I was intending on blogging about another topic but I changed my mind and felt that I needed to change topic because I was receiving many signs and confirmations that I needed to talk about the other ‘F’ word… FORGIVENESS. I know I am not the only one who had to finally comes to terms with forgiving those who have wronged us in some way or another. Whether it be a family member, an ex lover, a friend, colleague – we feel justified in holding on to what we “feel” gives us the upper hand and makes us better than the person or people who wronged us.
I had been dealing with unforgiveness for a while. I was angry and resentful towards a few people and I felt justified in my unforgiving state. I am a very loyal person and I never seek opportunities to hurt others. I didn’t deserve this! I am a good person so why me? These are all the things I was telling myself. I was such a victim to the trials that had knocked me off my block! Why am I suffering yet the wrong doer gets off scot-free! Where is the fairness in that? Bear with me…it gets better!
There came a point in my life where I decided to STOP harboring resentment and unforgiveness because it was not good for me. I often wonder how people can experience life-altering tragedies and still have the wherewithal to forgive their transgressor. For me, forgiving someone who did me wrong meant I needed to get you back some kind of way and then I could forgive after I hurt you just like you hurt me. I was never one to destroy property or call up his new woman and expose him but it was more like say something extremely mean and out of order to hurt you badly and some things I won’t even say on this blog! In my experiences words can sometimes hurt a person more verbally than physically. I knew that my words would sting and give my opponent something to think about for a long time. What I didn’t realize is that I was hurting myself as well. I must forewarn you, this blog is pretty long.
Exhibit A
This journey has not been easy. I dealt with a lot during these past six months. Besides a breakup, I had a myomectomy (see blog #1). Upon returning to work after being on leave for several weeks, I returned to work and all of my work documents and other items were removed from my desk and never returned. YES! Sabotage. I will spare the details on this event for reasons I can’t disclose.
However the fact remains that I had to come to a place of forgiveness. It takes a very cruel and wicked person to do something so malicious and what’s even worse is this person carried this out when I was on medical leave and they knew I was on medical leave. This was a hard pill to swallow. I never caused any problems at work. I am always professional and respectful. The person who did it was the opposite. They caused problems, jealous, hateful and a downright trouble maker. She hated me from day one. She was threatened by my education, intelligence and the fact that people liked me. Again, I was the opposite of her. Her only way to TRY to knock me down was to destroy all of the hard work I had done over the past year. It was a very dark time for me. I was dealing with personal, health and work issues all at the same time. Thank God for my circle! I don’t know how I would have made it through without their love, support and prayers.
I was harboring hostility and anger inside for MONTHS. I don’t believe she acted alone. There was someone else involved in her shenanigans as well. See when you are protecting your energy and remove yourself from toxic situations, it can upset the “miserables”. The “miserables” are the people who come to work looking for conflict and drama. They are not happy with themselves or their personal lives so creating drama fills that void in their life. It’s only temporary though. That is why they continue behaving this way. They are chasing a high. I was livid!! I wanted to meet the people I felt were responsible in a UFC street fight! Maintaining my composure and professionalism was hard…very hard. I plotted and planned how I was going to get both of them in the worst way possible. Nobody f*cks with Shontelle like this!! This went on for months. I was determined to handle them. They will not get away with this. Forgiveness was NOT an option at all! I didn’t deserve to be treated like this. Since there wasn’t proof of who did it, there wasn’t much my employer could do. This made revenge all the more necessary.
Exhibit B
If you have been reading my blogs you know that I experienced a rough breakup with someone I was with for 3 years. The breakup ended badly and to make matters worse he was in a new relationship immediately after our breakup. Again, nobody does Shontelle like this! I am a good person and didn’t deserve this. I won’t rehash (read previous blogs for the backstory). These are the things I was thinking in my head. I told you I was honest. I know you may have thought the same thing as well. Maybe not. All I knew was that I couldn’t allow myself to get played like this and not do something about it. I hated this guy for real! I literally prayed that karma would be at his door step every night. Because maybe then I would feel better about the situation and wouldn’t be so hurt. I won’t even repeat the awful things I wished on him. I even told him I was going to be his KARMA! I was a hot mess! I was going to ensure that he learned a lesson and that would be the last time he ever tried to get over on anybody ever again because he was going to remember the lesson I taught him! I thought I was such a bad@$$ (lol)! In my mind, he deserved every bit of it and more. Forgiveness was NOT an option. In my mind forgiving him made what he did ok and by no means was this ok. Someone had to pay and it wouldn’t be me. I wanted to instill the same if not more hurt on him that I felt he left me with. He peaced out during a time I needed him the most and to add insult to injury started seeing someone new as if I never existed. Not only was he seeing someone new but it was apparent to me that he was setting up this new relationship while we were still together!! This lasted for months. I had so much anger and resentment built up inside of me. It was doing a number on me.
