Well, it's Sunday again and Gommy's spiritual side is awake and up and at it.....Today, I want to talk about forgiving and forgiveness. It may sound like a pretty cut and dried subject but it can be a very tricky and sticky subject.
When someone forgives us, it is an easy gesture to accept and we can feel like a 'ton of bricks' has been lifted off of our backs ( or our conscience in some cases). Depending on the reason for being forgiven, it can actually change a persons' life. We can accept the persons' forgiveness gracefully or we can be smug about it by feeling we didn't really have all that much to be forgiven for.
Now the forgiving of someone or something can be a lot tougher to be so gracious about. We humans tend to hold onto our grudges like little bundles of hate, for lifetimes in some instances. I have been guilty in the past of holding onto my feelings of hurt over a misunderstanding or something someone did for way too long. After a time, although most won't admit it, we actually forget what we were so mad about but we still hold the grudge. What must we be thinking? It takes so much energy to keep harboring such animosity.
Gommy has come to the conclusion that when someone hurts us, we feel we must protect ourselves or our self-image (ego) of ourselves, so we just cut off all connections with the person who 'did us wrong'. If it is a family member, we may do this by sabotaging them 'emotionally'. They may not even know it, but WE sure do.....But holding a grudge is really much harder on the 'holder' than the 'holdee'. The person you are upset with usually just goes along their merry way and never gives you or the instance another thought. While the 'holder' of the grudge stays angry, upset, hurt and nurtures their grudge and protects it and holds onto it for dear life. Why? Who is being hurt by the whole instance?????
But Gommy also has thought about this for some time and realizes that the reason people get to the point that they are holding the grudge in the first place must be that they feel their self-worth was attacked. For instance: If someone doesn't ask you to a certain family function, or says something nasty about you, or didn't reply to an invitation you gave them, or you feel they didn't keep in touch with you like you thought they should have over the years, it makes you feel you have to defend yourself and your sense of yourself. You feel 'attacked' and you must 'defend' your sense of being 'right'. But is it more important to be 'right' or to be happy? Many people are insecure and it doesn't take very much to peel off the protective 'scab' we put on our 'social faces'. It really boils down to our not being able to feel good about ourselves when we allow someone else's' opinion or point of view or whatever it was that upset us to have an impact on our life. Gommy says, everyone gets one life to be the boss over. You don't get to be the 'boss of me' and I don't get to be the 'boss of you'. What I mean by that is that everyone should just keeps their noses (politics, religion, child-rearing practices, etc.) to themselves and let people make their own mistakes and make their own minds up about their politics and religion or how they raise their family. Believe me, everyone will get along much better if you try it.
I finally learned over the years it is best to let go of the grudge and forgive. And much to my surprise, I found in the end, the person I was doing the biggest favor in the whole she-bang was ME!!!!! The instant I forgave the other person, POOF....I felt as light as air. Now you don't even have to tell the other person you forgive them. Many times they don't even live close to you anymore or they may even be dead and gone! It really isn't about the other person anyway, it is about letting go of our own useless emtional baggage. Just the act of letting it go is so freeing that it makes you realize how futile the whole thing was in the first place. I have actually re-connected with a few people I had been missing over the years by just telling them I was sorry about the whole thing and let's just start off on 'square one' again....It is nice to have friends, even ones you thought were lost.
So let's start to try to mind our own bees-wax and live and let live. There is usually enough going on in all of our lives to manage without trying to manage someone else's life!!! Or put another way, let's just "forgive and forget" whatever was bugging us......Happy Sunday ((*.*))
