Why are we so quick not to forgive or to judge? I ask this because I am not a natural myself at forgiving. When someone wrongs me I get resentful, angry, and I hold a grudge until they realize how much they have wounded my pride. Who are they to treat me that way? Who are they to leave me in the dark in silence? All of these questions come up as my ego tries to repair itself from the repercussions of a damaged relationship.
I tried to skip the steps of feeling the pain and into forgiveness.
I always pretend how much I am over that person and that I am ready to move on when in reality I want to scream in their faces. It is so much easier to just pretend to be okay and avoid the pain underneath, isn't it? It's easier to move on to the next person and start over again, right? I don't think so anymore because if I did not learn from the mistakes of my last relationship then I definitely, with no doubt, would repeat them again. You know that guilty feeling inside you when you know you are doing something wrong? Yeah, that happens to me a lot, but I ignore it and pretend it is not there. But, oh, how it comes back to bite me in the butt. I don't believe guilt is a bad thing anymore because it is there to remind me if I am hurting myself or other people. We feel guilt because we are human and I don't believe we actually deep down inside want to inflict pain, but I know it happens.
We have to feel our pain completely and listen to what it has to tell us.
Guilt is a guide built to serve you. Yes, believe it! It wants to help you to take responsibility for your own life, so you can take right actions. But to take responsibility for your life means to take responsibility for your feelings. We are so quick to blame others for our hurts and victimizing ourselves for it, leaving us powerless to them yet again. That is not what I wanted for myself anymore.
I am in still in the process of forgiving my father.
It is so hard to have confusing feelings for someone who is dead. All people want to tell me is that the past is over and he was a good man, which he really was too. I do not deny he was a good man and he did his best, but that does not mean I cannot address the times he did hurt me. For me, I needed to acknowledge my pain and feel it, to begin the forgiveness process. You cannot skip steps; take it from me. I honored my soul by recognizing that child inside me was hurt. I believe when we undergo trauma, a part of us checks out too. Who is left to mend the wound when we are not there to support ourselves? No one. I needed to come back home.
I realized the person I needed to forgive the most was myself.
My dad was mean to me, but hey I was also mean back to him. I yelled and screamed back at him just like he did to me; I did learn from the best. I know this does not excuse his behavior, but it does not excuse mine. My dad chose to hurt me, but I do not have to choose to hurt other people now. I did not understand this because I held in so much of my pain wondering why the world was so jaded towards me. But why would the world conspire against just me? I must be really important if the world hates me. I created this world just so I could feel important because I did not feel like I was growing up in my family or society. I had to forgive myself for believing in such illusions. I had to forgive myself for believing all the lies and forgetting my truth. I had to forgive myself for always taking all the blame when a relationship ended. I still have so much more to forgive, but at least I am starting to feel compassion for myself.
So, before we judge others, ask yourself why are we so quick to judge?
Have you not forgiven yourself for parts of you that you ignore and conceal from others? Have you not forgiven yourself for hurting someone when you didn't mean to? Please have compassion for yourself and see you are only human because we make a lot of mistakes! This is the part that makes us so great. We have the choice to learn from them and evolve into better human beings. If you want forgiveness, it will always start with you and this is where your power resides.