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Posts tagged with “forgive”

How to Love a Lying, Cheating Heart

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Brett’s name flits onto my screen with an incoming email.

“Call you right back,” I say, hanging up on a friend.

Last time I talked to Brett, the Obama family lived in the White House. Last time I thought of him? Last year, as Melania took her third crack at presidential Christmas décor, and I failed to muster enough spirit to fetch our pre-lit tree from the garage.

Brett’s message came in through the contact form on my website. He invited me to meet for coffee; full respect if I decline.

Four years ago, it was me who reached out …

What It Means to Love: 9 Steps to a Strong Relationship

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“Be there. Be open. Be honest. Be kind. Be willing to listen, understand, accept, support, and forgive. This is what it means to love.” ~Lori Deschene

They say your heart pounds when you’re in love.

But the very idea of opening up and letting love in can bring on the wrong kind of palpitations.

Saying yes to love… that’s like standing naked, bare naked, every inch of you on show.

Completely vulnerable.

Or so I thought.

My Impregnable Force Field

 “Of all forms of caution, caution in love is perhaps the most fatal to true happiness.” ~Bertrand Russell…

Send That Text, Make That Phone Call

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What to Do If You Can’t Forgive

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“Your heart knows the way. Run in that direction.” ~Rumi

“I know I should forgive but I can’t.” I squirmed in my seat as I said this to my teacher.

I said this immediately after I explained all that I’d experienced during our meditation exercise.  In the meditation I’d had a vivid recollection of the constant verbal and emotional abuse I’d received from my dad.

It had been ten years since I’d lived at home, but I was still angry, still carrying all of those emotions from years ago. Instead of telling me all the virtues of why it’s important …

How to Journal Away Your Disappointment in Yourself

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“Forgive yourself for not knowing better at the time. Forgive yourself for giving away your power. Forgive yourself for past behaviors. Forgive yourself for the survival patterns and traits you picked up while enduring trauma. Forgive yourself for being who you needed to be.” ~Audrey Kitching

“I can’t do this.”

“Why do I look so fat? I’m disgusting!”

“I haven’t done enough today. I am so useless.”

“I shouldn’t have said that. I shouldn’t have said that. I shouldn’t have said that.”

“Oh my god, why did this happen to me? What am I going to do …

How to Stop Punishing Yourself for Your Breakup

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“The most difficult times for many of us are the ones we give ourselves.” ~Pema Chodron

After you come out a meaningful relationship that you didn’t foresee ending, you begin to think about everything you did wrong.

If you were not the one who wanted to the breakup, you may spend a lot of time blaming yourself and wondering about what you could have done differently.

You might begin to believe you’re solely responsible for what went down and that you deserve to spend years in relationship purgatory by yourself, mourning the loss of the person you loved.

You …

What I Did to Survive: Not Proud but I Forgive Myself

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“Forgive yourself for not knowing better at the time. Forgive yourself for giving away your power. Forgive yourself for past behaviors. Forgive yourself for the survival patterns and traits you picked up while enduring trauma. Forgive yourself for being who you needed to be.” ~Audrey Kitching

I used to suffer from survivor’s remorse.

What does this mean exactly? Well, I was ashamed of the things I did to survive.

As I reflected back on my life, I’d get filled with sadness, shame, and regret.

Sadness because I did things that were against my moral values when I knew right …

When Expectations Hurt: How I’ve Forgiven My Absentee Father and Healed

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“What will mess you up most in life is the picture in your head of how it’s supposed to be.” ~Unknown

I may have said a few words that hurt my father’s feelings, but…

See, here’s the backstory.

I’m thirty-four years old, and I started having a relationship with my biological father at age twenty-one. During my childhood years I would see him every now and then even though he lived less than three miles away from my home. I don’t have any memories of being with my dad for birthdays, holidays, family vacations, or even just hanging out watching …

How Mindfulness Is Saving My Relationship

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“Mindfulness is about love and loving life. When you cultivate this love, it gives you clarity and compassion for life, and your actions happen in accordance with that.” ~Jon Kabat-Zinn

I started meditating and practicing mindfulness more seriously several years ago incorporating it in to my daily routine, initially to help with my anxiety. My practice certainly helped me by leaps and bounds in overcoming my anxiety, but an unexpected side effect has been the impact it’s having on my marriage.

