“The truth is, unless you let go, unless you forgive yourself, unless you forgive the situation, unless you realize that the situation is over, you cannot move forward.” Steve Maraboli
So many people battle with forgiveness, we struggle to let go of the injustice we’ve experienced and to deal with the feelings that the person, or situation evoked within us. The sense of being powerless, worthless and not deserving of any respect, is just so strong and we never want to feel that again. There is a fear that if we just let it go and choose forgiveness, we could be hurt again.
To protect ourselves, we continue to hold on to the hurt, pain and the emotional trauma. All of which has a huge impact on our emotional and physical well being. That person may have hurt us in the moment, but we’re the ones hurting ourselves again and again, by refusing to let go and move on.
For me, forgiveness is not about the other person and making them feel better, forgetting what they did or excusing their actions. It’s deciding that forgiveness is the best option for you, because it reflects who you are as a person, how you want to live your life and how you want to feel. The energy of anger, resentment, disappointment, rejection etc is just so heavy and carrying these around each and every day, will take a toll. So I believe that forgiveness is a much better solution.
That doesn’t mean you have to stay connected in the same way to that person. If it’s appropriate you can even choose to exclude this person from your life moving forward, or perhaps limit the time you see them. Whatever you decide you’re doing this from a place of self-love and what you most need. This is about knowing that how you feel and what you need matters and that you’re willing to put yourself first.
Forgiving is about expressing the highest possible love for yourself, and for reminding you who you want to be in this life – ‘Forgiveness is my function as the light of the world’(A Course In Miracles). Don’t allow others to dim that light, because the world will miss out on so much if you do. We each affect many people throughout our lifetime and I have made a commitment to myself to ensure that these moments and experiences are loving, accepting and inspiring. I don’t want people to feel that my energy is heavy or negative, because I know that this will have an impact on them too, as well as their future choices about spending time with me.
So connect to your own inner truth, do what is necessary and then give yourself permission to heal. Remember the world needs the best possible version of you.
Depression and anxiety have become far too common in todays society and for many the depression comes from being unable to forgive others for past actions and words. They carry it around like a heavy backpack. When you choose to keep these negative emotions close, you have given your power away. You have given control of your life to something and someone outside of yourself and in every moment you’re being defined by something that happened in the past. There’s a very strong possibility that the person you’re refusing to forgive has moved on with their life. They’ve forgotten what they did and said and in some cases, they don’t even care. These negative emotions only impact you, no one else. It’s your emotional and physically well-being that is affected, not the other persons. So do you really want to give your power away to someone who hurt you?
Personally, I would rather live my best life, become the best me and show them that they have no control over me, or my emotions.
Another good reason to forgive, is because these emotions impact your energetic vibration and will block abundance from coming into your life. When we hold onto those dense and heavy emotions of anger, bitterness, betrayal, resentment, hurt, humiliation and shame, we can not be fully open to money and abundance. This is when it’s essential to do the deep inner work of forgiving people who have hurt us, betrayed us and let us down, despite it having nothing to do with money. Those emotions must be released.
Being able to forgive and shed all of those low level emotions is no doubt the aim for us all, but in reality it can be hard, because we’ve often attached so much energy and meaning to what happened.
Let’s take some time now to look at why you may be struggling to forgive someone in your life. Have a look at the following and see if any of these resonate for you:
Here are some questions to consider:
Try this forgiveness meditation and the EFT script. Both resources will help you to get clarity on exactly what you need to forgive and let go of. They will also support you in the healing process.