The Simple Truth of Forgiveness to Gain Peace of Mind

Do you find forgiveness hard to do?

Do you believe that forgiving someone means letting them off the hook?

Do you wrangle with forgiveness inside yourself?

“Forgiveness does not change the past, but it does enlarge the future.” – Paul Lewis Boese

There is a lot of talk about forgiveness and forgiving people that have hurt you. People tell you to let it go and ‘do the right thing’. They say that you are holding a grudge if you don’t forgive them and that you are causing more problems by holding on to it.

But it can be hard if it is someone that has abused you in some way, whether physically, emotionally, or verbally (or all three). It is especially difficult if that person is still inflicting pain; if they still say things and do things that hurt you.

This is the situation I had with my mother. I had to distance myself from her because she said things that were hurtful – often unknowingly – from off-hand comments about me personally (my weight, my hair, my daily habits, how I pronounce words) to out and out blaming me for events from the past when I was a small child that I couldn’t possibly have been responsible for.

Even though the things she said and did once I was a full grown adult weren’t a scratch on the screaming verbal abuse she subjected me to in my childhood, they could still cut me to the core.

When I talked about it people would ask me if I had forgiven her, and if not, why not? She’s your mother, they'd say, you ‘should’ forgive her, it will make your life better if you do.

But for years I couldn’t see how I could forgive her for all the things she had subjected me to – and sometimes still subjected me to. I struggled hard, and felt anger and resentment deep into my soul.

“Resentment is like drinking poison, and thinking it will kill your enemies.”- Nelson Mandela

But when I looked more closely at forgiveness and what it would take, I realised that it wasn’t about letting her off the hook for the trauma she had put me through as a child, but letting myself off the hook.

I learnt that forgiveness is not about forgiving them for what they did to you, but about forgiving yourself.

Because you are not to blame for being abused by another, no matter what they say, pretend, or try to twist round.

If you have been abused, it is not your fault.

I’ll repeat that: IT IS NOT YOUR FAULT

So forgive yourself for being blamed.

Forgive yourself for ever thinking it was something you did (or are doing) wrong.

Forgive yourself for letting something from the past still affect you.

“To forgive is to set a prisoner free, and then realise the prisoner is you.” – Lewis B Smedes

And once you stop blaming yourself for being abused you will feel different: You will release the anger and the resentment. You will be less concerned about what they say and do from then onwards. You will move away from caring what they think, because you have put your feelings first and not theirs. You have given yourself the self-love and nurture that you deserve.

What they continue to do is what they choose to do, and you can choose to no longer be affected by it. When you forgive yourself, you also stop responding to them in the same way you did, to the things they say or the things they do. You can choose to stop letting it affect you.

A couple of years ago my mother observed how much I had changed, how different I was towards her - less argumentative, less defensive. I smiled sweetly and thought to myself, I’m not any different, I just no longer react to you the way I did. I no longer allow the things you say to hurt me anymore, because I forgave myself.

“Forgiveness is the gift you give yourself.” – Tony Robbins

I am not saying that the things my mother says don’t still affect me – she is still capable of getting inside my head, but it is very rare now. I have also distanced myself from her physically, and restrict how much contact I have with her. This is something I feel people should do with anyone who is potentially toxic to them – including family.

                           

The most surprising reward for forgiving myself has been the calm it has brought inside. The peace of mind I have gained, and the confidence I have that I will no longer be upset when I am in her company. I feel sure of myself and less likely to be blindsided by my emotions, and have outbursts that make me feel out of control and judged as unstable by others. And I don’t feel angry or bitter inside anymore. I feel okay as though I have a solid foundation at last.

It didn’t happen overnight though; it started by writing my life story out for my therapist, which took some time to do as it was hard to face the things that had hurt me.

Seeing in black and white what I had been put through made me lose all guilt about feeling angry towards my mother. I finally understood why I was angry. I could see that what I had been put through was not right or fair and that I wasn’t to blame for any of it. 

