This damned word causes anger inside me sometimes. It makes others shake their heads and still others to react with horror! How could I ever???!!!???
I'm talking about FORGIVENESS! What did you think I was talking about?
In one of my sessions, we talked about this damned necessary step in our healing. We need to take this step in order to free ourselves from the heavy chains that hold us down. Think of Marley in A Christmas Carol. Long, heavy chains that keep us stuck.
The only way to unlock these chains and relieve ourselves of this heavy, noisy burden is to f-f-f- ugh forgive.
Think about it. Scrooge had to examine his past. He had to do introspection and he had to forgive...himself...in order to feel the warmth and the love of the Christmas season. Much like Scrooge, we are misers of our hearts, our trust. We build walls and we guard ourselves into believing that we can't or won't ever be happy or trusting again. But remember...in every belief there is a LIE. And boy do we tell ourselves lies. Humbug, I say! Bah, Humbug!
When it comes to forgiveness, there is a great misconception on who it is for. There is this beLIEf that forgiveness is letting the offender off the hook. That forgiving them gives them a free pass. That is a LIE. Forgiveness is about accepting what happened and knowing that we have to let go of the hurt, the anger and the constant reruns in our heads. Forgiveness is for US.
If you forgive your narcissist of a spouse for being a jerk, do you think THEY care? NO! They don't care. It means nothing to them. They are so caught up in their own world that whatever you do doesn't make a bit of difference. So, forgive them. Then let go.
I make it sound so easy, don't I? *giggles* Well, it's not. We all know it's not that easy. This isn't a 20 minute sitcom where the whole issue gets resolved, complete with commercials in 30 minutes. It's life. And life is flipping complicated. But if we really want to be happy. If we really want to have a shot of being able to trust another human being, let alone our kids, our family, our friends, we have to forgive...and we also have to forgive ourselves.
Oh yes! This is a WHOLE other ball of wax but completely necessary in order to ever feel human again. We have to have grace, patience and forgiveness for ourselves. We have to be able to realize that we did things we're not proud of, but we can learn, we can grow and we can become better humans for it. But if you're like me, there is NO one harder on myself than me. It's to a fault! But I have been learning to recognize my faults. My weaknesses - those parts of me he loved to pray on and push until I cracked....yeah those...I have to take ownership, recognize the triggers and take action. I am not going to sugar coat it, it's tough as hell, but think about how much tougher it will be to live in a world where you can't love; you can't trust; you can't forgive.
Here is my point of being stuck. I allowed myself to be goaded into bad behavior. When trying to talk about what hurt me, what bothered me, I would be met with a brick wall. No emotions, no adult conversation, no resolution. So I would end up stepping it higher and higher until I was acting out of pure frustration and anger because I couldn't walk away. I am learning to just walk away. If a person loves you...truly loves you...if they hurt you they will want to make it right. You shouldn't have to beg to make it right. Right?
The other thing we all need to understand is simply saying "I forgive you." doesn't mean you have forgiven them. It's not a switch. It is a DAILY choice to let go. It's a constant effort to push the thoughts out of our heads, To NOT send that snarky text, to not keep trying to fix things. Our job is to fix us. And to fix us, we have to fix our beLIEfs. To fix those beLIEfs we have to FORGIVE.
God, it sucks. But forgiveness is for us...not them. Forgiveness isn't letting them off the hook, but letting go. Forgiveness isn't about condoning what they did but saying that for YOUR mental health, you are letting go of the energy it takes to condemn them. Do they really deserve any more of our time, attention, energy and effort? Do they?
I've been told forgiveness is very liberating. I'm not there yet but I really understand the need to do it and the why I have to do it.
So as today's affirmation and my first baby step, I forgive Jeff for how he hurt me and this family. I forgive myself for how I reacted to that behavior.
Tomorrow, I will do this again. And the next day and the next week and so on...until I don't need to anymore because I finally forgave and the chains no longer hold me back. I'll be too busy smiling, laughing and loving to think about what HE did.
God Bless Us, Everyone!
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