Spoiler alert – it starts with forgiveness for yourself.
In our 66 ways to wellness, way number 10 is this:
Write a letter of forgiveness. You may not send it, but write it anyway. Let the recipient know you forgive them, own your part of the problem if that’s appropriate. It might be a letter to yourself. It might feel so freeing that you send it. Or write more letters.
The most powerful thing I’ve ever read was in Marianne Williamson’s best selling book “A Return to Love”. I’ve read that book about 4 times now, I try to re-read it annually, because every year it has something new to teach me, there is a new element of my life to excavate, heal or embrace.
At the time, I was recently separated from my first husband, and really upset with a family member who I didn’t feel was supporting me the way I needed to be supported. I was angry – at the whole world really – and wanted to harden my heart, block out those I felt had let me down, punish them for the pain I felt they’d caused me.
Simultaneously, I craved inner peace.
There is no peace without forgiveness
Marianne Williamson, A Return to Love
This hit me in the guts so hard I nearly threw up. Reading on, Williamson encourages the reader to have a selective memory of the experiences we have hardened against, to think of that person’s innocence, not their errors or shortcomings. Further, we’re urged to let go of our attachment to our hurt and let love in to replace it.
The cool thing about this is, once you say “OK, I choose to love you instead of punishing you, I choose to believe you love me and you’re doing the best you can right now” not only do you feel better, lighter, and at peace, but you can get on with just loving that person, seeing them for who they truly are, not through the filter you’d applied to them to protect yourself from hurt.
IDEA: write a list of people who you’re holding something against. You’ll know who they are because if you hear their name, or even think about them, the body will react. A lurch in the stomach, a cold sweat, tingling in your fingers, light headedness or even an instant migraine. It might be enough that you write their names, a few dot points or sentences about that thing you’re holding on to and then this…
Was your name on the list?
Are you holding something against yourself? That time you were mean to someone? The time you let someone you love down? The little (or big) lie you told to get out of something, or to smooth something over?
To truly love and forgive others, we need to start by loving and forgiving ourselves.
Take time out to sit in silence. Meditate, journal, pray – whatever gives you space to consider what you need to forgive yourself for.
Let it out and let it go.
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