The Lesson…
I was making forgiveness about him. I felt that if I forgave my ex, that his actions were ok and that he would not be held responsible for what he did. I was missing the mark by far on this one. What my ex did or didn’t do had nothing to do with me and my inner peace. Yes there were things that occurred in the relationship that I felt were wrong but I had to take responsibility for staying in a toxic relationship. I stayed knowing that this person wasn’t going to change. Forgiveness doesn’t mean that you ignore the hurt, disappointed, angry, etc. at someone who did you wrong but not allowing bitterness to set in and hold a grudge. I didn’t feel my ex deserved to be happy or in a relationship with anyone worthwhile simply because I felt he was low down and a coward. How dare he have the privileges of a good relationship while I am here in this mess HE created?? This is what I was thinking to myself and even vented to my inner circle. First of all I didn’t know if he was happy or not. I was totally making assumptions about something I had no clue about-and it was none of my business. To be really honest, who cares?? By the way, he didn’t create anything that I didn’t allow! I totally went into full on victim mode with this as you can see.
Then it happened…
One day I simply had enough and said to myself, “Shontelle, you have to stop this.” I was so hell-bent on him “getting his” I lost sight of my own healing. I have learned that karma comes when you least expect it. Most of the time when it does come you are over it and could care less. Trust me I know. Also, it is not up to us as to when and how someone should get their karma. It happens when it happens. I also had to tell myself that I was spending way too much time focusing on the negative. Yes I was hurt but it should NOT define me. When people see me, they aren’t going to say “Hey look at that hurt girl over there!” No, they are not going to say that. Why? Because I am walking with my head high, smile on my face and strutting through this thing called life like a Victoria Secret model on the catwalk!! There are so many powerful men and women who have been hurt, still hurt and overcoming hurt and you would never know it. They don’t show it. They don’t allow hurt to define them. YOU are more than the hurt you have experienced. You are the strength behind the hurt.
I have learned on this journey that forgiveness is a MUST. I couldn’t heal until I forgave. In my mind my ex, and my colleagues were horrible people who did NOT deserve my forgiveness. I can’t allow their actions to hinder me from greatness. They will have to deal with their actions sooner or later. I don’t. It’s not my job. That is the beauty in all of this. Once I made the conscious effort to forgive, I felt a weight lifted. This doesn’t mean that what I felt my ex did was right or that he “got away with it” it was me saying yes, what you hurt me but I forgive you because I want to have peace and move on from this. My healing was far more important than holding a grudge or being mad. I had to be honest with myself and come to terms with the fact that I did and said things to him that were not nice. I had to put mirror on myself just as much as I was putting it on him. We are human and we make poor decisions and mistakes in life. Whether the person who wronged us is remorseful or not, that is not your business. Forgive and move on. The universe will handle them accordingly.
What I have learned is that we try to do God’s job. He doesn’t need us to do anything! Whatever your higher power may be, understand that every action has a reaction. I would wake up thinking about revenge and often go to bed thinking about revenge. I couldn’t stand the thought of him and his new relationship. I would get major anxiety just thinking about it. The urge to cyberstalk was heavy. But see that is only making matters worse. Why look for something knowing it will only hurt you? Why search for information that I knew if I found it would only hurt me and delay my healing. NOPE!! I’m not going!! He was a bad guy in my mind and deserved the worst of the worst. I was totally hindering my own healing thinking this way. He has moved on and living his life while I am here plotting on how I can make his life miserable short of being arrested and sent to jail (lol). Once I got a hold of myself as well as listen to sound advice about letting go of the dumb sh*t, I made it a point to forgive and move on.
