A woman recently wrote to me about her forgiveness dilemma: after 45 years of marriage, her parents are divorcing.
She feels that her father is treating her mother badly and also putting her own kids in the middle of it all. She’s angry at him and sad for her mother. It’s keeping her up at night. She doesn’t want to feel this way. But she doesn’t want to forgive her father either.
Forgiveness: such a tender, complex topic.
It seems like it should be so simple. And, for the more evolved and enlightened among us, maybe it is. But for the rest of us, no matter how much we might wish it to be otherwise, it can be tricky.
The first challenge is going to be to decide, honestly, how motivated you are to free yourself from the grip of your anger and hurt.
Feelings of anger and hurt can be consuming. They can deplete your energy and rob you of your serenity, peace, and joy. So if you’re struggling with forgiveness in any way – or more to the point, if you’re struggling with feelings of anger and hurt – the first task is to ask yourself whether you are willing to take them on. And that means accepting, deeply and completely, that, no matter how you came to be possessed of these problematic feelings, they’re yours to manage, master, resolve, release, let go of, and otherwise decide how to suffer less while you live with them.
Over the next couple of weeks, we’ll be exploring the challenges of forgiveness. Click the video below to watch the intro video.
If you have a forgiveness dilemma you’d like to share, feel free. I’ll address it, minus identifying names and details, during the next few weeks of this series on forgiveness. Or if you’d like to speak with me privately, go ahead and send me a message and we’ll set up a time.
Your serenity, inner peace, and joy don’t have to hinge on anyone else’s behavior!
As always, remember to breathe.