forgive yourself first

To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover that the prisoner was you. Lewis B. Smedes

Forgiveness does not erase the past, but looks upon it with compassion.

To withhold forgiveness keeps alive emotions of hurt, anger and blame which discolour your perception of life.

To forgive, avoid ruminating on thoughts of being wronged. Rather, trust the power of forgiveness to heal the hurt and pain. By holding on to pain and resentment, you suffer because the sorrow is intensified to keep it alive. Despite people’s perceptions that forgiveness means to forget, its motive is preserved in self-forgiveness and the role you played in co-creating the circumstances.

This does not mean you consented to what transpired. Given your involvement, even as a victim, you forgive yourself regardless of your role. Forgiveness means to let go of dislike, instead of allowing it to eat at you.

In the 2009 film Invictus, Nelson Mandala played by actor Morgan Freeman avows to the African National Congress in a show of defiance, “Forgiveness starts here…Forgiveness liberates the soul… It removes fear, that is why it is such a powerful weapon…The past is the past, we look to the future.”

Remarkably, there’s a close link between negative emotions and illness, documented over the past decade by several leading doctors. Toxic and destructive emotions have the potential to activate certain diseases if we don’t attend to our emotional wellbeing.

It is acknowledged as difficult for us to forgive a perpetrator for wrongdoing and it goes against our moral code. Yet, if you consider it from a greater perspective, forgiveness is associated with your emotional welfare, not merely granting the other person pardon.

“At the end of the day, forgiveness is really not for the other person’s benefit at all — it’s for our own. Regardless of how illogical it may seem at times, it is through unconditional forgiveness that we surrender the past to the past and enter the present, freeing ourselves to stand in the infinite Light that knows how to heal our deepest and most painful wounds,” states author Dennis Merritt Jones.

“Forgiveness does not change the past, but it does enlarge the future.” — Paul Boese

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