I never knew how powerful forgiveness was until I allowed myself to indulge in it. When people tell you that forgiveness is a gift that you give yourself, they aren’t lying.
You don’t know how heavy it is until you let it go.
A grudge is like a pain that you’ve had for so long that you barely feel it anymore but when it’s gone you don’t know how you managed to live with it.
A few years ago when I was getting into this transformative self-help thing I wrote down all of the grudges I was holding onto. All of the things that I was still pissed about no matter how long ago they happened or how small they were. It was a long list. Over a page. I don’t know how I could have carried all of those things within me. I went down the list of those grudges and I examined them. Some of them were easy to let go. I acknowledged the hurt and why it hurt and then I let it go and moved on. Others took a lot of work and examination and journaling and talking, but once I did that, once I let go…
It felt so unbelievably good.
Forgiving yourself (at least for me) is ridiculously hard. There’s all those should haves and could haves and we wish we had done better, known better, listened and acted better. It’s so easy to place the blame on ourselves and internalize everything. The work to find forgiveness, to get through those feelings, is worth it. The energy to let it go is worth it.
Today’s card, from Louise Hay’s Wisdom Cards is:
I release all old hurts and forgive everyone, including myself.
What things do you need to forgive yourself for? What do you need to forgive others for?
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