Educational, Energy, Grief Tips, Living Unleashed, Mind/Body Wellness, Resources |
The Grief of Being Out of Alignment
Have you ever thought about how your body responds when you’re doing something you’d rather not do? When you say “yes” to something you wish you had said “no” to?
When you find the courage to say “no” to something or someone, do you feel guilt or shame if the other person responds to your “no” in an unkind way – when they don’t respect or honor your “no?”
Or, do you say “yes” because you’re a people-pleaser? Do you want to see everyone around you happy and don’t want to be the reason someone is angry, upset, or disappointed in you? Even if that means you are going against the grain of what your heart (and energetic body) wants you to do?
On the flip side of all of this, have you thought about what you feel when someone tells you “no? Are you honoring and respecting the “no’s” given to you?
Whether you are asked to change seats on a flight, take on more responsibilities at work, or join a committee, if it’s not feeling like a “heck yes,” there are two ways to approach your response that will serve you.
- Make a “yes” okay with you.
- Say “no,” which is a complete sentence. Period.
I have taken the first approach many times. I have said “yes” to things with good intentions and because I really wanted to, but then found out the “yes” wasn’t what I thought it would be. Have you found yourself in that situation? You feel like something will be no big deal, and then you realize the experience becomes quite the opposite. You do still have choices in that scenario. You can either find a way out of the situation and respectfully bow out or change how you feel about it. You may have to do some internal digging, but it is possible to make an unpleasant experience pleasant simply by shifting your perspective (making the “yes” okay with you).
I feel like I’ve become a master at that one. Most of my life has felt like test after test for learning how to shift my perspective (and energy) around how I feel about certain things. You may recognize these people (like me) when they say: “Well, at least…XXX.” I have always tried to think about a scenario or someone else who “has it worse” than I do. Especially in my younger years, I was also trying to minimize my own experience, which is also a common thing many grievers will do.
What does all of this have to do with grief?
Everything.
What Happens When You’re Out of Alignment
Grief is sneaky in this way. It’s like a spider finding a crevice and creating this masterful web that seems to attract, not lunch, but rather scenarios that will continue to test and challenge you. It just seems to take us so damn long to get the memo. Meanwhile, all of these scenarios and experiences stack up. And, if you’re not committing to experiences or people that are in alignment with the energy you want to be in, then it’s easy to see how this kind of grief, of not honoring yourself, is self-inflicted.
What you may begin to experience, then, are anxiety attacks (or ever-present low-level anxiety), headaches, canker/cold sores, bowel issues, rashes, frequent colds/viral infections, body aches/pains, unexplained fatigue, adrenal fatigue, feelings of burnout, etc.
When this self-inflicted grief goes on long enough, you will eventually find yourself feeling like a victim – to life and, if it goes on long enough – your body. And, all because you are not honoring your needs and desires – of what would feel to be in alignment with who you are and who you desire to be.
More than two years ago, I would not have recognized the signs and signals my body would give me. I would not be aware of my energetic body response, and I definitely wouldn’t have paused long enough to tune into either of these things. Today, however, it’s a very different story.
Our body is always speaking to us. We only need to tune out and tune our antenna inward to know what we need to do. Then, follow that inner wisdom with action that aligns with our heart, mind, and spirit.
The day you can do this is the day that grief’s grip starts to loosen.
Love +light to you today. Thank you for reading. If this message speaks to you today, I’d love to hear your thoughts. Reach out to me on Instagram / FB or email me at victoria@theunleashedheart [dot] com 💛
P.S. I recently launched a FREE Energy Type Quiz! If you want to dive deeper into understanding your energy type and learn some tips, too, click HERE to get started! There’s a free guide to download as well!
Educational, Grief, Grief Tips, Growth, Living Unleashed, Pespective, Resources |
Healing & Moving On Isn’t Forgetting
In a recent podcast interview, the guest, a fellow Grief Recovery Specialist and Parent Educator, used the phrase “living forward” instead of “moving on.” I like that; I think it speaks to the positive more than simply saying “moving on.”
The thing about moving on or living forward is neither is about forgetting, condoning, or minimizing.
Things to Keep in Mind for the Griever You Know
After the loss of a loved one, well-meaning people say things with the hope of encouraging or motivate action for the griever not to dwell. However, what this may cause the griever to do, instead, is to brush aside their grief, minimize what they’re feeling, and do their best to put on a brave face. None of these actions are likely authentic to how they’re feeling and, in turn, only cause more harm and delay healing.
