Hi! Are you ready for day 7 of #31daystohappy? If you are just joining us, make sure to read about what the challenge is about here and what you need to do first here.
So far in the #31daystohappy challenge we’ve done a lot of reflection on what we want. Today we will free up some pent up energy to help us achieve our goals. This exercise is one I’ve done over and over and each time I do it, my days get a little brighter. It’s not as ‘fun’, but it is remarkable the changes that happen.
When we first started our shop, our dog, Callie, had a bad experience with a UPS man. After that, every time Callie heard the UPS truck she would growl and bark and, if allowed, chase the poor delivery man back to his truck. She could be fast asleep & content, but when reminded of the previous offense, she used every ounce of energy demonstrating her resentment. Thank goodness we had a new UPS guy offer her treats & win back her trust.
I am a grudge holder. I know not everyone can relate. My mother & husband look at me like I have three heads when I bring up an issue from years ago. But I hold onto the emotion and the pain stays as present as if I still see the event unfolding in front of me even though I rarely think of it.
Quite honestly, the issue seems to not be that I don’t want to forgive but that I didn’t know how to forgive. While I strongly feel forgiveness is a life skill that everyone should have in their toolbox, as a Christian I feel a spiritual obligation to forgive all men. The Bible tells us to forgive up to seventy times seven. I realized I had forgiven probably exactly zero. I honestly had no idea HOW to do it.
Thank goodness for google, right? At the end of my rope, I literally googled ‘how to forgive’. After a lot of research, I decided to try the worksheets provided as a free resource from a website aptly named ‘Radical Forgiveness’. These worksheets changed my life.
At first, I really struggled with some of the questions. In our society, it is not common to own your anger & your pain. Some questions challenged my beliefs, especially the ones that state ‘there is no right or wrong in this situation’. I knew the person who had hurt me was WRONG. Murder is WRONG. There are things that are WRONG. But, then I thought a little bit more. My Heavenly Father is in control. He gives me challenges for my own growth. He loves me and provides me the perfect experiences to become the person He wants to have near Him forever. Therefore, with Him in charge of all things, there is perfection in each situation. With that thought and desperation an open mind, I filled out my first worksheet.
What happened astounded me. I filled out the worksheets. I took them to a big open field, read them out loud and even yelled a bit at the (imaginary) person who had wronged me. But by the end of reading them, I didn’t feel that same level of resentment. And then I went home & burned the papers. I took the extra step of writing a note to the person who I had felt such resentment for, thanking them for any good thing I could think of. I mailed it.
Literally overnight my life changed. I felt a burden lifted off of me. My perspective changed. And the next time I bumped into the subject of my worksheet, that raw emotion had gone completely. The energy I had tied up in holding onto that painful memory was already hard at work making me happier. I find this quote true: “forgiveness … is a liberating gift people can give to themselves.” (1)
Whether you struggle with another person, a spouse, a situation, or even God, forgiveness is a way to heal your own soul. Letting go frees up all of that emotional energy so you can begin to heal.
DAY 6 CHALLENGE – #31DAYSTOHAPPY
Print out the free worksheet available on Radical Forgiveness. Fill it out for a person or situation that sits wrong with you. Read it out loud and then burn it.
This challenge is incredibly personal. I do not expect anyone to share their stories on IG. I know for me there was a lot of shame tied up in these resentments (we’ll get to that later). But it is hard to forgive something when we are repeatedly taught we aren’t supposed to get angry in the first place. So, let’s own these feelings, let them go & move on.
If you’d like to read an excellent talk on this subject, you can find it here:
1: Jay Evensen, “Forgiveness Is Powerful but Complex,” Deseret Morning News, Feb. 4, 2007, p. G1.
Really enjoying this series Amanda! Thanks so much for taking the risk to put all this out there!
Hmmm. I read this and thought about it while I read the worksheet. I am not angry and I do not harbour resentment… The one thing that truly made me angry and I harboured a very (VERY) long time, I let go of a few years ago.
In that situation, I decided to shift my perspective of the person & the situation as a whole. I took what I saw as a negative (and it festered in my soul and came up every single time I argued with this person) as a positive and surrounded myself with feelings of positivity – even if it meant I had to make some things up in order to sell it to myself. When I reflect, I see that I actually made nothing up, I just wasn’t ready to see these things for the truths that they were.
Since I believe I am not angry with anyone, I thought I’d move on but then I thought about a person in my life who drives me crazy. It is a person I cannot escape and who I actually do like but her behaviour and lack of consideration of others drives me bonkers so I am going to do the worksheets surrounding that and see where I end up. Hopefully, it will be cathartic and I can let go of some of my frustration.
Thanks for sharing this series and although I am running a few days behind, I am still reading and thinking seriously about where I am and where I want to be.
Thanks for doing the work and the research for us!
This one, however…..wow.
Can’t wait to see what tomorrow brings on our happiness journey!
Thanks again.
ps – I’m with the dog on this one. Some times it takes a different person/different experience.
😉
The past 6 days have been amazing! I am changing my perspective DRAMATICALLY on things throughout my days and finding the visualization, writing everything down and saying it out loud (to myself of course!) is really making life brighter.
I too don’t like to hold grudges and try to practice forgiveness daily; however some days (and some people) are easier than others. This challenge really helped to again change my perspective. The “negative” feelings I had for a specific person have been festering for 20 years and I have been wronged NUMEROUS times. Shouting them out loud and burning them was VERY therapeutic. I feel a weight has been lifted. Thank you!!!
Forgiveness ~ it’s wonderous and hard.
Some things happened in the past with my family, with one of my brothers and my sisters. They said some things that, at the time, I felt were unforgivable. And then I couldn’t let it go, the feelings I had, I couldn’t stop thinking about it, it was making me sick, body and soul. I felt if I forgave them, I’d have to be in relationship with them again and I’d have to put up with their abuse.
Then I realized that the forgiveness was for me, not them, so I could really let go, live my life and be happy and that I didn’t need these people in my life.
It was a process on how I came to this and it took a few years. I haven’t spoken to any of them for 8 years and one of my sisters died in that time. I have feelings about that ~ that she died without our ever talking again. But that was HER choice. I’m sorry that I don’t have them in my life ~ that history that we had a siblings, but I don’t have the chaos in my life anymore. And I can live with the unresolved ~ that’s so liberating!
Thank you for all the postings you’ve been doing. This one was especially good for me. I haven’t thought about it in a while and it was good to write about it again. I’ll be 18 years sober tomorrow and I’ll be forever grateful for the things I’ve learned in that time. Looking forward to what’s next.
In one of those “coincidences” that happen n life, the day of this posting I listened to Christian radio. The host was talking about the gospel reading where Jesus said to forgive 7 times 70 times. The host made the comment that forgiveness is not an emotion – it is an act of will. And the act must often be repeated because the habit of bearing grudges reasserts. That rang true with me.
Thank you for your honesty and sharing.