Once I stopped arguing with my anger and trying to find reasons to justify my mother’s actions, I stopped feeling angry. I accepted what had happened and that I was not to blame for any of it.

It released me from the anger and also from the guilt. In writing it all out I freed myself the past.

“You do not forgive for the other person. You do it for your own freedom.” – Kute Blackson

It still took several years of therapy to sort through it all and find new ways of managing and healing some of the damage. But it was a crucial step in the process of listening to my feelings, trusting myself, and building my self-esteem.

Now on the other side of this, the simple truth of forgiveness is that it's about you and not about them.

Forgive yourself. You’re worth it.

How to be accepting & stop resisting what you don't like about your life

Do you get frustrated by the things you can’t change or control in your life?

Do you get angry when things don’t go the way you want?

Do you waste time and energy refusing to accept the ways things are?

 “Resistance is futile”- The Borg Collective - Star Trek: First Contact 😉

I am a not a Trekkie per se, but The Borg were correct. It will cause you more trouble than it’s worth to resist assimilation.

There are some things that you can’t change or control in life, but resisting them will cause you more pain in the long term and keep you stuck in a negative place for longer than necessary.

My best friend used to repeat to me on the phone, “Accept and allow, go with the flow of life.” It took me years to fully understand and embrace this concept. I could understand it in theory but it felt like an unachievable goal for me. I found everything difficult.

Even though I made decisions to do things – like moving to a foreign country and culture to be with my partner - I resisted them. Often it was because I didn’t really want to do them and I was doing them to please another, but I made it harder on myself by refusing to accept that it was a choice that I had made and not one that was forced upon me.

I was locked in the victim mindset.

In the instance of moving to a foreign country for love, this led me to reject what I found there: the friends, community, and the different culture. And rather than embrace the life on offer, I resisted it. I attempted a few things, but when they didn’t go the way I wanted or didn’t achieve the results I was looking for, I felt stuck and I fixated on feeling powerless.

I longed for the things I didn’t have and only focused on what was missing from my life. I became miserable, tense, stressed, frustrated and very angry. For me this manifested mentally in a breakdown in 2008, and physically in two slipped discs in my neck in 2014.

“Resisting what is happening is a major cause of suffering.” -  Pema Chodron 

But it was during the pain I experienced with the slipped disc in my neck (which trapped a nerve, putting my right shoulder and arm in excruciating pain for 8 weeks at a time – they slipped twice) that I learnt to surrender.

I learnt to accept that I couldn’t do anything. I let go of everything – all the expectations I had of myself and of others, all the things I thought I had to do, all the chores I did to try and feel that my life was worth living. I could do nothing, so I did nothing.

And what I found was that there were people to support me and my husband to pick up the slack. And when you aren’t able to lose your temper over something petty, you respond differently - quietly and calmly, and people respond differently.

Within the pain I found the calm I was seeking.

“You can't calm the storm, so stop trying. What you can do is calm yourself. The storm will pass.” - Timber Hawkeye

I had to surrender.

I don’t like to use the word surrender, because to me it means to give up – but I didn’t give up, I opened up.

I accepted that this was how things were going to be and to let go in that moment. I let others help me; I relinquished control; I stopped and observed the life around me.

In accepting that time (and fortunately recovering) I was able to understand that I needed to accept other aspects of my life too. I needed to look at what I did have in my life and appreciate it and embrace it. I started to take walks in nature and appreciate where I was living. I stopped thinking about my future and where my life was going, and started living in the present.

“If you are depressed, you are living in the past. If you are anxious, you are living in the future. If you are at peace, you are living in the present.” – Lao Tzu

When the noise in my mind would start up about where I wanted to live, what I wanted to be doing with my life, and how I felt like I was stagnating and not growing, I would just let the noise go.

