The ability to forgive is the closest we get to perfection - Adura Ojo
So I've been thinking about forgiveness. A lot. I've also been thinking about what creates the need to forgive in the first place. Pain. Emotional pain. Life is so often a mirror of actions, experiences and emotions. Sometimes we stumble on truth when we hold up a mirror to other people and let it reflect back at us. This is what I did yesterday. Many things in life can cause pain. Here I choose to focus on emotional pain, the pain we feel when someone hurts us. So lets look at emotional pain and what I
stumbled on.
1.. Pain is poison. It limits potential, kills harmony, feeds fear and hatred. Pain can be so deep that everything the person touches is tainted by it. Every opportunity, trial, success, failure.
2. Pain diminishes its victim. It steals from the person's life chip by chip, but adds nothing.
3. The acknowledgement or approval of the person who inflicted the pain is not needed. You do forgiveness for you. Your life. Your peace. Your potential.
4. Pain taints us, it makes us sick. Forgiveness restores, it heals us.
5. When we forgive, we should forgive fully to release grace into our lives and for our healing to be complete. This means forgiving every single person who has hurt us.
6. DIY detox 'forgiveness therapy' at least twice a year is a good idea. Sometimes we hold things against others and we are not aware of it or the fact that it is holding us back. A self imposed detox allows us to address this and let it go. I opt to do this by reflection every three months. Another option is to do this with a therapist.
7. The antidote to emotional pain in our lives is forgiveness. We forgive because in doing so we eradicate the poison of pain. The universe is once again open to us to realize our grace and full potential.
Step by Step: Whitney Houston
When You Believe - Whitney Houston & Mariah Carey
To 'someone' and a few others. I have 'someone' to thank for being the inspiration behind this post. It was 'someone's' observation - that I seemed to be focused on a particular subject - that got me thinking. The irony that 'someone' inspired the post is not lost on me. I did hold quite a few things against 'someone'. In the end nothing matters except our ability to soar above it all as best as we can, that we would live the life we are meant to live, not the one we force upon ourselves.
©Adura Ojo 2015