Today, I give thanks to all the people that have been in my life so far. Good, or bad, they have all touched my life in some way to shape me into the person I am today. They have all helped in the process of making me me. A mother, wife, daughter, sister, friend, professional, homeowner, world traveler, career surfer (did this in my teens and early 20s), crafter, blogger, gardener wannabe, designer, thrifter, and mentor.
I love being in my 30s and having the maturity to be able to look back even on the people that treated me poorly and just be proud of myself for getting out of their way and keep them out of my life. Life is too short to let other people make it difficult but I also learned from these people how not to treat others. Then to be able to step back and forgive them for their trespasses. That is the most freeing of experiences. To just let it go. But I hold fast to the saying “Fool me once shame on you but fool me twice shame on me.” I have gotten very good at letting go most of the time. Sometimes I have to talk my self out of thinking poorly of couple of people. To stop breath and send them a prayer of goodwill and move on.
I’m thankful for every teacher I have had good and bad to show me how to be a good educator and how not to act while teaching. I plan on one day being an educator of some sort when I get older so I´m hoping that these experiences will help me help others learn. To be firm but fair.
Then there are those people that I have met in my lifetime that are amazing and I am really thankful for having gotten to know them and learn new ways of being awesome. Those people that shortly after you meet them you just know that there is something special about them and you just REALLY want to be their friend or just get to know them better. To maybe get to learn just what it is that makes them so great and maybe learn how to wield that for yourself.
These people all make up my world. They all helped me put together the building blocks that make me who I am. I have borrowed things I say or a way to do something from some person or another and by doing so made a unique me. As a life coach I have seen how getting stuck on how someone treated us can have a profound effect on how we move on in life. I’m not saying that it is that easy just to forgive and forget. It all has a process to it. But there is a quote out there somewhere that hate is like a poison you drink yourself and hope that the other person dies.
When have you felt that feeling of just having to get to know a person?
Have a story of learning from a relationship with someone but now being able to look back not with hurt but gratitude?
If you want to dive deeper into how to forgive others or yourself grab a notebook and start writing. Write everything that comes to mind. Even if it is really “nuts”. It is your brain trying to make sense of a situation that is hard to make sense of. When mom died and I had run out of words I sat and scribbled in my journal. I had to regress to a time where I still did not have words because the pain of losing her was so immense that there were no words but there was feeling and energy and it all flowed through the scribbles. So just let it all flow on to the page no matter what it is that comes out. Write until you feel empty and nothing comes out. Keep it up until you no longer feel ill will towards whomever it is that you can not forgive. It will not all happen in one session. It will take time and you will need to do this over and over again. But one day you will realize that you did not have those uncomfortable feeling towards the person.
