called Randi but she didn’t answer my calls (probably a wise thing since I was mad). I wrote to her explaining that a great deal of the content in the seminar was my original material, and she had no right to use it.

    I demanded that she refund my share of the money we had spent on advertising and the venue deposit. She wrote back that she was sorry, but the answer to all my demands was no.

    I was outraged and felt betrayed! I developed a story that I repeated endlessly in my head about what she did, why it was wrong, and how it violated every agreement we made.

    Gathering all my evidence I headed to court: not legal court but the court of public opinion. I went to all my friends and laid out the facts—the evidence—and asked them for a verdict. The verdict was unanimous. Guilty!

    Now I had plenty of evidence that I was right. In my mind the betrayal was not clouded in shades of grey but was black and white: We had an agreement, I trusted her, and she had violated that trust.

    I was right, and yet being right was making me miserable. The more I told the story of what she did, and why it was so wrong, the more unhappy I became.

    Simply put, I was using her to abuse myself. But as long as I kept telling the betrayal story—to myself or anyone that would listen—I couldn’t let it go.

    Eventually the stubborn attitude, “I can’t get past this,” was no match for the awareness that every time I engaged in my story it was like hovering too close to a hot stove. It was unmistakably clear to me that my insistence on being right was burning me.

    Being right (my intellectual interpretation of the event) was a dead end I could never resolve. Repeating my story was like hitting my finger over and over again with a hammer.

    It took a while, but the awareness of what I was doing revealed that there was only one choice I could make to get the emotional turmoil to stop.

    What finally healed me was forgiveness. In the end I didn’t forgive her because it was the right thing to do. My intellect was too strong and the facts too compelling.

    I didn’t forgive her because that’s what good people do. I couldn’t forgive her even though I agreed with what the famous poet Alexander Pope said: “To err is human: to forgive, divine.”

    I could never come to a resolution weighing the pros and cons. I simply chose to give up my story, let the whole thing go, and forgave her because it felt good. Forgiveness was the only medicine that would heal the wound I created.

    When we can’t forgive someone for an offense, and justify being right about it, we are only using them to hurt ourselves. It’s a trap, a maze of suffering without end.

    Being right and getting all worked up about it—our national pastime—only hurts us.

    To heal any hurt caused by the perception that you’ve been abandoned, betrayed, disappointed, misunderstood, or unfairly treated takes a double dose of the sweetest medicine of all: forgiveness.

    Photo by Neal Fowler

  • Forgiveness Is a Necessity

    Forgiveness Is a Necessity

    Forgiveness Is a Necessity

    Source: Power of Positivity

  • Learning to Forgive Our Imperfect Parents for Their Mistakes

    Learning to Forgive Our Imperfect Parents for Their Mistakes

    Parents

    TRIGGER WARNING: This post deals with an account of physical abuse and may be triggering to some people.

    “Children begin by loving their parents; as they grow older they judge them; sometimes they forgive them.” ~Oscar Wilde

    I couldn’t tell you if Oscar Wilde’s quote is entirely accurate. You see, my biological parents abandoned me and left me with my grandparents at birth.

    Growing up with grandma and grandpa was the best childhood I could have ever imagined, and I didn’t miss my biological parents at all. I guess in that sense they were my parents, and perhaps Oscar Wilde’s point is correct.

    However, my biological parents eventually came back. During the summer before my fourteenth birthday, my parents came and took me “home.”

    I didn’t know much about my new parents, but within a few days here’s what I did know…

    Mom and Dad didn’t love each other.

    They argued every single day, putting each other down in ways no child should ever hear. Their unhappiness toward one another would often times escalate from verbal abuse to physical fighting, and when their fight was over, the final punishment always landed on me.

    Perhaps it was because I couldn’t stand seeing the anger, violence, and sadness. I couldn’t stand seeing my father beat up my mother, so I would get into the middle of their arguments to stop the fight, even if it meant getting beat up myself.

    The days and nights were filled with chaos. I felt like I was walking on eggshells, not knowing when one parent was going to explode and punish me for their bad marriage. My fear turned into anger, and the anger brewed to a boil inside me. I couldn’t continue living like this.

    Arguments and beatings went on for years until I finally collapsed and I ran away from home.

    As expected, both my parents disowned me the moment I left the house.

    In fact, my mother was so mad she didn’t even allow me to come back and pick up any of my belongings. At seventeen years of age, I left to start a new life with my backpack and one set of clothes.

    When I left home I was still in high school. I knew it wasn’t going to be easy, but the risk of going back was far greater. I made up my mind and there was no way I could ever go back. To me, our relationship was over.

