LETTING GO OF PAIN

 

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Everything we experience as we make our way through life shapes the person we are and will become in our future, and who we continue to become is ever changing.  Yet within these experiences there exists choices and I believe it is these choices which ultimately define not only the future us, but our eventual happiness.

The ultimate of these choices is letting go of pain. Many believe that once we forgive those that hurt us we are able to let go of the heartache they leave behind, heartache caused by being abandoned or betrayed.   

Feelings of abandonment and betrayal can be as a result of many different situations not just the common ones that come to mind - being left behind by a parent our spouse, or being cheated on by ones significant other.

Feelings of abandonment can be caused by being left out of moments of friendship; being excluded by friends because everyone else is paired up and you are not, for example, can also be called feeling of exclusion because your relationship status is not the same as those you are in friendships with. Feelings of betrayal can also be caused by a spouse not including you in either finances or financial decisions, or family matters on their side of the family or friends and co-workers snubbing your for reasons you have no control over or even their own feelings of unhappiness or inadequacy. 

The number of moments in daily life, either momentous or minor that can cause hurt are beyond our ability to count and we each have a different meaning for what constitutes momentous or minor events in our lives or experiences. 

Forgiving others who have caused us harm is one way of allowing us to let go of pain but not the only way. 

In my mind what causes us the greatest hurt is not that someone else broke our heart, or betrayed our trust but that we allowed it. That we did not see who and what they were doing before it was to late. We choose to believe in their love for us in the inherent goodness that we believe exists in people and in the universe. So we blame ourselves, maybe not consciously, yet the blame is still there. 

We cannot control what others do, or how they choose to treat us. We can also never know what people are or are not capable of all we can do is understand that we ourselves are human. As humans we make mistakes and that is okay. In those moments of impact, those moments of choice, we then need to choose to forgive ourselves for loving the wrong person, for trusting the wrong person and then we need to choose to learn from those mistakes. The next choice we need to make is choose to allow those moments of impact to change us. Once again there are choices to make. We can choose to be better, or we can choose to become like those who hurt us. The next choice is to once again allow ourselves to be open to other moments and other people.

We can choose to to give those who have caused us emotional pain a second chance or even numerous chances but when they continue to hurt us we cannot lay the blame at their feet. The blame for our continued pain can only our own fault. 

Life is all about choice. 

We choose to get out of bed every morning, we choose to take a shower, we choose to have a glass of wine or beer, we choose to work late and we choose to keep fighting for what is important to us and we can can also choose to let go of those who bring us nothing but pain. 

Nothing is ever truly out of our hands, there is always a choice, sometimes we might have to bring ourselves to choose between two evils. There is no such thing as an easy choice as every decision in life has its consequences, some foreseeable others not. 

All we can do is do what is the best we can and remember that we are only human