We’ve not been married long, and as many couples before us have experienced, getting accustomed to this new …

How to Rebuild a Relationship with Someone Who’s Hurt You

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“Holding a grudge doesn’t make you strong; it makes you bitter. Forgiving doesn’t make you weak; it sets you free.” ~Unknown

My situation is probably not unlike that a lot of people reading this.

I grew up in a single-parent home. Don’t get me wrong, I had a pretty happy childhood, and my mom did an unbelievable job raising me. She worked four jobs to make sure I always had the best of everything. But I could never shake the feeling that I always wanted a father figure in my life.

My parents had separated when I was very young. …

What If You Were Suddenly Forgiven?

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“Forgiveness is not always easy. At times, it feels more painful than the wound we suffered, to forgive the one that inflicted it. And yet, there is no peace without forgiveness.” ~Marianne Williamson

Twenty-seven years ago I made a terrible mistake that led to losing the friendship of someone important to me. I was twelve and I very vividly remember that I was at her front door, asking for her forgiveness and she was telling me she couldn’t do this.

Friendship is one of those areas of my life that I have always felt I need to work on. I …

Healing, Forgiving, and Loving After a Painful Break Up

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“People come into your life for a reason, a season, or a lifetime. When you figure out which it is, you will know exactly what to do.” ~Anonymous

About five years ago, I learned the biggest lesson of my life about self-love and losing oneself in a relationship, through a breakup that almost killed me.

After going through another night of three hours of sleep, I drove myself to the ER to save my own life. I hadn’t eaten or slept much in three weeks, and the scale pointed to ninety-seven pounds. I felt weak, malnourished, and unloved.

Three weeks …

Forgive Often and Love with All Your Heart

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How Forgiving Yourself and Others Changes Your Brain

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“Be quick to forgive, because we’re all walking wounded.” ~Anonymous

People often behave in ways that we find irritating, annoying, or worse. This can happen especially with people close to us.

They can speak with little consideration for the impact of their words. They can criticize us and pounce on our mistakes. Sometimes they do unfair things that seriously disadvantage or damage us. Or they let us down when we’re counting on them.

All these behaviors can lead to us feeling wounded. The scars can persist for years or even decades. The closer the offenders are to us, the greater …

It’s Possible to Forgive Them and Not Want to Spend Time with Them

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The One Realization That Helped Me Forgive Myself and My Father

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“Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.”
~Maya Angelou

Sunlight shone through the living room window. A lazy Sunday afternoon. I lounged on the couch reading a book with my dog cuddled at my feet. My love had just set out to purchase a new set of acoustic guitar strings. Soon he would return, and music would fill our home, adding to my sense of blissful peace.

The telephone rang. I could see from the caller ID it was my father. “Good,” I thought. “It’s been a few weeks. I wonder …

The Problem with Forgiveness and What I Now Do Instead

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“Change is the end result of all true learning.” ~Leo Buscaglia

I cringe writing this. I have eaten so much humble pie that my pants don’t fit. This was a really hard lesson to learn.

I had a forgiveness problem.

When I was a kid, I learned to say sorry when I messed up and forgive other people when they did. With three sisters all two years apart, I got plenty of practice in as a kid (we all did).

It was a pretty standard routine:

1. Someone would mess up—say something horrible, lose something, break something, or hit someone.…

The 10 Most Important Things We Can Do for the People We Love

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People. Life is all about people.

We don’t have to have a ton of relationships, but we all need people in our lives who get us. Who’ve seen our freak flag countless times and love when it comes out.

People who tag us on memes that capture our spirit, or Tasty videos they know we’d drool over. People who text us with random pictures of bumper stickers or book covers or bath mats or beard accessories with a note that reads “Saw this and thought of you.”

We all need these kind of close connections to feel a sense of …

Forgive Everyone

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Why I Forgave My Father and How It Set Me Free

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“There is no love without forgiveness, and there is no forgiveness without love.” ~Bryant H. McGill

The day I chose to forgive was the day I became free

It happened on an ordinary weekday. It was just another ride on a crowded train. It’s been years since it happened, yet I can still recall the faintest details of that moment.

There they were, sitting directly across from me. She pulled out a small mirror and began to apply her lipstick. He playfully nudged her, causing her to mess up. She got mad. He laughed. She couldn’t help but smile despite …