Forgiveness
(By our guest blogger Selina Huq) -Â
Two weeks ago I attended a seminar organized by Landmark Education. . The purpose of the seminar is to come in terms with your past, fears and start living in the present. In that seminar the speaker says, ‘To forgive is to let go of the past’. Many of us are holding on to the past and we are not living in the present. We are always thinking about how we have hurt others or others have hurt us. The only way to let go of our past and live in harmony is to forgive others and forgive ourselves.
As I listened to her and started to ponder; I realized that it was true. We have been hurting for so many years and for so many different reasons. One thing that got to me is that sometimes we are hurting on things that we don’t even remember and we carry the pain and the hurt with us in every step of our lives.
She gave us different exercises to do, so we can forgive ourselves and forgive others that have hurt us in the past. One of the exercises was to write a letter to the person you want to forgive. She says to write down everything that you want to say. Then read the letter out loud many times. Then you can send it to the person. I will like to say that by doing some of the exercises I have come to peace with many of my own situation. It was not easy, but after doing it over and over I felt like a burden has been lifted from my shoulders and I feel free.
Forgiveness is a gift you give to yourself. It is a release from the burden of anger and pain. When you choose to forgive, you choose to live in the present and the future instead of the past. It does not mean to forget but it does mean to release and go on. Forgiveness does not happen on its own, you must choose to forgive.
I encourage all my readers to practice forgiveness. Forgiving does not mean that you forget the wrongdoing; you may never forget what happened to you, but after forgiveness you can remember it without the emotional pain connected to it.
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