    Luckily, my best friend’s parents opened their door to me. They let me stay in their home until I graduated high school. I got a part-time job to help contribute. Things were looking up, but inside I was building resentment and blame toward my parents for putting me in this situation.

    For years after high school graduation and into college, I continued to blame my parents for not having enough food to eat, clothes to wear, and somewhere to belong.

    I blamed them for everything.

    I had made a promise to never talk to them again, and I kept that promise for seven long years. But as time passed and life experiences taught me new lessons, I learned that resentment and blame were emotions that hold and push you down, never to let go.

    Like it or not, it was time for me to let go and forgive.

    I’m not going to say it was easy, nor am I going to say I didn’t have doubts throughout the entire process.

    But I eventually learned to stop blaming my parents for my life. It was like a load of bricks was off my back. I was finally free from this emotion that I had carried with me and which had shaped my life for so long.

    Learning to let go and forgive taught me that:

    Parents also hurt.

    Sometimes we forget that our parents have lived a life and have had struggles too. We don’t always know about their pains and sorrows. I see now that I have the ability to help them overcome and grow.

    No one is perfect.

    We’re not perfect, so why expect our parents to be? Parents make mistakes too. Of course violence is not excusable, but people make mistakes, and we cannot hold a grudge forever.

    Forgive them.

    It wasn’t easy for me to forgive my parents, but forgiving them gave me peace in my heart. When we hold anger inside of us, we’re the ones that get hurt the most.

    Take the initiative.

    I wanted a relationship with my parents, and so it was I who needed to take the first step and reach out to them. We have to be the ones to step up and harvest it, otherwise, who ever will?

    Build trust.

    Rebuilding trust when there was none (or very little) to begin with is a difficult process that’s going to take time. There’s no secret or shortcut. Get right into it and start by being honest with one another, even if it hurts.

    Stop judging.

    I would always ask myself why they couldn’t be better and listen, care, and love. I had to learn to accept them for who they were. As soon as I was able to accept them as my parents, and accept them for who they were, I was able to accept myself for who I was.

    In the end, all you can do is try. There are no guarantees.

    Before making the decision to call I prepared myself as best as I could for total rejection, and at the same time I defined what a win would look like—what could happen that would make it all worth it. All I could hope for was a small token of reciprocation.

    So, after seven years I picked up the phone and called my parents. We shared a thirty-minute phone call, first with my dad and lastly with my mom. To my surprise, there was no anger, just sadness. They listened more than they spoke, and I could feel that they were hurt because they had hurt me.

    I could see that they had changed, and perhaps it was only then that they were ready for this call.

    I hung up and could feel a sense of relief take over, and I knew this was only the beginning.

    I realize now that change must go both ways. And, if your parents are still abusive and are not ready, or are not willing to be ready, then you must go on with your life. Your life cannot wait.

    Today my parents and I have an open relationship. It’s still a work in progress, but I believe it’s something worth working for. We all have changed for the better, and I am certain this was how it had to be.

    I forgive them for all they did and accept them for who they are.

    If you have resentment toward your parents, what’s preventing you from forgiving them?

    Photo by Belezza87

  • Why Forgiveness Is a Gift to Yourself and How to Release the Past

    Why Forgiveness Is a Gift to Yourself and How to Release the Past

    “Forgiveness does not change the past but it does enlarge the future.” ~Paul Boese

    On a snowy winter day in the dark month of January, I got hit by a car. My left leg was immediately amputated. A darkness started growing in my seventeen-year-old heart that day.

    Harvey was the man driving the car that hit me.

    Because of Harvey’s decisions, I didn’t have my leg. Because of Harvey, I walked in pain. Because of Harvey, I lost my confidence as an attractive woman.

    At the trial two years later, Harvey and I weren’t allowed to talk to each other. I saw him at the defendant’s table with his head cast down in shame. He never looked me in the eye. In fact, Harvey never apologized to me.

    I was a strong woman who didn’t let my disability keep me down. I tried to pretend that I was as capable as two-legged people. I learned how to ski, kayak, rock climb, backpack, scuba dive, and sky dive.

    I spent just as much energy stuffing my anger, depression, and grief. I was terrified that, if given half a chance, they would eat me alive.

    I felt like two women. The one the world saw was capable, strong, independent, and inspirational. The other woman I reserved for myself. She was sad, insecure, and boiling with anger.

    During my twenties, I had three significant romantic relationships. Although each one of those men told me how amazing I was and how much they loved me, none of them wanted to marry me. I assumed it was because of my leg.

    Harvey took marriage from me as well.

    When I was truly honest with myself, I had a vague understanding that my depression and anger, which I usually expressed inappropriately, could have contributed to my failed relationships. I decided it was time for counseling.

