Forgiveness has nothing to do with the person or persons that did the harm. Most often they could care less if they are forgiven or not, making it all the more aggravating!

With some people, trying to make them get it or “own their stuff” simply won’t work. They make a choice not to get it. The ever-ongoing process of hoping they do becomes a distraction from what real forgiveness is about.

Forgiveness is for giving us a release from the past. The moment we forgive is the moment we stop hoping to change the past (or the people involved) and are ready to move on.

Some of you reading this are asking, “But how do we move on?” The answer is this: Realize whatever wrong done to you wasn’t about you in the first place. If it was about you then maybe you could change some part of it. The reason you can’t is because it’s not about you…it’s about someone else’s dysfunction.

Let me give a personal story to bring home the point.

My mother was addicted to gambling. She played all forms of gambling, as she got older, Bingo was her game of choice. I know it sounds cute and innocent but it became so important she would get angry if she had to miss Bingo. The years roll by and my 40th birthday rolls in. It was important to me she was there (she had missed many birthdays) so I planned it months ahead…but the day came and went and my mother would not miss Bingo for my 40th birthday party. She never showed. I could not believe it! She would rather hope to yell B-I-N-G-O than sing Happy Birthday to me! When I asked her about it later all she said was “I had Bingo”. The invalidation hurt me deeply that day.

My mother is gone now and she never changed. Bittersweet as it is, through her dysfunction I learned the meaning of forgiveness.

I had to release her from her own insecurity of missing Bingo and see that my party was fine with or without her. Any feelings of resentment I had won’t change the story. She didn’t choose to come and that is OK, because her addiction to gambling had nothing to do with me; her inner turmoil and emptiness must have been devastating to her.

After some time I realized the silliness of caring so deeply about something that had so little to do with me. I could feel good about myself.

Some of you are still asking, “what about pain, what about the anguish we feel over people’s poor choices and how they hurt us?”

You know what makes pain disappear? Feeling good about yourself. You would be amazed how pain disappears when we begin to love ourselves (this topic deserves a blog to itself…coming soon).

I listen to many stories of people who are not forgiving because they are still hoping to change the past or someone in it…my hope is that you can release yourself from yesterday because yesterday’s wrongs probably have nothing to do with you. Let the pain melt away, the painful actions of others aren’t about you and begin to love yourself a little!

Don’t get stuck in the trap of believing forgiveness has anything to do with others acknowledging their wrongdoings.

Forgiveness is for you, not them.

Perhaps some of us are consistently looking outward to find ourselves in an attempt to never look within.

It’s ironic, but the search becomes a massive cover up to stay wonderfully dysfunctional.

The lie we tell ourselves sounds something like, “It’s OK and after all, I’m still finding myself”.

We want to know who we really are, but the fear of finding out might bring an inner confrontation…the need to change vs. I’m fine the way I am.

Denying that inner confrontation only brings excuses…“I can’t handle this, I’m overloaded and stressed out”.

Being overloaded / stressed doesn’t come from confronting the confrontation.

It comes from not truly being you. The truth is confronting yourself is the first step toward emotional freedom.

I encourage anyone reading this to take a look inside and have the confrontation! Don’t worry, you will win, God rigged the match ahead of time. All you have to do is decide to fight and it’s yours. You may get bruised up a bit but if you stay with it, the emotional freedom of being yourself and knowing who you are…it’s worth it.

**On a personal note…each season of my life I have to adjust “Who am I”. Some parts I have to acknowledge, choose to say goodbye and then reinvent. Some I have to embrace and stop waiting for and some I have to just realize are wonderful and thank God for.

A quick harmless plug…at our office we do personality testing. Mostly to help people work, date, and relate smarter instead of harder. A month or so ago I decided to take the test myself. I learned A LOT!

Even though I had taken many tests in school, in training, I learned relationship tools that I could use instantly. If you’re interested it’s crazy fun and you will learn a ton about yourself! Click here to find out more.

**On a psychological note…Painful, abusive experiences and fearful, unprocessed memories over the coarse of time can cause actual problems with the frontal lobe of the brain: judgment, planning, and / or emotional response is impaired. If this is the case looking inward needs to be done with someone who knows how to help. But that is a minute part of the time. Most of us just need to overcome the fear of finding out who we are (a therapist is helpful with this as well).

I was watching Oprah Winfrey’s new show last week; she was interviewing Steven Tyler, lead singer for Aerosmith. A gifted musician made famous by both his music and poor choices (drugs, alcohol, etc). Realizing now those choices were destructive, he is now on the path to making better ones (isn’t that what the journey is all about?).

Anyway, he was talking about while on tour, several years back, having a massive fall off stage.  The injuries were severe, the pain was major and the hospital was imminent. For Steven, that was not the painful part of the story…as he was in the hospital, none of his band members, who were like brothers came to see him.

