Can You Forgive?

It doesn't matter how you look at it, you have had the feeling that you have been wronged at least a few times in your life. It may be just a minor faux pas or something major where you have had a major grievance. We all have the opportunity to forgive at one point or another.  The problem most people have is that they have the opportunity to forgive someone and they don't. These people often struggle with the anger and resentment that builds up within themselves. All because there was some occurrence and there wasn't any satisfying resolution to it. Therefore these people often sit in that discomfort wanting someone to recognize the injustice that they faced. Many of these people fall into a victim mindset because they start identifying with their outrage and that violation as they continue to share their stories as to how their abuse happened and how grave the injustice was and how unfair it was. These people start carrying the heaviest thought any man can carry. It isn't grief, it isn't even the victim mindset. It is a grudge. Now I have talked about grudges before and how you can rise to your greatest self when you are weighted down with a grudge. A grudge is a lot like drinking poison and waiting for our enemy to die. You are throwing all your hate against someone who is barely even thinking of you. While that abuser is occupying almost every idle second of your thoughts. How can you dream of what you will become if you are letting the very person you claim to detest to live rent-free in your head? The question I pose is, how do you evict that nemesis forever? You may not like the answer but you forgive and you forget. What forgiving is and what it means Many people who have been wronged in the past just yelled, Bullshit! I do inderstand. It took a long time for me to get to the point where I forgave my mental tormentors. Yet when you do it is freeing. So what do I mean by forgiving those who wronged me? That is almost exactly what I mean. You simply forgive them. Now forgiving doesn't mean you forget what they did. I don't believe there is a way to forget that, but in reality, would you really want to? I wouldn't want to stay weary of them for the very fact of what they did.  So what do you mean when you said forget? I mean you stop thinking of them. If they come waltzing back into your thoughts you gently turn away from that thought. You may even say I don't care about them. Don’t give them any more of your energy.  What if they wronged you again? Then that would be a shame on you. If somebody has a track record of wronging you and you let them still wrong again you. That is not on the offender. That is on your shoulders and you need to correct that. Forgiving others So how do you forgive others? A lot of people sadly are so lost in their grudges and their own world of self-pity, that they don’t even see the opportunities for forgiveness. This is a lot like how people with a scarcity mindset think. Yet forgiving somebody is a simple process. How? You use three little words, “I forgive you”. Now I understand some folks can’t have it that easy and that’s fine but if you don’t leave you can forgive so that easily you don’t have to. You can make up as complex of a ritual as you want to forgive somebody. One of the big things a lot of people do is write a letter. In this letter, you address the person who offended you. write out all the grievances all the pain all the hurt all the hate and vitriol you have inside of you. End it with but I forgive you and I wish you well. Then fold it up put it in the envelope write the person's name on the front of the envelope and then burn the envelope and the letter and imagine using that fire as a means that all of your hate and rage and animo