What You Must Know About FORGIVENESS

PART 1
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Have you ever wondered what forgiveness is really all about?  
Most of us have, right?
The truth is, we all have something or someone to forgive, and, undoubtedly, we’ve struggled with that.
I too have struggled until I finally learned something very important.

“How do I forgive something that hurt me so deeply?”
To even consider the answer, I had to first understand something else by answering
another very important question:

“What does forgiveness mean to me?”​
I will reveal my answer later, but for now, I ask you the same question:

What does forgiveness mean to you?

To help you answer that, consider the following:

Forgiveness can be defined as an intentional and voluntary process by which a person undergoes
a change in feelings and attitude regarding a particular wrongdoing, releases any negative
emotions caused by it, and exhibits increased ability to wish the offender well or at
the very least be neutral in their feelings toward the offender.
I can tell you with great certainty, forgiveness does not mean that what happen to you is or
was okay and you should forget about it. 

Forgive does not mean forget. 

​It does not make you wrong for feeling hurt, disappointed, sad, angry, or anything else you felt.
It does not mean that how you were treated is in any way okay or tolerable.

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What it does mean is that you develop a new emotional relationship to what happened.
This starts with ACCEPTANCE.

The acceptance THAT it happened not how or why it happened.  
Here is another way to think of it: forgiveness is giving up the hope that the past could be different.

You might as well because it can't.
What can be different is how you feel about it and your emotional experience of it NOW.

“I just want to move on” or “just move on already” are the familiar phrases associated with forgiveness
or lack thereof.  You won’t be able to move on if you are stuck in non-acceptance. 
Once you can accept THAT it happened you become unstuck.  This is the start of your new emotional relationship with that part of your past.
Accepting THAT it happened is a wonderful place to welcome true forgiveness and, for me,
the journey doesn’t end there, it only just begins.

To me, forgiveness means the understanding that what someone did has much more to do with them than it does with me.  At its deepest meaning, forgiveness is the knowing that somewhere in that other person is and was a part of them that wished they did not do what they did.

It is the understanding that what they did was out of their own pain – no matter the deed. 
This understanding – eventually – allows compassion and true forgiveness to enter your heart
replacing the hurt, pain, resentment, sorrow, and so on. 

This gives you the freedom to be truly happy, joyful, more kind, and giving to others and to yourself.
You are free to love fully once again. 
And, perhaps, you are finally free to forgive yourself.
More about that in Part 2 (coming soon).

Here are some points to consider:

1. You can not undo the past.  No one can.  
2.  Acceptance is the only productive possibility.
3. You have the ability to accept what happened and more forward.
4. You CAN change your emotional relationship with the past.
5. Please know there is always a gift in every event of your life.  
6. You can let yourself see it.
7.  You can be FREE!  

"When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change"
~ Dr. Wayne Dyer.

"Forgiveness is the fragrance that the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it."
~ Mark Twain.

If you have questions or comments please share them below.
I look forward to reading them!

With love,
Marta