What would be more positive and helpful is if the griever were allowed the time and space to feel how they feel, at the moment they feel it. Anything less is a disservice to themselves, and frankly, anyone else they’re in close relationships with – especially children if the griever is a parent.
What would also be helpful is reiterating to the griever exactly what this post is about; moving on and living forward and working towards healing doesn’t mean the sadness will end. There will always be an empty seat at the table or the relationship that never was quite what they hoped it would be. And, that’s okay. But, as a supporter of a griever, or as a griever reading this, it’s allowing that to be okay, too.
Things to Keep in Mind as a Griever
If you’re reading this through the lens of a griever, I would like to dig more deeply into this idea that moving on (or living forward) means that you’re somehow abandoning that relationship in your heart or betraying the dearly departed in some way. That couldn’t be further from the truth. What would be more hurtful to your loved one is watching you continue to suffer in your sadness.
There are many reasons why grievers suffer in silence. Many reasons are pretty general and similar across the board, including this idea that you have to be strong. No one wants to be looked at like they’re a trainwreck. Rather, it’s far better to look at the role of someone who has their grief game put together, right? You’re not fooling someone like me who is empathic and not only trained in grief but grew up with it being a part of me. I can smell suffering a mile away. Truth be told, I don’t smell it, I feel it, but you get the idea. Your body speaks to me before you even say a word. Sometimes, I can sense what people are struggling with, too. Anyway, I talked about the Myths of Grief on my podcast, which can also be found on my blog. These myths are pretty universal. If you read that article or listen to that podcast episode, you may see yourself in the descriptions of how you’ve responded to life while grieving.
Living Forward
What I would share with you today is that living forward, in other words taking action, is the best thing you can do for yourself today, tomorrow, and for the you that will be reflected in the mirror ten years from now.
Who do you want to be looking back at you?
Do you want to see the grief-stricken, wrung-out from life, beaten down you that you may be feeling like today?
Or, do you want to see yourself as a Phoneix that had risen from the ashes, emotionally stronger than ever before, resilient in your heart, and overcome with gratitude that you found exactly what you needed when you needed it and turned your life around?
How could you possibly forget your loved one?
How could you condone the behavior of someone who hurt you?
You can’t, and you won’t. However, you can take steps forward that enable you to remember your loved one with joy. There may be sadness, too, but it won’t be debilitating or derailing sadness.
And, you can live forward, rewriting your future script that doesn’t include the trauma or the pain of what was done against you that hurt you. Or, the relationship won’t continue to have the same effect on you, acting as the driver in your life, dictating and influencing every future decision you make. Even if we end a relationship with someone living, don’t be fooled to believe that the relationship ends. If you have anything left emotionally incomplete, that relationship is continuing whether you like to admit it or not. And, even if you do work through it, there will always be things that come up within less than loving relationships or estranged relationships that require attention. It’s how you will choose to address those things that will either impede your growth or aid you in your evolution.
My hope is that after reading this blog post, you recognize that honoring your future by taking action today is how you honor your loved one, too. For those less than loving or estranged relationships, it’s how you honor your present and future.
What small action can you take today that will help you live forward?
To taking action! 💛
Death/Dying, Educational, Grief, Grief Tips, Pespective, Resources |
Photo by Lukas Rychvalsky from Pexels
What to Expect When Grieving Someone
If you have lost someone you love, you know what a difficult process navigating grief can be. You may feel as though you are in a dark place and that things will never get better. This is not the case at all; in fact, it’s more than possible that things will become easier, and there is certainly a light at the end of the tunnel. If you want to know what’s normal in the grieving process, read on to learn more.
Trying Not to Face the Pain
If you are grieving for someone, then you may try and avoid experiencing the pain that comes with your loss. You may try and ignore it or feel the need to move on as fast as possible. This is normal, but you have to understand that if you try and keep it from surfacing, this will only create more suffering in the long run. If you want to heal truly, you need to face your grief, and you need to actively deal with it as much as you can. As a society, it’s ingrained in us, since the time we were babies, to not cry. We are shushed from the day we are born if you think about it! So, whether we are in physical or emotional pain, the truth of the matter is: we need our tears. Tears are a natural bodily function of release.
