Why journal-Self Help Lesson #2 - Why Forgiveness is Important

Well in our self help lesson #1 I spoke about realizing that nothing you do will change the past. Basically you have to think of the future and realize that being happy has to do with how we think.


Why Journal -Self help lesson#2 
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I will break into two part. This lesson is all about forgiveness. Part A: Forgiveness. It is very important that we are able to forgive others for what they have done to us. Of course we are going to get upset with people, we are going to be mad and feel anger, but what you do after those initial emotions is going to make the difference between living a happy life or living with stress in our hearts. 


If you think about it, if you stay mad or angry at a person, how do you feel? When you wake up in the morning you can feel it, you are in a bad mood and grumpy. You can become bitter and always seem to be thinking about that anger and the reason why people did what they did.  Forgiving another person for what they did really has nothing to do with them. It has to do with yourself. If you stay mad you are giving the other person control over you and your life. You are allowing another person to make you feel bad. You are the one who is going to have a heart which feels like it has a ton of bricks sitting on top of it. My advice: Let it go. You do not have to communicate with the other person ever again, you do not even have to like them. You just have to say ok, what this person did was bad, and I cannot understand why, but I will not let it ruin my life. We will not always understand why people do what they do and wasting our time and energy trying to figure it out will not help. Sometimes people do things for no reason, so why bother giving them the satisfaction of controlling your emotions? What does not kill you will make you stronger, it is true!


Self Help Lesson #2B - Forgiving yourself. The same thing really applies here. We are going to make mistakes, we are human. We are going to do things that we are not proud of and things that we wish we could do over. But lets face it, we cannot do it over. We can only work to improve the future. If you have done something that you do not like, try your best to change yourself and not do it again. Ask the person that you hurt for forgiveness and if they accept, leave it alone. Move on. If they do not accept, realize that maybe that person was not meant to be in your life after all. We usually wind up hurting the people we love the most, most often. And if they feel the same then in time they will learn to forgive you and your relationship can become the same as it was before, maybe even stronger. If you dwell on the bad, then you will never be happy. 


So basically forgiveness is very important. It will help to ease that heavy feeling you carry around in your heart and give you what you need in order to improve. 
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The Art of Forgiving By Smedes, Lewis B.
Agreeableness Facets and Forgiveness of Others. Healing Relationships Is An Inside Job By Harder, Arlene