How many of you have been hurt from an old love, family members or friends?  I believe is part of our human experience to deal with pain and rejection.  I also believe it’s part of the human experience to learn and grow from pain and disappointment, but very few decide to do so.  This week I had to deal with the power of forgiveness.  I had to finally forgive loved ones for not loving me the way I thought I should be loved.  I had to forgive colleagues and friends for not treating me with kindness and respect when I was seeking support.   It was an eye opening experience for me to realize that I still held some kind of resentment for people who had done me wrong.  I realized that I have a lot of healing to do in regards to letting go of the past and not wishing it was any different.  My epiphany was that by me wishing that someone would have loved or treated me better in the past, I was still stuck in the past.  I finally see that it is o.k. to accept what happened, what hurt me and move on.  I was also reminded that bad and good experiences make us who we are. The key is to learn not only from positive experiences, but also from the negative ones.  Today let’s surrender to letting go of the past so that you can become the best YOU!

I thought that when I forgave that colleague that put my job as an educator in jeopardy, I was saying that what he did was o.k.  I thought that if I forgave my friend for betraying me, I had to continue with that friendship.  In both of these cases, I was not only willing to make peace with the past, but thought that forgiveness meant that you should continue to have people that have hurt you in your life. The truth is all the people that come into your life have lessons to teach you.  Some of the lessons are painful, but in the end you should learn from them.  You should forgive those that have hurt you, not because they need your forgiveness, but because you need the peace. Remember Nelson Mandela once said that, “Resentment is like drinking poison and the hoping it will kill your enemies.”

When you forgive you are accepting the reality of that someone in fact did hurt you. You have decided that no matter how difficult, and painful that lesson was, you are willing to learn the lesson.  Also, when you are willing to forgive you are not wishing that anything would have been different.  What has helped me with forgiveness, is to see people who have brought pain and suffering to my life only projecting how they feel.  My favorite expression is that, “only people who are in pain hurt, only people with empty hearts hurt.”  It has been my personal experience that when I dwell too much on the past and wish things could have been different, I continue to stay in the past.  Remember, the ultimate goal is to learn from your pain and disappointment and move on!  When you let go of resentment you remind the other person that you honor yourself.  You also show him/her that your strength lies in your forgiveness.  Gandhi once said, “The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is attribute of the strong.”  I desire for you to be STRONG!

In conclusion to forgive is for the strong and wise!  When you forgive is not for the person that hurt you, but for your personal peace.  Love yourself enough to know that you don’t have to continue to have people that hurt you in your life.  Don’t wish for anything to be different so that you don’t have to stay in the past.  Let go of your past and move into your better future!  Until next time, BELIEVE. CHANGE. BECOME!

NancyJ