On the flip side, many people think that if you do not cry, you are not sorry about the loss that you have experienced. Crying is a normal way for you to respond to sadness, but it is not the only way. It would be best not to avoid crying, but not feeling like you need to cry is also very normal. Just because you are not shedding tears like everyone else doesn’t mean that you are not taking the loss as hard. For some, the tears may not come for several weeks, months, or even years. Grief is funny like that; it’s often cumulative losses that build up in the soul that eventually cause a flood of emotion. And, if the grief isn’t expressed with tears, I would guarantee the grief is manifesting in many other ways.
In the early days after a loss, when you’re busy looking up information about cemetery grave markers, choosing a casket, and making all of the necessary arrangements, it’s normal to be in reactionary mode, not really being able to process the loss that occurred. Often, it’s after the funeral, when the guests have all left, and life settles back to normal for everyone else, where reality sets in – as does the pain.
Replacing the Loss
We are taught how to acquire things (or people), not what to do when we lose them. When we lose someone, something, or a pet, in time, we often find ourselves attempting to replace the loss. We so badly want to fill the void that the loss caused. Rather than addressing the pain associated with the loss instead, we have this belief that by having someone, something, or another pet to direct our love and attention to that we’ll feel better. And, we might – for a time. However, if we accepted that no one or thing we love so dearly could ever be replaced, we would be forced to deal with the pain, wouldn’t we? Because once we know this to be true, we can’t un-know it. It’s normal and natural with loss, but it certainly is far from helpful for our recovery.
Isolation
I’m hard-wired for isolation; it’s truly a tendency to retreat when I’m feeling anxious, depressed, irritable, or overwhelmed by life. What I know about myself is that I do need time to be alone and reflect. I need to sit and stew in my emotions while I process them. I’m not a candidate for “talk therapy” for this reason, as many reading this can probably relate to. I’m also empathic, easily taking on other people’s energy and emotions, which makes it doubly hard when dealing with my own “stuff.” Also, when I attempted to speak up in the past, and the conversation became about the other person, it only reinforced the tendency to isolate myself in my grief.
Healthy isolation isn’t a problem if the intention is, as I mentioned, for time to reflect and process. However, if you find yourself isolating and drinking, and isolating and cutting, or isolating and watching porn/online shopping/Netflix-binging incessantly, then you may have an isolation issue. If you find yourself saying “No” to outings and invitations from friends or loved ones on a continual ongoing basis, you’re probably isolating yourself. And, if you aren’t talking to anyone about anything you’re experiencing, you’re probably working extra hard at isolating yourself.
Isolation adds to the gunk you’re already feeling. Because not allowing your pain to be seen or heard only makes you feel more alone. We do not heal on an island of one; we heal in community.
Attempting to Stay Strong
You may also feel the need to be strong for others if you have experienced loss. Feeling scared, frightened, or even lonely can be a normal reaction if you have lost someone. You have to remember that crying doesn’t mean that you are weak. You don’t need to protect your family and friends by trying to put on a brave front. In fact, showing the way that you truly feel can help both them and you. Often, it takes someone to go first in sharing for others to feel as though it’s also safe and okay for them to share, too. Therefore, allowing your vulnerability to show will likely have an impact on those around you. Sure, there may be those who would prefer it if you would keep your mouth shut. However, as I mentioned, that is only causing more harm in the long run. Permit yourself to feel how you feel and express what you need to express. Grief shared is grief diminished. And, especially when a loss leaves children behind, I speak from experience when I say that having open and honest communication about death, dying, and grief can change how children process their grief well into adulthood. Avoiding those conversations with children while they’re young is a great disservice to their emotional health later in life. By shushing a child from expressing their grief and sadness only causes more harm. And, no one has to die for a child to experience grief. Whatever struggle a child is having, if they don’t feel like they have a safe space to talk, they will isolate just as many adults do. Isolating adults were once isolating children.
Keeping Busy
“Just take up a hobby,” someone may say to a griever (thinking this is helpful advice). Or, “I’m keeping myself busy by working overtime,” a griever may say.
Keeping busy doesn’t change what happened. Keeping busy doesn’t erase the feelings stuck within you either. And, keeping busy only helps pass the time, which only passes, too, by the way.
Keeping busy does nothing for healing and moving forward. You may think you’re doing great while you pour yourself into your work or jump headfirst from one hobby to the next. But all you’re really doing is preoccupying your mind from getting too quiet so you can hear your heart. It’s painful there, in your heart, feeling all the feels. I know this to be true like every other griever out there.
