Life hack #24: Forgiveness is for YOU, not your ex

Life hack #24: Forgiveness is for YOU, not your ex

[00:00:00] Life hack #24 Forgiveness is for you, not your ex.

One of the first and most powerful lessons I learned on my spiritual and self-healing journey in life was the importance and powerfulness of forgiveness. I was the first person to be like F that, you know, these people did these terrible things to me and I'm not gonna forgive them because that means in some way I accept what happened and that's not true.

And I get it. And I stood on my little soap box metaphorically in life, and I went through life with anger and bitterness and resentment, and it came out when I was frustrated in grocery store lineups, or if somebody walked too slowly in front of me on the street, in general I was a pretty miserable person on the inside.

And it's just the accumulation of pain in life. The accumulation of people's betrayals, or even just slight betrayals or disappointments, and they can really stack up in your soul. And one of the things that I remember doing when I was on my healing journey in life was having a [00:01:00] forgiveness exercise.

And I had to wait until I was ready, but when I was ready, I went for it. And what I did is I went through every part of my life and forgave every single person that upset me or disappointed me, or let me down. And I'm talking people on the school yard when I was younger. For example, my friend who stood me up at the talent show, and then I never got to actually go and be in any talent show.

I forgave her for standing me up, even though my whole life I always held that as a little bit of resentment towards her, I decided to let it go. I forgave people that maybe never even knew they upset me, but I just held it or something. I forgave my parents for anything that they were not able to do for me and I forgave ex-boyfriends, ex friends, whatever.

And I forgave every single person. Not because they deserve forgiveness. Not because what they did was okay. But the reason was because I was no longer going to hold on to it. And so [00:02:00] forgiving is letting go, because if you're not holding that anger, if you're not holding that resentment, then it can dissipate. And so the life hack in this, is that you got to learn how to forgive. Even your break up, forgive your ex doesn't mean you go back to them.

Doesn't mean you even talk to them ever again if they're not good for you. But it doesn't mean you can't forgive them. You can forgive people and still leave them in your past. You can forgive people and still not invite them back into your life. Because forgiveness is not about them. It's about you. And it's about what you want to carry around with you in life. And so after I had that forgiveness exercise, where I went through the series of people in my life, I was crying.

I remember it was in like a meditative environment and I was crying because it was so powerful. And then when I kind of like got up and got myself together, I went and I went on with my day or whatever, and I just, I never knew at the time, but that was just the biggest day for my journey [00:03:00] because I was able to start really healing. I wasn't just holding on to all these resentments, I wasn't holding on to any of this negative energy. And I encourage you to revisit this idea, even if you're not quite ready for it yet.

Because for example, if you can go and look at your relationship and forgive somebody for not being a good partner to you. Even if they don't say sorry. Just forgive them from a distance for not being mature enough or not being emotionally healthy enough, for not having a stronger backbone where they needed one. I think it's okay to look at a bad situation, even if you don't plan to go back, and say I forgive that person for not being good for me for, I forgive that person for not choosing me. I forgive that person for making a hard choice. You know, like these are things that they're very hard to do and you don't necessarily feel ready to forgive right away. But the sooner you get there. The sooner you set yourself [00:04:00] free. From the feelings that come with holding onto the anger, the bitterness, the resentment. And so once I actually did this healing practice and went on with my life, I noticed that I actually wasn't as irritable going through life.

I wasn't, as you know, short fused in the grocery store lineups anymore. And there really was a noticeable impact in my life when I decided to start letting shit go. Not because people deserved it, but because I did. And you do too.