Have you ever experienced sadness, pain, disappointment, from someone's words, actions, wrong doings... Maybe a friend, relative, sibling, parent, boss, ... You know where I'm coming from... And of course you have.
Have you forgiven them? Or are you hanging on to those feelings of resentment, anger etc?
I have those feelings, and unfortunately I've been hanging on to them for a long time. It has been weighing me down for years. Isn't it funny how someone can forgive a person they've never met, for instance the guy who was involved in my mom's fatal car accident, but it's difficult to forgive a friend or sibling for hurting your feelings? And you carry it with you... FOR YEARS!
Well, all these feelings of old resentment from other circumstances with other people got stired up when my dad and I had some disagreements a little while ago. I discussed it with my husband many times, and my sister and all they could comfort me with was, it's not like him, you should just forget about it and move on. But the angry feelings and feelings of unfairness kept kreeping up in my mind every day, consuming me, angering me and saddening me. I just couldn't get a grip on myself or my feelings. I need to mention that we live 7 hrs apart and I was starting to feel like I didn't want to go home anymore to see my dad.
This saddened me even more you see because I just gave birth to my dad's 3rd Grand child... And I don't want my son to grow up without a close relationship with his Grand parents, because I know how cherished my memories of spending time with my grand parents are.
I found myself at a crossroad. Do I figure out how to forgive and move on? Or feel like this and carry this heavy load with me for who knows how long?
It seemed like it was time for me to figure out how to let go. Let go of recent hurts as well as old ones that I've already carried around for ...too many years.
You see, my dad and I have always been so close. We've always discussed matters calmly, I've always valued his feedback and advice and never had we been through loud arguments or unable to resolve our differences... Until now.
So I remembered a friend recommending a book to me about 2 years ago: "How to forgive... When you don't feel like it" by June Hunt. I remembered picking it up at a leadership seminar we were at but never cracked it open. So my husband and I started looking for it through our wild collection of leadership and self help books, and low and behold there if was, not a dent in it, fresh crispy pages just waiting to be touched and studied.
It became my journey to heal my hurting soul.
I can remember a day when I knew what a soft and light heart felt like. I can remember feeling invincible! I remember being so dedicated to my beliefs that I was able to work out at the gym and see muscle definition in my legs for the first time in my life! (I've always been a little on the curvy side). But I've been getting "weighed down " (pardon the pun) by all these emotional rocks, and my energy has been slowly getting buried under them.
Sad isn't it? Sadly I'm not the only one with these feelings and I Hope that sharing my story will reach someone who needs a hand up. I hope to shed a little light of hope in someone else's life.
I'm not done reading the book but the chapter I just read spoke about physically forgiving a person who has wronged you or hurt you by writing their name on a piece of paper, attach it to a helium balloon and letting it go outside. The gesture means you are letting go of that rock, you are taking that rock off your hook and putting it on God's hook, for him to carry. That you have faith that God will take care of it as he sees fit.
I understand not everyone believes in God and we all have our beliefs... But just for a moment, that made me feel hopeful. That I may not be able to understand or fix the disagreement we had, but I can decide to let faith, karma, or what ever you believe in, take care of it for me.
Soon, I'll be buying some of those Chinese lanterns (I think they may be a little bit more environmentally friendly than helium balloons) and holding my own little ceremony. I want to write the names of the people who are rocks on my soul, and light a lantern for them, and let the rocks, hard feelings and what have you, be lifted for good.
Forgiveness is not admitting that something wrong was OK. Forgiveness is not holding on to negative feelings. It's about letting go of the things you cannot change.
A wise friend told me once, sometimes the relationship is more important than being right.
To that I must add, that sometimes we even allow people we don't have relationships with, take up valuable space in our souls... I've also allowed that to happen, but not for long.
Thank you for reading.
Love always
Danielle
