When you consider mental toughness or psychological
strength, forgiveness probably isn’t the first thing that pops into your head.
And it may not be that being a forgiving person makes you mentally tough, but
the lack of it certainly erodes any mental fortitude. Failing to forgive
corrupts a proper mindset.
A lack of forgiveness is often marked by bitterness and
resentment. Bitterness and resentment steal joy, add stress, cloud judgement
and destroy optimism. These emotions quickly wear down emotional and psychological
resolve while hindering your ability to pursue opportunities ahead because you
are still chained to the past. It has been said forgiveness is giving up your
right for revenge. It is also exercising your right to heal and move on. It’s exhausting
and debilitating to drag the past with you.
When you forgive, you don’t just free the person who hurt
you, you also free yourself from the bondage of that experience. On the other
hand, a lack of forgiveness shackles you to your pain and gives the keys to
your tormentor. If you are waiting for that other person to be remorseful or
apologize, you give him or her all the power, leaving yourself in a prison
walled in by bitterness, waiting for an event completely out of your control
and that may very well never happen.
Make a decision to forgive. This isn’t even about the people
in your life who have hurt you and deserve your wrath, it’s about you and preserving
your own clarity and hope for the future. You are bound to take many wrong turn
while staring in the rear view mirror. Also, that person (or people) may
actually be a complete jerk, a piece of trash and deserve bad things to happen
to him, but that isn’t the point. Your job isn’t to bring vengeance or ensure
that person “pays” for their deeds. Your duty is to be released from that
bondage. Find it in yourself to forgive and in that, you will discover freedom.
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