Love – it’s all about you
Despite only being four letters long, love
is a BIG word. It often carries a lot of conditions, expectations, frustrations and hurt as well as joy, happiness and connection.
The true gift and power of love is that it starts within ourselves, not from someone else granting us their feelings. Learning to love who we are can be quite a challenging process and it is very much a part of the recovery journey. Self-care, strong boundaries, being authentic, honouring your health are all steps to falling in love with you. Learning to get to know who you really are and to truly like and love that person for all their good points, faults and idiosyncrasies (and let’s face it, we all have them!) is a vital part of self-love.
Yet I believe the ultimate act of self-love is forgiveness. Forgiveness of others and forgiveness of yourself.
Forgiveness is incredibly powerful … and it can also be SO
hard to do. When someone has hurt you beyond reason,
betrayed you, caused you pain or seemingly ruined your
life it can seem a pretty big ask to forgive them. And it’s
very normal to get really stuck on the fact that they don’t deserve forgiveness.
But in actual fact, do you deserve to keep holding onto the negative emotion that is the result? The longer you hold onto hate, anger, frustration, disappointment or sadness the only person you are hurting is you, it’s not actually affecting the other person at all!
Forgiving does not mean you are condoning the other person or ‘letting them off’, it is simply a gesture that sets you free. It releases you from carrying around the weight of negative emotions every single day and allows you to step into lighter energy. It is liberating. It’s like finally putting down a couple of bags of heavy shopping and walking away from them. And the best thing is, the other person doesn’t even need to know you have forgiven them. Win win!
And energetically, as we all have an energetic frequency, the more love and kindness we can feel, the more it ripples out and actually affects other people’s behaviour too.
Forgiveness extends to yourself as well as to others. Again, it sets you free from guilt, giving yourself a hard time and punishing yourself. It’s such a loving, kind thing to do just for you.
So just how do you forgive? The good thing is that you don’t need to say a single word to anyone else.
One of the simplest ways is to just write a letter to whoever you choose to forgive and then burn it. Journaling will work just as well. Or you can simply sit and mentally offer your forgiveness. Saying the words out loud may feel stronger. You can offer up a prayer if that feels right to you or ask for support from the universe to release you from the emotions. However you do it, try to connect with your heart so that you really feel it.
Forgiveness is a wonderful way to set yourself free and is one of the greatest acts of self-love you can do. You won’t regret it. And remember, you are absolutely worth it. Here’s to love, self-love and sharing that love far and wide.
Ps If you feel you need some extra support with this, there are many practitioners who can help you.
With Thanks to Recovery Specialist and Mentor
Su Winsbury