How often during the day do we as humans think those words? I am a natural grudge holder. I can tell you all the wrongs that have been done to me over the years in great detail. I can tell you how someone hurt me deeply when they did this or that to me. I can speak it and feel it as though they were doing the wrong to me in that very moment. I try to forgive and forget and I do but then out of the blue wham! The feelings return with great heaviness.

I am reminded of the movie The Christmas Carol. Remember the spirit Marley and what he looked like? The big chains he carried? That is what resentment and grudges look and feel like to my spirit. They serve no purpose except to weight me down. They hold me back from receiving the joys in this life. They keep me from feeling the happiness, lightness and the peace that come from forgiveness. That is right forgiveness.

I sometimes ask myself, why did so and so do that to me? Why did this happen? Why are they like that? I then realized that everyone. I mean everyone in this world is shaped by their experiences. The good and the bad. We all have experiences that we learn and grow from or they beat us down and bring us to our knees. It is those experiences that teach us how to respond to others. How to feel, how to live and how to function. It makes our personality. I am reminded of the humanness of others and myself.

This is where the choice comes in. I can choose to carry this chain of weights and let it hinder my growth or I can stop and forgive them. I have to ask myself does this emotion I am experiencing serve my higher purpose? Does it make me a better person when I carry all this weight? Is it helpful to myself and others? I think about work. How often do we let silly unimportant things conjure up deep emotion that is in the end, only a waste of our time and energy?

I think to myself, don't I have anything better to do with my time then to fret over the fact that I have to work on Tuesday instead of Wednesday? I realize there are many greater hurts in life then a work schedule. Ones that leave craters on our hearts and souls. But with that said, I still have to ask myself if carrying the anger, resentment and pain from something that happened 30 years ago helpful to me or not.

So I have agreed to let. It. Go. I release the people around me. I embrace my humanness and theirs. I forgive you. We are all here on a journey. We are all here for a reason. Maybe, there is something deep within them that drives them to do what they do. I do not know the weight they carry nor do I understand what they have been through that has shaped them to be who they are. I cannot judge what I do not know. I will love them and support them. I will forgive and let go. It is the only way to move forward in my own journey.

I challenge you to bring up the old resentments one at a time and hold them up to the light one last time. Look at them, acknowledge them and cast them away. I challenge you to release the emotion and  search out the lesson.

Peace.