What's worse than believing we have all the time in the world to realize our dreams in life is to believe that we have all the time in the world to dwell on what has happened in the past.
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In 2013 I had a disturbing realization... I could continue being affected by things that happened in my past my whole life. I kept meeting people much older than I was -in their 60’s and 70’s- who were upset with their childhoods and the way that their parents had treated them, their pain was real despite having done a lot of work around it. This was especially evident when hearing people speak in the self-help world, including at a Wayne Dyer conference I attended. Then I was introduced to a woman at the Dyer conference named Immaculée Ilibagiza, who survived the 1994 Rwandan Holocaust. She was thriving in her life despite being a trapped in a 3x4 foot room for 91 days with 7 other woman while her entire family was murdered with machetes. Her whole theme of making it out there alive and moving forward was about forgiveness. I myself had wanted to forgive long before that but I couldn’t really find a way to do so and honestly mean it, I also kept meeting others who said that they had forgiven but they didn’t seem free to me. I could see how free Immaculée was, and hearing her story was just what I needed to finally justify the beginning of a forgiveness process, as opposed to being blocked by the thoughts that would always arise before, thoughts like ‘but that wasn't fair...’ She experienced the epitome of unfair but she uses what happened to her as fuel for change, as does Elizabeth Smart and Malala Zousafzai and many others. These women have in some way have each faced death and torture and injustice. I think we all may benefit from hearing these more extreme stories of forgiveness to know that forgiveness is possible no matter what the cause of suffering was. I especially like to address this subject because forgiveness is such a big topic when it comes to the end of life. I include a chapter in my book about navigating forgiveness, with a focus on the fact that people sometimes rush to address these matters at the end of one’s life- what was an option the whole time suddenly becomes urgent. Keeping that fact in mind can both add to the intensity of it all but allow for the perspective required to move forward.
There are tips for navigating forgiveness included in Chapter 7 of my book, Alive for Now. Click here to view on Amazon!
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In 2013 I had a disturbing realization... I could continue being affected by things that happened in my past my whole life. I kept meeting people much older than I was -in their 60’s and 70’s- who were upset with their childhoods and the way that their parents had treated them, their pain was real despite having done a lot of work around it. This was especially evident when hearing people speak in the self-help world, including at a Wayne Dyer conference I attended. Then I was introduced to a woman at the Dyer conference named Immaculée Ilibagiza, who survived the 1994 Rwandan Holocaust. She was thriving in her life despite being a trapped in a 3x4 foot room for 91 days with 7 other woman while her entire family was murdered with machetes. Her whole theme of making it out there alive and moving forward was about forgiveness. I myself had wanted to forgive long before that but I couldn’t really find a way to do so and honestly mean it, I also kept meeting others who said that they had forgiven but they didn’t seem free to me. I could see how free Immaculée was, and hearing her story was just what I needed to finally justify the beginning of a forgiveness process, as opposed to being blocked by the thoughts that would always arise before, thoughts like ‘but that wasn't fair...’ She experienced the epitome of unfair but she uses what happened to her as fuel for change, as does Elizabeth Smart and Malala Zousafzai and many others. These women have in some way have each faced death and torture and injustice. I think we all may benefit from hearing these more extreme stories of forgiveness to know that forgiveness is possible no matter what the cause of suffering was. I especially like to address this subject because forgiveness is such a big topic when it comes to the end of life. I include a chapter in my book about navigating forgiveness, with a focus on the fact that people sometimes rush to address these matters at the end of one’s life- what was an option the whole time suddenly becomes urgent. Keeping that fact in mind can both add to the intensity of it all but allow for the perspective required to move forward.
There are tips for navigating forgiveness included in Chapter 7 of my book, Alive for Now. Click here to view on Amazon!
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