Hurt people hurt people.

This past week I was once again confronted by the crucial need for forgiveness. The most important thing that I have learned about forgiveness is that it is to help me, the forgiver. It is not for helping the perpetrator. Understanding this has helped me tremendously in being able to let go. However, I find that forgiving and letting go can still be a really hard thing to do. I now understand that forgiving takes practice. Sometimes that practice requires forgiving the same offense more than once.
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I know for sure that health is much more than just nutrition and exercise.  For there to be true health we must create balance by taking care of our other needs. One of those other needs is our connection to others.  Whether you consider forgiveness spiritual, relationship or self-esteem it is an important part of emotional health and thereby physical as well.
 
“The joy that comes from realizing that suffering in our lives comes from the meaning we have given it is unlimited.” ~ Mastin Kipp

This is not to say that painful things in your past didn’t happen, but they no longer have to be as painful. It’s not as easy, it takes work and the work may often require repeating. If you continue the practice, over time new life and new meaning can emerge.
 
One of the best ways I know how to do this is to take ourselves out of our own story and step into the thoughts, feelings and beliefs of the person who hurt us. Not so we can make right what they did, but so we can begin to understand the painful event from their point of view.
 
The point of forgiveness is not to make right what happened, but to bring a new sense of empathy and compassion to all involved – this includes you.
 
The best revenge on those who have hurt us is to forgive them, because that is how we break the bond with that painful event. From there, we step into their shoes and consider how they must have been thinking and feeling, we begin to understand that their actions were not truly against us, but a request for Love and/or Validation in a very messed up way; that was the best way that they knew how to at that time.
 
​From a SOUL perspective, we must claim ownership over the meaning we give that event, and no longer make it about how it hurt us but about how they were hurt. Our job is now to step into more Love, compassion and empathy for them and for us. This helps see deeper which brings clarity, resolution and forgiveness.
 
I know these words are easy to say and harder to do but I hope that this blog post can be a beginning for you to start the journey of forgiveness so that one day soon you will be free of the chains that bind you to the past. However, be aware that this journey does come with twists and turns. Sometimes you may feel that you haven’t made any progress or you might believe that you've completely forgiven but something as simple as the wind blowing blindsides you with memories of the pain as if it happened yesterday. Just know that it is just another turn on the road that is beckoning to you for a deeper look and/or a different point of view.
 
When we see things from the point of view of others, we realize that what they are doing is not against us but is an action to make up for the love they didn’t get. It’s that simple. In this realization, we can transcend the hurt and the pain because we realize it was never about us in the first place, and so the victim story can be replaced with the story of the hero who overcame the darkness in another with Love.
 
Mastin Kipp says, “I believe that there is unbelievable healing in forgiveness.  Forgiving someone can take years of burden off your shoulders not to mention your soul.  It restores relationships, enables new beginnings and allows us to move on to better things.”

How can you start practicing forgiveness right now? I’d love to hear from you; share with me in the comments below.