Forgiving sounds so easy, but not really. After going through bad experiences with people that hurt us is really easy to have feelings of anger, resentment and remorse. This feelings can be so damaging to ourselves that we wish someday we will be able to forgive the people who hurt us the most.
In order to forgive we must be really strong and usually when someone hurts us we become very weak. We asked ourselves, how this person hurt me like this? We feel betrayed, sad and angry. It’s a very uneasy feeling and the last thing we think is: Hey, let me forgive this person.
That’s why I decided to do a little research to help us in our lives on how we can forgive those who hurt us in order to move on for better and amazing things.
To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover that the prisoner was you. Lewis B. Smedes
The first feeling we experience when someone hurts us is being upset. Our ego suffers and we feel like doing some kind of revenge, but hey, this is not the show in ABC. We can do way better than this and take the right/high road. Also, remember this famous quote by Gandhi “An eye for an eye leaves everybody blind.” We don’t want that, don’t we?…
So, what can we do?
1. Let it all out. Feel your pain, but don’t let it control you. Talk to someone who can help you feel better. There’s going to get to a point when the anger or pain we feel is going to despair and it gets tiring holding that grudge.
2. I believe that for truly forgiving someone you have to first forgive yourself. Why? Well, because we have the power to control our emotions. We can’t let someone else rule that for us. I understand that people can hurt us, but is up to us if we let them do it. This took me a while to understand, but is true. By doing this we are taking control of our feelings and we decide to stop hating and start loving ourselves, so we can heal better.
That’s why we have to say out loud “I can’t do this to myself… I need to let go of my anger because I need peace of mind.” Repeat every time if necessary.
3. How can we achieve that peace of mind? By forgiving. Forgiving doesn’t mean we are doing it for them, we are doing it for ourselves. We are letting that negative energy go away and we are realizing there are some things in life we can’t control. We can’t control what other people do to us, but we can control how we react to them.
If the person does not apologize we have to make our own closure. We have to see the big picture and come to realize that everybody make mistakes and saying “I’m sorry” is very difficult too. Only really humble, strong and mature people are able to do this. So, remember we are taking the higher road here, which is way more difficult. We have to be stronger and let things just be the way the are. I believe in a way or another.. sooner or later, we all learn from this experience.
4. Right now is the best moment to remember we are trying to be better people (that’s why you are reading this article…you are trying and I’m very proud of you.. I’m trying too). The most challenging thing we can do to ourselves is to find a reason to be better. I don’t think that holding a grudge, resentment and anger we will help us to achieve the person we want to be.
This paragraph is from Psychology Today:
“Forgiveness requires us to view our offender not as malevolent but as confused—so much so that they would actually believe that by harming us they could somehow become happier (though they would almost certainly be incapable of articulating that as the reason). Secondly, forgiving requires us to let go—of our anger; of our desire to punish or teach a lesson; of our need to harm our harmer; of the notion that by choosing to forgive an offense we’re in some way condoning an unjust action committed against us or committing an injustice ourselves; of the need for an apology; and of the need for our harmer to change. For in forgiving another their transgression against us, we’re ultimately seeking to free ourselves. Forgiving, as the saying also goes, doesn’t mean forgetting. Nor does it have to mean returning the person we’ve forgiven to their former status in our lives. It means we move on healed from the hurt that’s been done to us…
In forgiving them you’re not only setting yourself free, you’re actually contributing to something of greater importance, something the world is literally crying out for in more places than you could probably name: peace.”
Beautiful, right? Tough topic, but encouraging. Let’s try harder and forgive the people that hurt us… at the end we all make mistakes.
xoxo,
Cristina
