When we feel hurt by a situation or behaviors in our external world, our internal life feels stabbed and wounded. What do we do with this? Do we immediately plot our revenge and lash out, do we withdraw into hurting victims, licking our wounds in private, or do we forgive and move on? Most of us probably do a little bit of each based on our personal conditioning and growth levels.
What does it mean to forgive? Many authors have described this term well. On the other side of forgiveness lies your own freedom.
“You can accept or reject the way you are treated by other people, but until you heal the wounds of your past, you will continue to bleed. You can bandage the bleeding with food, with alcohol, with drugs, with work, with cigarettes, with sex, but eventually, it will ooze through and stain your life. You must find the strength to open the wounds, stick your hands inside, pull out the core of pain that is holding you in your past, the memories, and make peace with them.” Iyanla Vanzant https://iyanla.com/
“Pushing against the need to forgive is like spreading poison in your veins. Surrender to the hurt, loss, resentment, and disappointment. Accept the truth. It did happen and now its done. Make a decision to meet the pain as it rises within you and allow it to pass right through. Give yourself permission to let go of the past and step out of your history, the ego story, into the now. Forgive and set yourself free.” Oprah Winfrey www.oprah.com
My dear friend Diana Mayorga, described forgiveness in a different way. Diana says when you forgive someone, you say to them (in your mind or in person) “while I still hold healthy boundaries with you, and be mad and vent my anger and feelings in many ways, I will not withhold love from you”.
I find this both unnerving and powerful.
Often we forgive, but not fully. We forgive to forget, to reject, to avoid, to withdraw, to manipulate and control. When instead, we forgive to love; to love them and to love ourselves for loving them, that forgiveness is divine. I like how Diana includes, “I will still hold healthy boundaries with you”. This takes forgiveness to a whole new dimension. It recognizes with compassion that the human form is fallible and may continue to behave in hurtful ways, and its a healthy practice to set boundaries from repeated hurtful human behaviors. Love is spiritual, and the love shared between individuals is never on the table, it is never ending and will never be diminished no matter what form the human finite relationship takes in this lifetime.
When you forgive, let the human form, situation and experience go, send them off in that boat of love you feel for them and will continue to hold their spirit in, saying thanks for having had that experience, one that allowed you to let go with love.
Thoughts? comments?