    Therapy was a time for me to finally grieve. I realized how fear controlled me and how post-traumatic stress dictated my life. I started to understand the magnitude of my negative feelings—toward the Universe, toward life, and toward Harvey.

    Over many months, I learned appropriate ways to express sadness, anger, and resentment. My emotions didn’t eat me alive as I had feared. Actually, I became alive when I started to truly feel them.

    On the fifteenth anniversary of the accident, I was alone in my apartment, nursing my depression with some wine. My thoughts turned to Harvey. Did he know what today was? Does he remember me? Then I was struck by a bolt of brilliance. I’ll call him!

    If he isn’t going to call me to apologize, then I’ll call him and rub it in his face how he ruined my life.

    I didn’t think twice. I jumped up off the couch, found his number, and dialed. The phone rang once. Twice. Five times. I ended up leaving a message.

    At work the next day I could hardly concentrate, and by the time I got home from work, I was a bundle of nerves. Would he call?

    And then the phone rang.

    “Hi Colleen, this is Harvey.”

    I screamed at him, “Do you know who I am? Do you know what yesterday was?”

    “Oh yes,” he said through his sobs. “I remember you. I think about you all the time.”

    My heart lurched. He thought about me all the time? Then why didn’t he contact me?

    Harvey and I conversed and connected and ended the call with an agreement to meet.

    In preparation for our visit, I spent a number of sessions with my therapist preparing to give Harvey a verbal lashing. I was ready to shame him for what he had done to me.

    When the day finally came, Harvey and I saw each other across the hotel lobby. Tears welled up in his eyes as he walked toward me.

    “Hello Colleen,” his arms opened wide. “Can I give you a hug?” What? You want me to give you a hug? Wouldn’t a good chest beating be more appropriate? The nice girl in me gave him a hug.

    During the four hours we spent together, instead of screaming at him for everything he had taken from me, I listened. I heard how the accident happened from his perspective—and he heard how it happened from mine.

    We rehashed every moment leading up to the impact and, in doing so, we realized that, given all the same conditions, given our mutual naiveté, if placed in the same position again, we may very well make the same decisions.

    I listened as he talked about how his life was impacted by the accident. He was just a twenty-one-year-old married guy at the time of the accident. Afterward, anytime he saw someone who reminded him of me, he broke down and cried—or became mean. His marriage suffered; he and his wife eventually divorced.

    At the end of the visit, when Harvey and I parted, I gave him a hug. That time I wanted to.

    Back home, when I realized I was able to see the situation through Harvey’s eyes, I felt a freedom I had never known before.

    When I made the choice to let go of the past and forgive Harvey, I felt empowered. I didn’t see it then, but looking back I can see that when I harbored bitter feelings toward Harvey, I was hurting myself more than anyone.

    Harvey and I saw each other a year later when I was visiting his town for a conference. While at dinner, instead of re-hashing the accident again, we talked about our lives. We came to the table ready to pick each other up off that roadway that had held us captive for so long.

    I don’t think it’s a coincidence that just a year later I finally met the man who would become my husband. We married a year later and soon started our family. When I was able to let go of the past, I was finally able to create the future I had always wanted.

    Do my bitter feelings and resentments still surface? Absolutely. But now I don’t allow them to define me as a victim. I allow them to remind me to forgive. Again. And again. And again.

    I’ve learned that forgiveness is a journey. When our heart becomes too heavy with the burden of our bitterness, there are distinguishable steps we can take that lead us to inner peace.

    What about you? Is there something in your past that is hard to forgive? Do you want to let this go? Do you want to live more fully into your potential by releasing the past? If so, try these steps:

    1. Acknowledge your feelings related to the situation and actually feel them.

    Move through them. For fifteen years anger, depression, resentment, and bitterness were subversive hijackers of my life. Once I learned how to acknowledge and feel these emotions, they not only lost their power, they subsided.

    2. See the situation from the other person’s perspective.

    Our myopic view of the situation keeps us stuck in the past. If possible, have a conversation with your perpetrator. If that’s not possible, imagine the situation from your perpetrator’s point of view. What story can you tell that might explain the situation from his or her perspective?

    3. Release your bitter feelings.

    Remember, you were not born angry, sad, or vindictive. Let go of these accumulations and allow yourself to return to your pure humanity.

    4. Make the choice to forgive.

    Yes, forgiveness is a choice. It doesn’t just happen. And you may need to forgive a transgression again and again until that becomes your new normal.

    Forgiveness is not about condoning another’s actions. When forgiving another, we are not absolving them of restitution. Forgiveness isn’t even about the other person. The choice to forgive is always a gift we give ourselves.