I would hear it, register it, but know that I could only get to where I wanted to step by step, day by day. I took the end goal, the one thing I wanted to do the most, and broke it down into small steps - things I could achieve on a daily basis.

This enabled me to feel like I was moving forward. I would still have moments of frustration, but rather than fight that frustration I would allow myself to feel it – journal it out, or express it to a trusted friend, but then I would let it go.

“Resisting your negative feelings just keeps you stuck.” - Kute Blackson

When I was learning to drive, my driving instructor told me I thought too much about what I was doing to make the learning process easy. He said he could always tell when I started thinking about what I was doing because I would stall the car or crunch the gears. He said, “If you just let go and let your body do what you have trained it to do, it will be much easier. When you think about it, you interrupt the flow.”

By thinking about what I was doing I was letting my brain take over and panic about what I was doing. If I had accepted that I did know and allowed the training to flow through me, I wouldn’t have had a problem.

Often resistance is built up from having too many expectations. If we drop expectation of how something will be, and of ourselves in that situation, and not focus on a desired outcome, we can accept whatever happens organically.

We can release ourselves from the need to control. We become open to whatever happens. And accepting how our life is, in that moment, brings freedom and peace.

“It takes radical acceptance to bring inner peace.”- Kute Blackson

It can be a struggle to accept where you are in life if it is not what you want or where you saw yourself being. You can be consumed with trying to change it. But while you are spending time looking at all the things that aren’t working, you are closed to what IS working.

But how do you stop, if you are truly unhappy with your situation?

Have you ever thought about taking a holiday from your thinking?

If there is something you know you can’t do anything about right now, such as: move house, move job, create more time for yourself, go traveling, then set a date in the future  - a month, 6 months, a year from now, when you can review it again.

And every time you find yourself thinking about it, say, “No, I'm not going to think about that until *insert date*.”

I found this worked to stop me constantly thinking about how to change my situation. I knew I wouldn’t be able to for more than a year, so I set a date to review it the following year. And every time I thought about it, I stopped myself. I said, no, I’m not going to think about that now. I took a holiday from thinking about it. And the more often I stopped myself from thinking about it, the easier it became, until I was thinking about it less and less.

And what also happened, during that holiday, was say to myself, okay, I’m here for the next year, so how can I enjoy and embrace the life I have right now?

It changed the entire perspective I had on the life I was actually living. I was able to engage more with the people in my life and create a better day to day existence.

It broke the habit of the negative frustrated thoughts I was experiencing and allowed me to concentrate on the things that I could change in my life at that moment, and give myself room to work on the things that would help me move forward to the change I did want to see.

By accepting my life as it was I'd freed myself from being a victim in my life, which enabled me to find my personal power over the things I could do something about. It gave me freedom and peace of mind.

“Accept – then act. Whatever the present moment contains, accept it as if you had chosen it. Always work with it, not against it.” – Eckhart Tolle

Book Review: You Are The One, by Kute Blackson

You Are The One: A Bold Adventure in Finding Purpose, Discovering the Real You, and Loving Fully by Kute Blackson
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I've followed Kute Blackson for a few years now and always loved his style and delivery, and this book was no different. He delivers his message in a clear, succinct, direct way.

Each chapter focuses on a different aspect, from loving/accepting yourself and life, realising how much power you have and how you are able to break through conditioning, and that in fact you are limitless. It covers forgiveness and love, and how to rethink your potential. Each topic organically flows from one chapter to the next, each supporting the last. Kute talks about the people he has taken to India on his Liberation Experience and uses their experiences to support what he is saying and explaining, using gentle repetition within each chapter, his point - and it works.

I found it eye-opening, inspirational and uplifting. It is a book that I feel I could read every year and take something new from it each time - and I just might. This is coming from someone who doesn't often re-reads books.

This book might just be the one! ;-)


I love this, and would recommend it to anyone looking for a new perspective on how to approach life and get more out of it, or a new approach to healing themselves.

View all my reviews