By WahitoTravels
They say when you forgive it is not meant for other person but for your peace. But let the truth be told. Forgiveness is one of the hardest virtues to practice. It is hard. This is because we feel like we have let ourselves down and are losers, or it is like we have given a green light to the perpetrator to go on hurting us and other people.
What even makes forgiveness also hard is that those we need to forgive and let go the pain are those close to us. Family members who are supposed to love us, close friends we trusted but betrayed us, a spouse you gave all your love but took you ‘back to the streets’ after taking everything you ever worked for, someone who hurt your child or even a business partner that squandered the entire payroll, left you high and dry and vanished in the thin air.
Renowned speaker, author and addiction expert Dr. Gabor Maté says, trauma is not what happens to you, but rather what happens inside of you because of what happened to you. This is to mean that you cannot change what happened and what causes more harm within you is the feelings that things should have been different, regrets or feelings of guilt like you allowed it to happen.
Through my journey I have learnt that forgiveness simply means not harboring grievance or resentment or any negative feelings about something that happened to you or someone who hurt you. This is by acknowledging that you did not deserve what happened to you, and letting go the fact that you cannot change what happened, is for your own good.
In most cases, forgiveness has nothing to do with forcing messed up connections with those who hurt us, but letting go the pain of what they did and still loving them from a distance even if you never meet them again.
Since forgiveness is not a one-off thing, it would be hard to achieve if we don’t practice letting go of our society conditioned ‘ego’ self and find out who we are, leave alone loving ourselves. This requires us to find the deeper meaning of our existence, and deeply understand that we are not and will never be, anything that can be taken away from us. (You can write that list and find out yourself). Knowing that I may not change or have control of some life situations, but when I am connected to who I am, I am able to detach and find peace within.
I usually say, we are what will leave our bodies when we die and that is how deep, lovely and unique we are. Look back keenly with a smile of gratitude and make you world and those of others better.
