Getting to the Root of the Matter
One of the biggest keys in
learning to forgive and moving on is to get to the heart of what happened so
that you can understand and learn from it.
Now I know you are probably saying, “I will never understand why they
did what they did to me”, “I have nothing to learn from the pain they caused
me” or “You just don’t know what I’ve done.”
If you are not aware of what ails
you, how can you address it? It’s like
going to the doctor’s office and not being able to tell him specifically what
is bothering you. “I’m just not feeling well” makes it very difficult for the
doctor to know how to treat you or he could treat the wrong ailment, based on
the symptoms you tell him. How often we
do that in life. We address the symptoms
instead of the root of the ailment itself.
We will remove ourselves from a situation and feel that all is
well. However, life will continually
allow situations to come forward in your life that offer you the opportunity to
grow and be made whole. However, if you
are not even aware that there is a need for closure, you will not see them as
opportunities to learn and grow, but rather as obstacles to go around and
avoid. And so the cycle will continue.
Listed below are some examples of
how un-forgiveness displays itself.
·
Hypersensitivity
to Criticism
If someone
constantly told you that you were not good enough and would never amount to
much, you will convince yourself that your supervisor is out to get you because
he offers constructive criticism about your work, but you take everything as a
personal attack against you because you’ve still have unfinished business with
those who made you feel inadequate in the past.
·
Unrealistic
Expectations of Others
Perhaps you
never felt loved or understood or appreciated by those in your past. Now you are surrounded by those who love you
and support you, but to you, it is never enough. You will convince yourself that your husband
never has any time for you, your children don’t appreciate you, and your
friends just don’t understand you.
·
Explosive
Anger
Let’s say you
were bullied as a child or were picked on by your peers. They might not have heard you or considered
your feelings. It left you feeling like
no one ever listened to you or cared about how you felt. Now, as an adult, you’ve become quite the
bully yourself. You are determined no
one is ever going to treat you that way again.
You might have outbursts when you don’t feel as if others are hearing
you, and you’ve never made the connection to how you were treated in the past.
·
Self-Hatred
When you haven’t
reconciled your past in your mind and heart, you will continue to carry the
guilt around. You will gravitate towards
situations that are unhealthy just like the one from your past because you
don’t feel that you deserve better.
·
Repeating
the Cycle
If you were
abused as a child by those who were supposed to protect you, and you never
dealt with your feelings about what happened to you, and you still carry that
anger towards your abusers around with you, you will convince yourself that
your own child really is that bad and deserves the degree of discipline that
you give him which really isn’t so, but it’s all that you understand because
you haven’t processed your feelings. You
will convince yourself that you are the only parent that has a child that
misbehaves and will treat that child with the same harsh treatment that was
given to you because you don’t have a clear understanding of what went on.
·
Guilt
Let’s say a
woman had a baby as a teenager and was made to feel guilty about it by
others. Because she accepted and carried
the guilt that others put on her, she’s never been able to forgive
herself. Now as her own daughter is
getting older, she notices she is heading down the same path as she is, but she
can’t bring herself to talk about it with her daughter because it brings up all
of her own feelings of guilt, and instead she condemns her daughter the same
way others condemned her when she was a teenager.
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