He was hurt and angry. When he finally asked his band why they didn’t visit they answered, “Your manager told us not to”.

His response was something I could totally identify with…he said something to the extent of “if it had been them he was trying to get to, he wouldn’t have cared if they had been in the White House, he would have gotten in to see them”.

It would be easy to just blow off Steven’s anger as just that, anger- (especially at self absorbed band members). But that is not the core emotion…keep reading.

Oprah, understanding the complexity of the issue said it best, “you just wanted to know you mattered.”  

My mind burst!  

So often in these situations our anger is just ridden off as frustration at being ignored. But it’s so much more! Our anger is because we want to be someone’s cause!

A decade ago I was in Thailand working and my son got very ill.  Long story short he had to be hospitalized.  I was alone in a hospital with a child in and out of consciousness, with people working on him who spoke a language I didn’t understand. Although I survive well, I was really impacted because the people I came to Thailand with never came to visit us. Later, I found out they were busy at being tourists, riding elephants!

I was taken back while watching Steven and Oprah and I wanted to scream out from that Thai Hospital, “HELLO, I MATTER”!  I wanted them to care and acknowledge the significance that my son was very ill, I was alone and we mattered. I wanted my travel companions to make me their cause, not riding elephants.

We all want to matter and we all want that significance to be acknowledged.  We could have eloquent speeches and debates on “why” we should matter. But the truth is that no human being should have to justify his/her right to matter or to be someone’s cause, at least in a society that claims to honor God.  

If we could each day show one person they matter, that they are worthy of a cause, love would begin to heal and reflect the illumination of God. We matter to Him.

Spouse “A” is acting out at something; critical, angry, hostile, even raging…and their degree of emotion is totally out of proportion.  Spouse “B” is confused and hurt, doesn’t quite understand where this is coming from. Spouse “A” rages on, now saying personal, hateful things about their other half. Spouse “B” is now shut down, hurt and that only makes things worse. Spouse “A” now pushes harder and saying even more hurtful things. Now Spouse “B” is angry, all understanding has gone through the window as they say hateful things back. The cycle goes on and on and on until both parties are devastated.

We all know situations where someone we love is totally unreasonable and over the top, saying hurtful, personal things (BTW, it doesn’t always have to be your spouse).

Many of us know how frustrating it is to bear the brunt of explosive anger when it really should be pointed at someone else, usually from that person’s past.

Whether you are the one dealing the anger or on the receiving end, the question remains…

Why is this happening? “Why is the person I love exuding such cruelty? What does this accomplish?”

Why:

Typically the answer is frustration. Deep, deep frustration that the emotional pain inside is not being heard by the person they love the most.

So the person in pain “acts out” and attempts to make you feel the same pain they are.  

To accomplish this they will say horribly painful things, curse, recite spiteful names.

The more pain, the less validated they feel, the more they up the stakes and like Spouses “A” and “B”, the cycle continues, always downhill.

What to do:

First and not very easy, if you are on the receiving end of the anger…don’t take it personally. YOUR SIGNIFIGANT OTHER DOESN’T MEAN IT. Everything said is a reflection of how they see themselves, not you. Be patient.

Second, seek counseling.  The reason this is happening is because you may be the first SAFE person that your significant other can feel/express the pain in front of. Yes it comes out ugly, but working with a counselor towards dealing with the root cause will hopefully resolve the issue.

Third, know that love conquers all things, through the darkest times love is the light that pulls us through. Getting through hard times is how we learn to both give love and receive it.

So hang in there. It’s all part of a larger plan.

The idea of broken dreams, hearts and relationships all ending in depression are common is human psychology but when carried into the spiritual realm brokenness takes on a new, more bitter meaning. The dreams that are from God, the heart you have welded to God’s and the relationship you have with the Creator is something that when broken…shatters every aspect of your being.

You walk by putting one foot in front of the other but you only exist. The reason for living has been put in suspended animation. Reactivation becomes critical to survival of the soul.

For a person to truly feel alive they must find the passion and the joy that consumes them. True love consumes, love of a child consumes, a cause or calling from God consumes but most of all a relationship with God consumes.

There is no spiritual Prozac or Zoloft. There is communion through intention. Goodness, tzadaka, kind words, prayers of reconciliation and cutting away the anger and resentment that formed through disappointment, seeking to understand God’s plan in moving you to a deeper place of trust. When it all comes together spiritual depression falls away, new life and purpose replace it. Darkness has no place to dwell and it leaves. Your life comes into alignment again with the Divine.

Understanding spiritual depression is to comprehend there are layers or levels of spiritual maturity. You reach the top of one level and God says “time to move up!” At first, we all think that should feel like a positive thing. But we have to try and see the bigger picture: Even when we move up a level, we start at the bottom of it, not the top and the bottom feels lonely at first. Perhaps spiritual depression is the ongoing act of spiritual maturity.