Getting quiet is the fastest way to getting beyond the stuck feelings, though. It’s the path of most resistance but reaps the greatest rewards when confronted in a guided, supported, self-serving and loving way.
You’re already busy going, going, going…you may as well be going in a positive direction, taking action for positive change rather than doing all the things in an attempt to avoid. Be like the buffalo that heads directly into the eye of the storm; they don’t run from or skirt around. No, they go straight through. That’s what it takes to get beyond the pain, too.
Feeling like the Grief Won’t End
It’s very normal for you to feel as though the grief you are experiencing is never-ending. You may also feel as though you should be “over it” by now. It doesn’t matter if you feel like you have been grieving for well over a year or ten years. There’s no set time frame on how long you should be grieving, so make sure that you understand that this is normal and put yourself first.
Time passes; it doesn’t heal our wounds. It’s the action we take within time that helps us to process, work through, and emerge on the other empowered and feeling alive. We often feel like we don’t have choices in grief. I’ve read various shares on social media about how grief makes you feel isn’t a choice. That is correct. We don’t choose to feel how grief leaves us feeling. However, we do then have to choose if we want to remain in those feelings.
We have a choice if we continue to ruminate the story of what happened, replaying all of the details over and over in our minds.
We have a choice to be taken back to those excruciating, put-you-in-the-fetal-position feelings, or if we share from a place of love and compassion without the emotional dis-ease taking us back in time over and over and over again.
We do have choices in grief, and whether we’re taking action to move forward or ruminating – either is a choice we make each day that passes after a loss of any kind.
What is your takeaway from this post today?
Can you relate to any of these normal and natural responses to grief?
Grief, Grief Tips, Growth, Living Unleashed, Mind/Body Wellness |
Uncomfortable Conversations
How many conversations have you avoided because you were afraid to rock the boat, appear to be too emotional or analytical, or downright scared to expose your heart?
Sharing your heart with others through uncomfortable conversations is a lot like being back in a middle school locker room. Just as your personal body is open to criticism, analysis, and judgment from others, so is the heart when your deepest feelings are shared in uncomfortable conversations.
An uncomfortable conversation can be speaking up for yourself for the first time about what you need, from a relationship to telling your parents you’re not pursuing a career they had their sights on for you since the time you were walking. Or, it can be coming out as gay for the first time or any other secret that’s leaving you feeling emotionally twisted in your gut when attempting to shield yourself from the truth of what you’re so afraid to share.
We are confronted with a choice to dive into uncomfortable conversations more times than we probably realize. Still, the decision to not “go there” is often made in a split-second thought that we quickly put that decision out of our minds. That being said, the restlessness we feel about the need to express ourselves emotionally doesn’t go away. Instead, by denying ourselves a release by lifting the weight of what feels like a secret or even conflicting feelings, you are only hurting yourself.
Sometimes, the suffering we cause ourselves by not unburdening our hearts is worse than the act or after-effects of sharing our heart’s truth.
Granted, there is a time and place for sharing. There is also a tactful and thoughtful way to express ourselves too. Information is far better received when we stick to how we feel rather than what we perceive as facts. Because our perceptions are all different, I can look at an image and see something completely different than the person next to me because we all perceive the world around us differently; filtering the world through the five senses of our personal experiences. I experienced this full-on in my Reiki Master certification, the same process as everyone else, but no two experiences of attunements and ignitions were the same.
If there is a difficult conversation, here are a few questions to ask yourself first:
Is it true?
Is it kind?
Is it necessary?
We can sometimes make mountains out of molehills, so asking yourself these questions first may actually spare you further suffering. And, by necessity, I like to think of it, not as your feelings are not valid; rather, five years from now, will it matter? This comes back to possibly making a mountain out of a molehill.
May I Suggest…
If, after asking yourself the three questions above, you still feel that what you need to share needs to be said out loud (rather than working through how your experience may be a projection of your inner world), then it may be worth role-playing out loud. Create a checklist of the main points you want to express, then role-play in the mirror, saying the very things you need to say to the other person. After doing this exercise, you may even find that you feel better, and the situation seems to resolve itself, almost like magic. And, if it’s a situation that is complex or devastating, this will still be helpful. I suggest this to get clear and experience the emotions behind the words. When you go to have the conversation, you’re better able to focus on what needs to be said and not derail the opportunity to fully express yourself because you’re emotionally charged. Discharge some of that emotion first, so you can clearly articulate and express how you feel.
