Tag: forgiveness

Monday – Funday

“Why You Should Get Used To Being Misunderstood:

If we say what we want, we will be called aggressive. If we people please or appease, we will be called selfish because it’s never enough.

If we place a boundary, people won’t honor them or will violate them. If we have no boundaries, we’ll drown as we try to meet everyone’s expectations.

If we follow a path that’s not traditional, we’ll be told it’s risky or it won’t work out. If we do what’s expected of us, there will still be people who critique how we do it.

If we have the courage to share our gifts with the world, there will be people who would prefer us to be silent.

If we stay in our comfort zone, we live with the regret of “what if I would have…”

If we decide to break the cycle, there will be people who label us as the problem.

If we stay in dysfunction, the connection and love we receive there will always come with conditions.

If we outgrow relationships, some people will feel abandoned in the process. If we stay in relationships we’ve outgrown, new versions of ourselves won’t be accepted.

The only answer really is to live a life that’s authentic to us and allow people to misunderstand us in the process

Because they will anyway.” – Dr. Nicole LePera, @Theholisticpsyc (Twitter)

I usually make Monday posts on the blog, light, short and funny. (I like to just ease into my week.) However, today I’m feeling a little more verbose. And if you think that I am verbose and prolific, then you need to check out Dr. Nicole LePera on Twitter and/or Instagram. Dr. LePera freely gives out a plethora of helpful, insightful, meaningful, direct, easy to understand “therapy” on a daily basis. I highly recommend reading her stuff. She has given me so much food for thought. I agree with Dr. LePera’s platitudes about 98 percent of the time and even when she is saying things that “I already know”, the daily reminders are so helpful and useful. I found the thread which she recently wrote on making true apologies and amends to be so excellent that I decided to send it to our immediate family text chat because lately I think that our family has been a little lax in that area with each other. (This action of mine got “ignored”, or met with mixed reviews, but the seed has been planted . . .)

As much as I appreciate Dr. LePera’s insights, over the weekend she posted a thread about “forgiving” her younger self for all of the mistakes she had made throughout her lifetime. It was a beautiful thread and I think that forgiving yourself is key for a healthy mindset, but I also think that Dr. LePera should have taken it a step further to thank her younger self for having the guts and gumption to venture into life without all of the accumulated wisdom she has acquired throughout her life, from her studies and from her experiences. Do elite athletes like Michael Jordan have to forgive their younger selves for not being the amazing players that they eventually became, from the get-go? Is anyone an expert at anything from the starting gate? The seeds of talent and desire may be there, but the seeds have to be nurtured and grown, and usually this “seed nurturing” in anyone’s life starts out by some pretty young, naive, inexperienced farmers (our younger selves), who are learning as they go. Of course we young farmers make mistakes! It would be weirder if we didn’t! And we’ve all had to grow the seeds of our lives in all different terrains, with all sorts of unique weather, and conditions, and toxicities. Honestly, what’s more impressive – a naive little seedling that makes it through a big storm, or a hearty tree that is firmly rooted and has the knowledge and ability to rely on the experience of making it through many storms?! We need to thank those little seeds who were us for having the guts to give it all a try, without much knowledge, training and experience to go on. We need to thank the younger versions of ourselves for overcoming our fears in order to be willing to try all of the experiences that have molded us into ourselves today. The younger versions of ourselves helped us to evolve and to become who we are today, right at this very moment. Ponder this: We are currently, right at this moment, the younger versions of ourselves, who ten years down the line, we will be simultaneously forgiving and thanking, all at the same time.

Perhaps all that life really is, is growing from seedling into hearty trees, reaching into the skies of our adventures, constantly learning as we go. Isn’t this action best done with big dollops of forgiveness and gratitude for ourselves, and for others, as we co-create this beautiful, mysterious forest of our shared world?

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

The One You Need to Forgive

“My love, if the mistakes you made in the past no longer represent who you are now, it’s safe to forgive yourself.” – Valencia, Twitter

If you have learned from your mistakes, and you have changed your ways, then you have used these gifts and lessons from the Divine to turn this world into a better place. You have inspired others to do the same by your beautiful example. What could be more sacred than that? The people who have taught me the most about changing bad habits, or changing unhelpful thought/relational patterns, are people who have walked hard, narrow roads before me, climbing the rocks of integrity and candor, with their brutal self honesty. Their brave actions, which support their clear, honest words, are more inspiring to me, than any lecture I have ever received from a gilded, coddled, protected cocoon.

Forgive yourself. You are the only one left who needs to do this. Everyone else (every One) who matters, has already forgiven you. Have you ever thought about the fact that by overcoming your own transgressions and by inspiring others to do the same, you might be an important part of the Divine plan to lift this world to a higher plane? You are a beautiful example of evolution and elevation. Take off the cloak of shame, now. Forgive yourself.

