Under Construction - MHWA Retreat

I don't have a problem with forgiving other people. I let myself feel what I'm feeling; anger, hurt, etc. and then I let it go. I have the gift or curse (it feels that way sometimes) of being able to put myself in the other person's shoes. It's not that I give them a pass on behaving horribly. They were adults and are responsible for their actions, but I can understand how ignorance can blind them.

Holding on to past grievances only hurts one person, me.

The hardest person, other than myself, to forgive was my abusive ex-something. I call him that because when I divorced him my second lawyer found out that we were never really married because he had never divorced his first wife. I finally forgave him, but that just gets rid of the self-damaging anger in my heart towards him.

The only person I'm still working on forgiving is myself. I feel responsible for things over which I had no control. I'm speaking about a lot more things than that relationship. It's a process I work on actively every day. Somedays I can achieve a place of peace with myself and other days I can't. I have found there are very few things in this life that you absolutely need to survive. One of the most essential is hope. That is what I try to hold on to every day.

"Scheming Scoundrel's Forum of Finesse"