You’ve Got This
Tracy Becker
Jordon asks: Why is forgiving others so hard?
Wow, I love this question, Jordon. Thank you.
You are so very right that many people find forgiveness hard. Forgiveness is hard because of your own unhealed emotional wounds. When your unhealed emotional wounds get triggered by another human-being we immediately blame them for the pain. Yet, the seeds of the wound must be in you to begin with or the wound wouldn’t flair up.
In addition, in this culture we have a very strong belief that forgiveness in condoning a behavior that we do not recognize as morally acceptable. In this case, you can often get on a bandwagon to elicit as many people as possible to agree with you on how wrong the perceived perpetrator is and how you are a victim of his/her action.
Forgiving is hard because you must take full responsibility for your own thoughts, words, actions, feelings and beliefs. And, you must be willing to stop drinking the poison of blame. These are two tough approaches, but they will free you from the pain of holding on to old wounds that keep you oppressed from expression love and joy.
First, ask yourself repeatedly, am I willing to free myself from experiencing the pain and suffering of holding on this this past incident? Once you get a “YES” then you can move on to the next step, which may be the toughest, taking full responsibility.
When you accept full responsibility in its simplest form you acknowledge that I showed up to this incident with an unhealed wound and therefore my pain erupted. I mistakenly thought that someone else was responsible for my pain. I wore myself out trying to convince other’s that someone else was responsible for inflicting pain on me. I wanted someone else to take responsibility for my pain and make me feel better. Once you can correct this type of thinking, you will begin to heal and release the blame.
We forgive for our own freedom to experience and express more happiness, joy and love. This is a good thing!
Please know that it does take time and a lot of practice, but you’ve got this, Jordon.