Forgive yourself for the bad decisions you made, for the times you lacked understanding, for the choices t… | Choices quotes, Forgive yourself quotes, Wisdom quotes
42 Forgive Yourself Quotes | Self Forgiveness Quotes images – tiny Positive

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

The Cherry on Top

I was all set to write about this life management theory that I have been learning about and that I find to be very interesting. Then, I got distracted (story of my life) during my morning reading, and I found two quotes that really struck me as important enough to discuss. I use this blog to commune with you, my wonderful readers, but also as a library of sorts, for me to keep useful, interesting information and inspiration for myself. So, tune in tomorrow for words on a thought-provoking life theory, but for today, here are the quotes:

“At the end of a good book, I always feel fuller, but also irrationally abandoned.” – Charmeuse (Twitter)

I absolutely love when someone puts into words exactly how I feel and in such an easy, succinct way to understand. I always feel this way after a good book. The two best books that I have read lately, which made me feel this way, were Glennon Doyle’s UNTAMED and J.D. Vance’s HILLBILLY ELEGY. (this one has been made into a movie directed by Ron Howard. I am very excited to watch it!)

The second quote is a little more somber. This is the quote:

“Make peace with the apology that isn’t coming.” – Valencia (Twitter)

The most beautiful heartfelt, thought-out apologies which I have ever received are from kind, loving people who have barely offended me. (we all make mistakes) These apologies were full of emotional empathy, not one excuse, and were followed with an earnest change in behavior. I think that a lot of us (or at the very least, me) get caught up in these fantasies, of that type of sincere, genuine apology coming from the people who have cut us to our cores. But here’s reality friends, people who are capable of hurting us that deeply, are most likely the same types of people who are not capable of a great deal of empathy and self reflection and introspection. Hurting people hurt people. Unfortunately, it is typically the most damaged souls that cause the most damage. These people are not capable of the apologies and of the understanding (the kind of apologies that are often shown at the climax of a dramatic movie) which we are most wanting and needing to hear. So the sooner that you can make peace with the fact, that the genuine apology is unlikely to occur, and trust yourself going forward, to keep healthy boundaries with toxic people and negative situations, the easier it is to move on with your life, forgiving yourself and others, for past situations that caused harm. (Remember forgiving does not mean forgetting or even resuming a relationship. It just means letting go of the rumination and the pain of it all. Forgiveness is for yourself.) Take only the growth and the lessons and the wisdom which you gleaned from a relationship or a happening, and let go of your need for the apology. It is the only way to peace. Let it go. Let it go. Let it go. And remember, if by rare chance, a person does do the hard work to change their ways, and evolves into a better, more authentic person, the apology received will be like the cherry on top, of the beautiful, delicious dessert that you have already created for yourself, with your healed and happy life.

To Err is Human

There’s a scene in the movie Ingrid Goes West where two of the characters borrowed another friend’s truck and they don’t return it on time, causing him to miss an important event.  On top of that, they don’t answer his frantic calls and they drive the truck while intoxicated and high and wreck it, causing significant damage to it.  When they finally return the truck the next morning, dents and all, the apology given to the truck owner is so flimsy, light, and half-hearted, you would have thought they had just stepped on his toe.  “Sorry, it was an accident,” was basically the flippant, flat reparation given to the stunned victim.

The movie is a comedy of sorts and you do find yourself laughing at the absurd audacity of the lack of concern on the characters’ parts, for the serious distress and upset they caused for their friend.  I think why this scene seems so appallingly funny, is because most of us do the exact opposite.  When we do something wrong or make a mistake, we flog ourselves endlessly for days on end, until finally we find another mistake that we have made to punish ourselves for, and we move on to punishing ourselves for the new offense.

“Dwelling on mistakes will not erase them.” – Smart Thinking, twitter

Sometimes it feels like, if we beat ourselves up enough, then that will beat the mistake into thin air, like it never happened.  We all know that doesn’t work, but we certainly give it the “old college try”, don’t we?

“Your best teacher is your last mistake.” -Smart Thinking, twitter

If we change our perspective on our mistakes, we learn a lot from them.  That is certainly a more fruitful thing to do than beating ourselves up into a state of despondency that is doing nothing for us or for the person or persons whom we hurt.  Bottom line, we all make mistakes and errors of judgment.  This is part of our being human.  We need to own our transgressions, apologize soulfully from our hearts and empathize with what it must feel like for the person we hurt, in order to best deal with and move through our mistake. Next, we need to make fair amends where we can, by doing what we can do to compensate for the pain that we caused for another being.  And finally, we need to forgive ourselves and let it go. Whether the other party chooses to forgive us, is up to them and on their own time schedule.  We can still forgive ourselves, though.  Feeling forgiveness, like happiness, is an inside job that we do for ourselves in order to live in a peaceful, emotional state.

When we learn from our mistakes, we can almost change our perspective to see the lessons that they bring to us, as astute gifts of wisdom.  Sometimes the person we have hurt is ourselves, and we must take the very same steps to work through the offense of hurting ourselves, so that we can move on with a clear, peaceful conscience and the wisdom to do better in the future.

“What was your best experience?

Answer:  It was your worst experience.

Why?

Because it was so convincing.” -unknown