Today’s blog is taken from an article I stumbled across from Realistic Recovery from addictions and family dysfunction. This is just one of the steps – Forgiveness. You will notice at the end of this article, I include a short biblical summary.

So You’ve Been Betrayed – 7 Steps on How to Survive Betrayal

By Dr. Eileen R. Borris

“Forgiveness is considered the highest form of love that we are capable of giving. If this is true it is no wonder that we have such a hard time forgiving someone who has betrayed us and even in forgiving ourselves. To aid us in learning how to forgive it is helpful to understand what forgiveness means and what it’s not. Forgiveness is a voluntary act in which you make a decision to see a situation differently. Forgiveness helps us change the way we think so instead of seeing a situation through the lens of anger, guilt or fear we see it through the eyes of compassion and understanding. Instead of getting stuck in your own emotional baggage you can now see the situation differently with greater wisdom and understanding. That’s forgiveness.

I like to think of forgiveness as the science of the heart, a discipline of discovering all the ways of being that will extend your love to the world and discarding all the ways that do not. It is the accomplishment of mastery over a wound. Forgiveness is a process through which an injured person first fights off, then embraces, then conquers a situation that has nearly destroyed him or her. On a deeper level forgiveness is about changing the way we think which includes embracing our humanity and spiritual nature and the humanity and spiritual nature of all human beings.

Forgiveness is not about pardoning. It is about our inner emotional release. Forgiveness is not condoning. We do not have to accept someone else’s behavior in order to forgive. Forgiveness is not reconciliation. We can forgive someone, but it does not mean we have to reconcile. On a very practical level forgiveness is about lessening your own emotional burdens and healing the pain of your heart. Forgiveness is not about letting someone off the hook. It is about your own inner healing.

It takes a generous spirit to understand that people do not always hurt us because they choose to. Oftentimes, they have no more control over their actions than we, their victims, do. Only from our wisdom and compassion can we recognize that when people harm us, it is their weaknesses that compel them to act. People who attack us act out of fear to protect themselves. Fear drives us into a hard shell. It shuts the door on our capacity to understand, empathize, and love, while allowing distrust and enmity to guard against being touched from the outside world. To compensate for this perception, we often harden ourselves so that others cannot gain access to our inner selves or discover our shortcomings.”

 

So here is what the Bible says about this: 

“Have this attitude in yourselves which was in Christ Jesus, who, existing in the form of God, counted not the being on an equality with God a thing to be grasped,”

Phillipians 2:5-6 ASV

 

So just like Jesus didn’t grasp for His rights in the situation, neither should we. Look at what all Jesus endured and had to forgive! Think about how His rights were violated.  

 

Ok, so how is forgiveness linked to happiness?

“But if you refuse to forgive others, your Father will not forgive your sins.” Matt. 6:15 NLV

 

The Father is God. God is love. Love never fails. Love has been scientifically proven by a 75 year long Harvard study to be THE key to happiness.  Simple logic: If God is love and love is happy then unforgiveness separates us from God, love, & happy! So go forgive who you need to forgive and be happy! 

Happy Monday Y’all! 😍😘