    Photo by Okinawa Steve

  • Letting Go of the Guilt That Keeps You Chained to the Past

    Letting Go of the Guilt That Keeps You Chained to the Past

    “Letting go gives us freedom, and freedom is the only condition for happiness. If, in our heart, we still cling to anything—anger, guilt, or possessions—we cannot be free.”  ~Thich Nhat Hanh

    One night after my nine-year-old son had just gone to bed, he asked me if I would lay with him, as he was scared. I was getting ready for a busy week and was tired, so I replied, “No, you’re fine. Go to sleep.”

    When he died the following afternoon after being hit by a car, I remembered what he’d asked me. The guilt that followed me from that day on was overwhelming.

    Guilt is an emotion that we have all experienced. It can come in many forms, from simply cheating on a diet or from making a dreadful choice that affects our lives forever.

    The guilt I felt after my son died burdened me for several years. Every anniversary, I would go over and over what I hadn’t done during those last few days before his death.

    I would remember every conversation, every request. The guilt beat me up, it made me replay my mistakes, and it wasted enormous amounts of my energy, re-enacting how I could have done something differently. It made me feel bad even when I didn’t feel bad!

    I think one of the reasons it was so hard to give up and let go of my guilt was because I felt the need to punish myself after his death for all the things I hadn’t done in his life.

    I would pretend that if I had made different choices, I could have changed that day.

    People would remind me of all the things I had done for my son and the wonderful life and love he was given, but it wasn’t enough for me. I constantly questioned why I hadn’t done more.

    After a few years, I realized that guilt was consuming me and in order for me to move on, I needed to find a way to let go and forgive myself.

    I was weighed down because I was living a life consumed by the past. Guilt did not allow me to be fully present with my family, or to see all the good that I had in my life then and now.

    I had to face that I was never going to change the past, but I could change the way I remembered my precious time with my son. Once I did, I could free myself from being the victim of my story.

    Guilt was a pointless burden on top of my grief. I needed to accept the decisions that I had made and let go.

    With guidance from a reiki practitioner, I learned how to become still, empty my mind of my negative thoughts, and finally give myself permission to stop carrying this burden.

    Here are some of the ways I learned to let go of my guilt and forgive myself. If you’re also clinging to guilt and living in the past, these may help you, too.

    Stillness

    In our busy world it can be difficult to find time for stillness, and sometimes it’s easier to avoid it, since it can bring up painful emotions. But it’s only in facing the emotions that we can work through them and let them go.

    Through practicing meditation and yoga, I found that breathing deeply and slowly helped me release the stress in my body and mind.

    It allowed me observe, accept, and release my guilt, and it also helped me focus and create new, positive beliefs and thoughts.

    Over time, stillness can help us learn to identify the beliefs and thoughts that lead to guilt so we can let them go to feel lighter and less attached to stories about the past.

    Journaling

    Not long after our son died, I began to write in a journal. It really helped me to express my feelings and understand why I felt how I did.

    Start by writing down your overwhelming thoughts and feelings. Allow yourself to express everything. Be still and take time to read it back.

    Now ask yourself some questions, like: Do I need to hold onto to these thoughts and feelings anymore? How would changing these thoughts or feelings make a difference in my life? How is guilt holding me back?

    Answer honestly and begin to see where you can change the thoughts and beliefs you have about your situation.

    Then start writing down some new goals, affirmations, and thoughts you can have instead, and make time each day to practice them. Our journals can help us release, learn, and keep track of our progress and our goals for the future.

    Visualization/Forgiveness

    Sitting in a calm, quiet place, visualize the person you feel guilty about and ask them for forgiveness. Now, see them forgiving you, see yourself and the other person covered in light, and see yourself no longer burdened by your guilt.

    For a long time I didn’t believe I deserved forgiveness, and you may feel the same.

    Forgiveness means letting go and releasing the heaviness and the old story we have told ourselves. Forgiveness allows us see the truth and release the past.

    It’s hard to forgive yourself and accept that you deserve it, but holding onto your guilt only creates pain. Seek help from a trained practitioner if you feel you cannot do it on your own.

    Time and practice will always be your healer, so be patient and never give up.

    Realize that no one is perfect—and also that our guilt often has more to do with ourselves than those who we feel we have harmed. Guilt is often a self-created reminder of all the things we wish we had done differently for ourselves.

    In realizing that it’s in large part about us, it’s a lot easier to let it go.

    I no longer allow guilt to have power in my life, and in doing so, I can experience the fullness of life and the precious time I have with everyone I love. No matter what you feel guilty about, you deserve that too.