Finding Your Way Through Difficult Emotions by Henderson Silas;

Author:Henderson, Silas;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: CareNotes

Try to understand. Once you have recalled the injury in all its awful detail, unleash your gift of insight. Try to understand why things happened as they did.

Probe the personalities involved, the stresses at work on each individual—yourself included.

You may discover that you yourself contributed to the course of events. Perhaps you did not nurture the broken relationship well enough. Perhaps you refused to see where circumstances were obviously leading. Or you may feel that somehow you deserved what happened to you.

Don’t fall into the trap of making excuses for yourself; this is not an exercise in assigning blame. Be willing to try to forgive yourself as well.

Don’t feel obliged to make excuses for the person who hurt you, either. (Excusing and forgiving are not the same thing. You may excuse the small child who spills the too-full glass of milk; you must forgive the grown child who turns against you.) Just try to the best of your ability to understand what was happening inside the offender.

Decide to forgive. Now that you have a clearer picture of what happened and why, face the moment of decision: Do you really want to forgive?

Not without reason do we speak of “nursing” a grudge—using a word which connotes tender care and attention. Something in the human heart (some call it original sin) loves dark feelings. When anger and hatred have been in residence there for a long time, we grow used to having them around; we even grow to love them.

Something in the human heart wants justice. Forgiving when repentance or reparation is lacking, when real reconciliation is perhaps impossible because of distance, death, or the other’s unwillingness—that kind of forgiving rightfully outrages our sense of justice. Some things don’t, in decent human terms, deserve forgiveness.

Let’s get one thing straight: Forgiving is not something you do for someone else. It is not even something you do because you should, according to the standards of religious belief or human decency. Forgiving is something you do for yourself.

It is one way of becoming the person you were created to be—and fulfilling God’s dream of you is the only way to true wholeness and happiness.

You need to forgive so that you can move forward with life. An unforgiven injury binds you to a time and place someone else has chosen; it holds you trapped in a past moment and in old feelings. Forgiveness is your ticket to freedom.

Write down what difference forgiving will make in your life. What will you gain—and what will you lose?

Are you willing to lose the company of your dark feelings? Have you the courage to step out into the future without carrying the all-too-familiar weight?

Take Heart

Deciding to do something, of course, isn’t the same as doing it, but it is a giant first step. From here on, give yourself time. The hard work is behind you; the rest is a matter of practice. Bit by bit, let go of the bitter feelings you have nursed so long. You may miss them at first, but you will discover that they were pretty unpleasant company after all.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.