I have looked at forgiveness from all angles in the past month. Now I ask, how does one go about doing it? Why can’t I forgive the wrongs done to me? Why can’t I, more than forgive, begin to trust again?
The step to achieving the above is to drop the judgement and see through the eyes of the other person. Judgement is the root of all things that need to be forgiven. Judgement keeps us in an emotional prison, from which we cannot grow, love, or trust fully. By judging others, we rob ourselves of the joy of living our lives fully.
People in our lives will always do things that hurt us now and then, and because we are scared and insecure, our first reaction is to judge what they did, preventing forgiveness. Instead, we need to step back and quiet ourselves. Then take a moment and put ourselves in their shoes. Think about why that person may have done what they did. Many times we’ll find it didn’t have anything to do with hurting us at all, but was a reaction to something going on in their own lives. We must meet them with compassion, instead of judgment. If they are good people, that have touched our lives in a positive way, we must meet them and work together to get over or around the bump in the road. If it is a toxic, abusive relationship, we still must forgive, with compassion, without judgement, and then extricate them from our lives in the name of self-care, for our own protection. We must do unto them as we would have them do unto us. We are all connected on this Earth and everything we do either pushes the world in a positive direction or contributes to the pain and negativity already out there.
“Rising above judgement is necessary because only when the broken are healed, no matter what they have done, then we, as a people, can heal.” ~ Mark
Below is an excerpt from a book I just finished. Made perfect sense to me. I had to highlight it and share it with you.
And so, as another day goes by, compassion > judgement = peace,
and….I have written.
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