Forgiveness

I received a question on Ask Judge Lynn that I thought would be good to share with everyone. Someone had a question about one of my tweets my tweet which was

#Forgiveness is a peaceful thing. It neither excuses nor rationalizes. It just frees you from the emotional baggage of other’s wrongs. 

She asked me how to forgive someone who hasn’t asked for it.

Here’s the thing. Forgiveness has nothing to do with the other person acknowledging their wrong. It’s all about how the person who has been wronged decides to feel about it. You forgive someone when you decide to let go of the hurt feelings the offense caused and no longer hold it against the other person.

The beauty of it is the other person isn’t involved. Forgiveness is YOUR POWER to take not theirs to give.

I know it is neither an easy nor instinctual thing to do but it’s a decision that you make about how you want to live. Do you want to hold on to an emotion that is doing you harm or are you going to let it go and be peaceful? It doesn’t mean you let people run over you but it does mean that you no longer volunteer to carry around the hurt caused by something that already occurred.

If you need to say your piece to that person before you let it go that’s cool. But if saying your piece will do more harm than good write it down on a piece of paper then tear it up. Let your feelings out and move on.

Doesn’t mean you have to keep taking stuff off that person. If someone is toxic to you or keeps doing you wrong you have to draw your line with that person even if it’s a matter of cutting them out of your life so they won’t continue to hurt you. But once you’ve made your move let it go ….

As my mother used to say “You can stay mad if you want to but I don’t let people I don’t like mess up my day.”