Wednesday, June 10, 2015

Forgiveness is a Gift to Yourself


                Revenge is something that glorified in today’s society. I freely admit it, I used to believe in revenge. I would look at the person who wronged me, smile, and say or at least think, “Just wait, you will see what happens when you mess with someone like me.” I felt this sick satisfaction when I thought that I had gotten even with someone, not realizing that I was actually absorbing my own toxicity and not only hurting someone else but lower myself as a person.  I would laugh and say, “Karma is a bitch,” when I would see the outcome, believing that, “an eye for an eye” was the way to go because of what society instilled in my head. I genuinely believed what I was doing was justified because they had initially wronged me.
                Upon reflection, I realized that this is wrong and initiates a self-perpetuating spiral of negativity. It is never okay to hurt someone else, even if they have hurt you. You are not responsible for delivering Karmic justice and, “getting even” is still harming someone else, regardless of what they did to you. By harming someone else, you are also harming yourself because you have allowed another person’s actions to affect you so negatively that you think there is a justification to doing intentional harm. There is no justification, and there is no end to the tit-for-tat of pain and negative energy.
                When someone wrongs me, I feel like there is a pit growing in my stomach and a weight on my shoulders. I now realize that retaliating is not the path to removing these negative feelings.              
                The best way to, “get even” is to forgive. Forgiveness is not taking the easy way out. It is one of the hardest things to do because when we are hurt, the last thing on our mind is to forgive the other person and to realize that the person that hurt you did that because they themselves are in pain. You have to realize that you are not forgiving the other person for them, you are forgiving them for yourself. You are loving yourself because retaliation and retribution are wastes of your time and energy.  They lower your spirit for a momentary animalistic sense of relief and often have unintended long-term consequences.  Forgiveness takes away the dark bitterness in your own heart and replaces it with light. Forgiveness allows you to move on and truly live your life. Just because you forgive doesn’t mean that you forget, but it does mean that you keep moving forward in life. It means that you love yourself enough to not allow the darkness to reside for very long. When you forgive, you telling yourself, “I don’t deserve to live life in the bondage of someone else’s pain.” You are deciding that you want to be happy and free.

               



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