Grief recovery has helped me in unexpected ways, recognize the importance of addressing my emotions first before endeavoring into uncomfortable (and difficult) conversations. And, there have been more times than I can count, that after taking some time to step back and observe what’s going in within me, that I’ve been able to address the conflict in myself that was being reflected in the relationship with the other person.
Self-awareness: it’s a beautiful thing. 💛
Educational, Energy, Grief Tips, Mind/Body Wellness, Pespective, Reiki, Resources |
The Conflict of Self-Sacrifice and Being a Helper
As a helper, boundaries for yourself and others are important to prevent burnout. Without boundaries, knowing when to say “no,” or recognizing when enough is enough, you may find yourself filled with resentment, anger, bitterness, self-criticism, maybe even self-loathing if you are your own worst critic. You may find yourself saying things to yourself that you would never speak out loud to another person. Helpers are often the ones who put on an “I’ve got this” face and yet, on the inside, are crumbling under pressure.
Caregivers/Caretakers are especially prone to burnout. Becoming the one who everyone relies on and goes to for physical, emotional, or financial support can fill the heart with so much joy and purpose, or it can fill the helping heart with dread and the soul with angst.
Challenging Beliefs
One recommendation I have for preventing burnout as a helper is to evaluate your beliefs about helping. When I talk about helpers, I want to clarify that I refer to those whose natural inclination is to help, almost like a compulsion. Natural helpers can’t help but help. I’m not referring to those who help because they feel pressured to do so or are motivated to help because they gain something in return. I think there’s a difference, which is why it’s important to make the distinction.
Anyway, in your childhood, what leads you to believe that helping beyond your physical, emotional, or financial means is how you get your worth?
- Were you raised to believe that only those who help to the point of self-sacrifice are rewarded?
- Do you believe that, as a helper, only you can do what needs to be done? Were you put in roles where you frequently had to step up and take the reigns because, if you didn’t, the project, experience, job, the family would fall apart?
- How much of this belief are you and you alone putting on your shoulders?
- Are these high expectations you have for yourself or others have for you?
Imagine the grief you may be causing yourself not addressing this or allowing yourself to observe how you respond to others when you feel called to help! Others are not responsible for your self-sacrificing ways. The bitterness or resentment you feel is due to a lack of boundaries, self-care, and self-worth.
I have been on the receiving end of helper-burnout. As a Reiki practitioner, grief specialist, and end-of-life doula, it is up to me to maintain boundaries as a means to protect or regain my physical and emotional energy.
Addressing the Conflicting Feelings
If you address your physical and emotional needs as a helper, you will no longer have conflicting feelings about being a helper. Those feelings are an indicator that something is off, not working, or needs to change.
How to address these conflicting feelings goes back to creating and maintaining boundaries. But, if you’re not being an observer of what is happening emotionally when you find yourself in challenging situations, you won’t know where boundaries are needed.
Start with what pisses you off. What is happening when you find yourself wound up with emotion, maybe even fired up (not in a good way)?
- What is it about the situation that fills you with anger?
- When, in your childhood, did you find yourself needing to be responsible for helping others to feel better (physically or emotionally)?
- How have you put yourself second to the needs of others?
- In what ways could you balance out the desire to help and meet your own needs?
As a child, I had a lot of responsibility. It wasn’t something I chose, it was just how things were and the cards I was dealt. No experience is wasted; therefore, I can appreciate the lessons I gained during those years. However, those years also shaped my beliefs about what it looks like to be a helper, and it was at the expense of my own heart and in conflict with what my soul wanted.
We can even do this to the extent of choosing a profession that our parents wanted. I have come across this in my work with others. People go into a profession that isn’t at all aligned with their heart and soul simply to make their parents happy or proud. When really, either it’s a projection of the parents and their unmet hopes, dreams, and expectations they had for themselves, or it’s an inner-wound that leads the person to believe that, again, their self-worth comes from the approval of others.
When we put our desire for freedom, which includes emotional freedom, on the backburner, we put ourselves in shackles to the needs and desires of others. We learn that personal needs come last, lose our voice in speaking up for ourselves, and learn that our self-worth hinges on the approval of others (how much we helped them). This approval-seeking, therefore, becomes a learned behavior.
