Project 31. Brought to you by She Breathes Deeply
What is Jesus teaching you as a a wife, mommy, friend, or just women in general?
Forgiveness. No doubt. I know people look at me crazy because I am so forgiving, but the fact of the matter is who am I to judge? I have no right. Holding onto bitterness and anger only slowly kills you and makes your heart heavy. It's hard to be truly happy with yourself and your life if you are holding onto past hurts, and bitter feelings. It's almost as if you hold onto the resentment and anger that you are getting back at the person or building a wall against the pain. In reality you are prolonging the hurt and pain and until you can find a way to forgive you will see that you continue to attract the same type of people, but with different faces, and the same situations into your life, and slowly you will realize that your list of one person that you are angry with and can not forgive will grow to a list of ten, or twenty, or so on, until you have so much anger and resentment in you that it affects you personally. Who has time for that? Over time, people (yes, even your friends, family, and closest loved ones) will do things that you may not agree with, or that upset you to the core, but you can't hold that against them forever if you plan to still have them in your life. It's almost guaranteed that one day YOU may be that one that is hurting someone, or doing something that YOUR loved ones don't agree with, but you'd still want them to have your back, and love you, right? That's why forgiveness is so important. Every negative emotion comes from our subconscious, and was born through an experience in our past that caused us pain. Our thoughts help create our present and future and what controls our thoughts? Yes, emotions play a part on what controls our thoughts, thus leading us to our actions. Our actions have a HUGE effect on our well being. Blame and holding onto negative emotions from the past are two HUGE things that keep us from the true happiness we all deserve. The only way to get rid of emotional past angers and hurts is to forgive. Forgiveness is NOT saying what happened is right. It IS saying that you take responsibility for your emotions and reactions. You are forgiving for YOU. Forgiveness says that you are ready to heal yourself. Forgiveness says you choose to no longer allow someone to have power over you. And in forgiving the person that wronged you, not only do you allow yourself to heal and move on, but you help them to heal because that person also needs to be able to heal and forgive themselves and part of that is BEING forgiven.
Along with forgiving others, you have to learn to forgive yourself sometimes.This is also the hardest part for some people, as most of us are very critical towards our own selves. There is pretty much three steps to self forgiveness:
1. acknowledge what you did wrong, and accept the responsibility for that wrong.
2. experience feelings of guilt and regret and finally...
3. overcome these feelings aka self forgiveness. and in doing so experience a motivational change away from self punishment towards self acceptance.
I am a huge quote person so I will leave you with a few.
When you hold resentment towards another, you are bound to that person or condition by an emotional link that is stronger than steel. Forgiveness is the only way to dissolve that link and get free. - Catherine Ponder
To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover that the prisoner is you.- Lewis B Smedes
Hopefully this blog gave you something to REALLY think about. Is their a past anger, hurt, or resentment that you are holding on to? Releasing that will set you free towards your life of happiness that you so deserve. It doesn't matter how old the hurt is, it's NEVER to late to forgive. You don't know what a difference you can make not only in YOUR life, but also in those that have not yet been forgiven BY you. Tomorrow is not guaranteed so forgive today and start that healing process. I KNOW it is NOT easy. Especially forgiving yourself. I wrestle with that daily still with the way I treated my mother as a kid, but I am working on forgiving myself. It's a work in progress. I truly believe if I hadn't held on to this, and had been able to physically apologize to my mother, and ask her forgiveness while she was still alive, that it wouldn't weigh me down today. I waited until it was too late, don't allow that to happen to you friends. <3
XOXO
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