How many times have you suffered a minor insult or injury and had someone tell you, “Just let it go”? Although it is important to not hold grudges, true forgiveness is much more than just sloughing off a wrong. Serious harm may even call for counseling or hypnotherapy.
Consider the meaning of being wounded. Imagine that someone scratched you badly enough to draw blood. You would not simply smile and go on with your day. You would want an explanation for that person’s actions, and you would need first aide. Only then would you feel better.
The same is true for emotional and mental wounds. When someone hurts your feelings, it is healthy to ascertain how it happened. Was it an accident? Perhaps a friend said something she did not really mean. Was it intentional? If so, why? Maybe she is going through her own difficulties, or there are deeper issues in the relationship that need to be addressed. Were you at all to blame? This can be the most difficult question to answer.
With minor injuries, such self-interrogation can be a relatively quick and easy process. However, deeper wounds, particularly those that have scarred over time, require more of your effort to heal.
Unlike physical scars, emotional scars are not harmless. When you fail to forgive, you hold onto feelings such as anger, blame and frustration. Though you may seem to shrug off a wrong, you are really just pushing it deeper into your awareness; it does not go away. Hints of suppressed feelings can surface in a variety of symptoms, from sore muscles to sleeplessness.
Counseling can help in the process of forgiveness by bringing into the light wounds that need to be healed. Hypnotherapy is an ideal tool for ferreting out deeply buried feelings and memories.
However you choose to do so, you must acknowledge incidents that require your forgiveness. This does not mean forgetting them – sometimes, these incidents are valuable learning tools – but it does mean admitting something has hurt you and seeking the necessary first aide.
Only then can you move on, and this is the best part. Although it may be hard to forgive some wrongs, doing so releases the hold that another person has on you. It allows you to move on with more freedom and lightness… and fewer scars.
