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I can hardly believe we’re at the end of another year. Time flies by so fast, yet some days are never ending. I said this recently to my aunt and she replied with: “It’s not just the days go by fast, it’s that your life goes by so fast a stór.” And that struck me. Life after all, is just a series of days, a series of moments, many of which we judge, many of which we rush through, many of which we do not fully inhabit. Many new moments are tarnished by the aftertaste of previous moments. So my suggestion this month is to make each new moment of our lives as free from the past as they can possibly be. Allow yourself to be with the uniqueness of each new moment, it really is staggeringly beautiful.
Let’s focus on forgiveness this month as it’s fitting at the end of the year that we allow those experiences best left behind, to be left behind, as we enter a new year.
Often times we hold a grudge or a slight against someone who is not even in our life anymore
But what should we leave behind? What should we cease to give our attention to? My suggestion would be something that no longer serves any real purpose for you in your life. Often times we hold a grudge or a slight against someone who is not even in our life anymore. An ex of any description is usually a good starting point. If they’re no longer in your life, you’ve let them go physically, but can you let go of their hurtful behaviour and the effect that it had on you?
That can be a real challenge, as I hear you cry, ‘But they did me wrong! They betrayed me! Broke my heart! Slept with my friend! And they should suffer for that!’. I understand those reactions, but what I hear underlying all these statements is that this person’s behaviour made you really angry. Rightly so.
When you forgive, it doesn’t mean you forget how a certain person behaved
Anger is an understandable response to anyone who abuses your trust. In fact, each time you think of this situation you are once again embroiled in that anger. Is this healthy for you? Do you like reliving this hurt? Is it helpful at all for you in your current life?
More often than not we’re the ones who are deeply affected by the tendency to not allow forgiveness to happen.
Forgiveness is freedom
When you forgive, it doesn’t mean you forget how a certain person behaved but it does mean that you let yourself move on from that hurt rather than holding on to it and keeping it in your awareness and giving it attention for a long period of time. This damages you even more deeply than the original hurt and pain. Forgiveness is freedom. You’re not forgetting or condoning the unjust behaviour, you’re not letting anyone away with anything. When you choose to forgive you are choosing to no longer hold on to the trauma around the unjust behaviour.
Mindfulness exercise
How about you sit down with yourself – remember you’re never by yourself, always with yourself, with kindness and compassion – and be curious about your feelings about this person/situation who/that you’d like to consider forgiving.
I always find it so helpful to write my feelings down, without overthinking. You’re trying to allow yourself to feel the feelings rather than your thoughts about the feelings, if that makes sense? So I may feel angry, but I may think that I’m silly for feeling angry over something that happened 10 years ago – I think I should just get over the feeling.
But what I’m saying is; if something that happened 10 years ago makes you angry in the now, then let’s get it out of your system. Write it down, using all the angry words in your vocabulary. Write for as long as you need to write, until you feel like it’s all been said, until you feel like you’ve spent that anger. Take a few deep breaths here and tune in once again to how you feel. Let that feeling be and then the final step. When you feel ready, pop this letter of yours in an envelope, put the person’s name on it and then you have a few options; you can post it to them, you can keep it to post later or you can watch it burn in the fire and with it goes your anger. Once you have it written and you think about it for a few days, you’ll realise that you don’t need to send it to let go.
You’ve let it out, you’ve let it go and you’re ready to move on. Well done, feel better, feel freer.
Physical exercise
We often hold the tension of anger in our neck and shoulders, so we’re just going to work through the simple exercise of squeezing your shoulders up towards your ears as you inhale, hold them there as you hold your breath and then exhale as you allow the shoulders to lower back towards their natural position, repeat this at least five times and more if you’d like to. Allow yourself to be guided by how your body feels as opposed to what you think about how your body feels. There is a huge difference.
Something to ponder
Be an active participant in your life, love it and cherish it, for remember, it may well be later than you think. 2019 has gone by in what sometimes feels like a flash. Let’s move forward into 2020 with 20:20 vision; fully aware and awake in our own life. To be alive is a miracle we take for granted. Love. Every. Second. Happy New Year everybody.
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