The conflicting feelings you feel right now about being a helper is grief, my friend. It’s the loss of hopes, dreams, and expectations you had for yourself, your relationship with others, and your life. It’s wishing things would be, could be, or would’ve or could’ve been – different, better, or more.
Are you feeling conflicted about your strong desire to help and yet meet your needs?
Would you like me to dig more into the energetics of this? Well, you’re in luck! Today I launched a quiz that will help you learn your energy type! From it, you will learn what energizes and drains your energy, blind spots of your energy type, and what to do to turn things around or maintain (if you’re not feeling energetically challenged).
CLICK HERE TO LEARN YOUR ENERGY TYPE TODAY IN UNDER 2 MINUTES!
UPLEVEL YOUR HELPER ENERGY; YOUR HEART WILL THANK YOU!
Educational, Grief, Grief Tips, Grieving Voices Podcast, Living Unleashed, Podcast |
Apologies and Forgiveness
SHOW NOTES SUMMARY:
Do you have a difficult time apologizing? Is there someone you wish you could forgive?
Apologies and forgiveness are two of the pillars and cornerstones of grief recovery. And, the beautiful thing about both, is they don’t require us to confront anyone, in person. And, even if the person is deceased, we are still able to process the feelings around apologies and forgiveness.In this episode, you will learn:
- What an apology is.
- How “forgiveness” and “condoning” differ.
- What to do if you’re a victim of abuse.
- What to do if the “offender” is living?
and more…
Mentioned in the episode:
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If you or anyone you know is struggling with grief due to any of the 40+ losses, there are free resources available HERE.
If you’d like to share your grieving voice on the show or want to share your thoughts about an episode, please send an email to [email protected].
Are you enjoying the podcast? Check out my bi-weekly newsletter, The Unleashed Letters.
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WAYS TO SUPPORT THE SHOW:
CONNECT WITH VICTORIA (@theunleashedheart):
We’re not taught how to effectively process what it is we’re feeling. And a huge component of the work that I do in grief recovery is about apologies and forgiveness. And initially, this week was going to be about intangible losses, which are the kind of loss that it’s not the death of a loved one or divorce or it’s like the secondary losses; it’s those things that not specific to a person. However, it can be a ripple loss due to the loss of a loved one.
So, for example, let’s say you get a divorce. Well, it’s the loss of maybe the life that you had, the home that you had, the support the financial support that you had, there’s a lot of other loss that happens in divorce and death of a spouse or death of a loved one, things like that. In the case of being a victim or being victimized, we can have a loss of trust, a loss of self-worth, loss of faith. That’s a big one. So that’s initially what I was going to talk about. But there was a conversation with some girlfriends recently and it kind of sparked this. I got a little revved up about it, actually; in talking about, we often talk about the story of what it is that happened to us. And which is easy to do, right? Someone asks you to tell the story, but rarely do people ask how it made you feel. And if someone were to ask you well, how did that make you feel? That’s probably when you would get the emotions coming up for you. That’s when you might realize, maybe I haven’t processed everything fully. Maybe there’s more to dig into here. Maybe there’s something residual that is still lying dormant. Things can provoke us. That might happen and provoke us and cause us to reflect on a certain time in the past or when we were victimized or experienced trauma. And that’s an indicator if especially if you have a physical response to that, it’s that muscle memory.
When We Apologize
But there’s emotion tied to that. There’s going to be an emotional residual residue that makes sense, emotional residue. I’ll say that emotional residue from that experience unless we’ve learned how to effectively process it and take actual action with the apologies and forgiveness that I’m going to talk about today. So when we apologize, we’re actually apologizing for anything that we did or did not do that may have hurt someone else. So let’s say when we steal something from someone else, we apologize. That was for something that we did. When it comes to apologies, the focus is on ourselves and how we perceive our own actions or inactions. Grief recovery helps you work through the apologies like these for a relationship in which you are incomplete. And the beautiful thing about it is that you don’t have to apologize in person. In fact, some should remain private and indirect. For example, if you cause someone physical harm or emotional damage, what if they don’t accept your apology? You haven’t helped the relationship; there aren’t any mended fences, and what more likely, the person may not accept it. And that’s where forgiveness is often intertwined with apologies in this manner. The other person hasn’t worked through forgiveness, and they likely wouldn’t accept an apology.
