But ?
But it was them.
It’s their fault.
They did it.
I didn’t choose this.
Deal with them about it.
They caused this chaos.
It wasn’t my fault.
Perhaps you’ve said some or all of the above at one point or another. I know I certainly have. I used to live life through this filter of “if THEY would change, then everything would be better!” and let me tell you what – “THEY” didn’t change. “THEY” didn’t fix anything. “THEY” wrecked stuff and left.
Not ideal. At all. And yet, because I kept blaming THEM and never looked at what I could control (i.e. healing, forgiving, moving on), I lived under so much unnecessary frustration.
Every single time you say “yeah, but THEY ______…” (fill in the blank with some way “THEY” hurt you), you are basically saying to them “here you go. I’m gonna give you control of my life moving forward. You decide how I feel and what I think about, okay?”
Do you really think that THEY are sitting around contemplating all the ways they hurt you, or that they’re even actually fully aware of how their actions impacted you?
I’ll be the one to tell you, respectfully, they’re not. THEY ARE NOT. They’ve moved on. And there’s an excellent chance that THEY truly have no idea how much your life has been impacted by their actions/words (or lack thereof).
YOU have to let it go and forgive them, or you will stay stuck in this vicious cycle of thinking about something they did, getting worked up about all the “what if” scenarios if things had played out differently, and then fuming anger at them – all while they’re going on about their life with zero energy put towards this.
It’s basically the opposite of what you want (to be free from the pain they caused) but the longer you blame them, the further away freedom actually is. The sooner you forgive (which in no way condones their actions) then the sooner you can experience freedom.
It may take time and repetitive choice to continue forgiving them whenever you think of them, but I challenge you. When their name comes up, instead of seething and replaying and making up scenarios that look different from reality, say “I forgive ________” (insert their name) out loud. Say it OUT LOUD, even if everything in your being doesn’t feel like forgiving them.
But you have to replace the old habit of thinking about them with the new habit of saying “I forgive ________” out loud. You don’t get to just add in the forgiveness piece. You have to replace the old.
Challenge is on. Forgive. Release. Move on. The blame game is lame! There’s freedom in forgiveness!