Forgive Yourself
That’s why it’s so important that we work through and process apologies and forgiveness, for the most part, privately. Now, I’m not saying never apologize when you know you’re in the wrong, don’t hang your hat on it being accepted, and acknowledged that it’s not their responsibility to absolve you of your feelings. And this is where we must forgive ourselves, which is also an inside job. So what if, though you are a victim, whether you survived a physical assault or emotional, psychological abuse, many people develop lifelong relationships with their pain and act like victims. I personally experienced this. And that’s why I have a whole chapter devoted to victim mindset in my book; this became one of the biggest veils of my potential in my life. And what do I mean by that the biggest veil? Because I like to think of grief as a veil, a veil that covers our eyes to ourselves and how we see ourselves and how we see the world. So when things didn’t go right in my life, or someone let me down or took advantage of me in various ways. Yet again, I didn’t see that my default and automatic response to my life circumstances were to slip into being the victim.
Being a child that is physically and emotionally taken advantage of lays the foundation of learned behavior, to be in survival mode, fearful of the future, an inability to live in the present, and a skewed sense of what nurturing love and compassion really look like. Therefore, victims have a really hard time apologizing. How and Why would I need to apologize to the person who molested me as a child? How and Why would I need to apologize to the person who sexually assaulted me? These are big questions and not easy ones to process. However, I have learned that even the slightest transgression should be given a voice. We, humans, have a desire to be right. And it’s this need to be right rather than happy that causes us additional suffering. We can be right, or we can be happy. And often, the hardest apology to give is the one that needs to be given. If I apologize, you may be wondering, isn’t that absolving someone of their responsibility, and what happened? No, it is merely owning your role in the relationship, not necessarily the incident. But no matter how slight it is, it’s important to give it a voice.
Forgiveness Becomes our Friend
To really move beyond the emotional suffering of being a victim. Forgiveness becomes our friend. Forgiveness is giving up the hope of a different or better yesterday. And being a victim, forgiveness does not equal condoning. These two terms are misunderstood in our society, and that the belief is that if we forgive, we are condoning the behavior. Webster’s dictionary, though, defines forgive as to cease to feel resentment against an offender. Whereas condone means to treat as trivial, harmless, or of no importance. If these two words meant the same thing, we would never be able to forgive. This implies we’re trivializing horrible events. And as a victim, you would never do that. However, if we talk about forgiveness, now that’s on the path to healing. When we get stuck on the story of past traumatic or victimizing events, it limits us and restricts our ability to participate fully in our life. And I can personally attest to this, especially once I had my three kids for sure. Forgiveness is the completion of the pain. The opposite is the retention of resentment. When we forgive, we are acquiring our own sense of well-being. Forgiveness is an action; it’s not a feeling. And you cannot feel forgiveness until you do it. Action first, feeling follows. Forgiveness is giving up the resentment you hold against another person.
So what if the other person you need to forgive is living? That’s another beautiful thing about grief recovery. You do this privately without ever saying one word to the other person. We never want to forgive someone directly to their face. Because again, what if the person on the receiving end didn’t realize or believe that they did anything wrong? You’re your back in emotional jail, and the other person’s defenses go way up. Finally, what about asking for forgiveness? When you do this, it’s manipulating. You are asking someone to do something you need to do for yourself. If you are asking for forgiveness, what you’re really needing and trying to do is apologize.
Through Grief Recovery
Don’t ask for forgiveness; instead, make an apology. And through grief recovery, you can address apologies and forgiveness and so much more for any relationship to someone living or deceased through taking empowering action for your well-being. Well, there you have the information I needed to share today on apologies and forgiveness. And I really feel like I’ve kind of flew through it. But take your time, listen through it again if you need to, and reflect on your life on where you need to apologize or forgive where you’re waiting for an apology that you may never get and forgive that person for the apology you will never receive. Resentment is a poison that we take hoping the other person dies. And the apologies and the forgiveness components were probably the most significant portions of the grief recovery method for me personally because I was a victim of sexual assault sexual abuse. And there was a lot that I needed to process through too many relationships with people living in my life that required me to wrap my head around and fully embrace forgiveness and apologies and not for the other person, but rather for myself for my well-being.
P.S. So, this is very empowering work. And if you want to learn more, I encourage you to reach out if you have a question about apologies or forgiveness, don’t hesitate to email me [email protected], or you can DM me, I’m on Facebook, and Instagram messaged me there, wherever you feel comfortable to reach out. If this was helpful to you, if you found this informative, if it resonated with you, I would love for you to share it with someone who needs to hear this message today.