I recognized that I was in denial. I had romanticized this person and the relationship and when it didn’t work out the way I had planned, I got upset. Sometimes we bring hurt upon ourselves by denying red flags and continuously giving the other person a pass. I didn’t want to accept the fact that “he” was a lesson. He was the lesson I needed to get to where I am in life. Chances are that if we were still together, we would still be in the same toxic relationship with no progress. I needed to grow and the lessons learned in the past six months did just that. My surgery, relationship and job were all lessons for me to be at this moment. Once I accepted that he was just a lesson and not meant to be in life permanently, I slowly began to release the anger and vengeful thoughts. Perhaps my ex is with the woman he is meant to be with and I taught him a lesson as well. I made a vow to leave him in the past and to live my best life. I am in a crucial point in my life and I don’t have room for unforgiveness or grudges. Life is too short.
The Path to forgiveness.
Forgive yourself. Forgive yourself for the bad thoughts, negative feelings and hurtful words you may have said to or about the other person. We are not without fault in this. While you may feel justified in your actions, it is inappropriate to speak hurtful and nasty words because you feel you have been wronged. Forgive yourself for not loving yourself enough not to walk away from toxic relationships and people. This also goes for beating yourself up over what happened. Whatever the case may be. Forgive yourself and LET IT GO!
Forgive the other person. In my case, I felt that villainizing my ex would make me the “better” person in the situation. If I told everyone how awful he was and how our relationship ended, it would make me feel better about the breakup. If I admitted that this person had any ounce of good in him that would minimize the bad things that he did in the relationship and I wouldn’t be able to justify the breakup. I was holding onto unforgiveness because in my mind it held him captive to my ego, hurt feelings and anger. It felt that life was unfair and that he was “getting away with it”. I was down on myself for always attracting the same type of men. The men walking-wounded, the hurt men who were not healed from past relationships , etc. I had to acknowledge the fact that I am a loving person. I love to help others and support them. I’m an Aquarius. We love to help people. I realized that when you are good person and love from a genuine place, it may not always come back to you the way you feel it should. What I mean is that is sometimes people take advantage of your love and kindness. Some don’t feel worthy of it, they don’t want it because they have bad intentions and some people were never loved properly and simply don’t know how to receive love. It makes them uncomfortable and they run. I had to accept myself for the loving person that I am, be ok with the fact that I am an empath ( a person who feels and absorbs other people’s emotions and/or physical symptoms because of their high sensitivities) and to be wise when it comes to who I give my love and energy to. Everyone doesn’t deserve your love. What I mean by that is that you have to be careful of the company you entertain and the people you are so quick to give yourself to. We should always be respectful and kind to others but when it comes down to it, we can be so focused on giving love away to everyone else but ourselves. Take care of home first. Hurt and disappointment take residence because the person has now walked out of our lives and moved on. I have accepted the fact that my nature is to heal others but in the midst of all of the healing I was doing, I was forsaking my own healing.
Get to the root of unforgiveness.
Sometimes we are unforgiving and don’t know the true reason behind our unforgiveness. Sometimes it was something that happened from our childhood that we never dealt with, something traumatic or hurtful happened in our childhood and we were never told sorry. I could go on. The point is that you must unpack why you are holding on to unforgiveness and if the true reason for your resentment is more than an isolated incident between you and the other person. What I mean by this is sometimes people harbor unforgiveness towards their family members or friends because of something else. For example, sometimes siblings who don’t speak have issues that stem from when they were children. The problem was never dealt with so they grow up to be adults who harbor ill feelings towards their sibling (s). I have four siblings. I am the only girl. However, my brothers were constant competition for my parents attention. They were close in age an although my parents did their best to treat them all the same, there were times they felt that someone else was treated “better” by our parents.
Unforgiveness is unhealthy.
Unforgiveness is unhealthy. It is poison. The end. Forgiveness is a process. It doesn’t happen overnight. It took me 6 months to get to this point. When you feel hurt by someone you love, it can take time to get over it. We expect the people we love to do right by us and not do anything to hurt us. As I have said in previous blogs, what you feel is real and nobody can tell you how to feel or how to get over it. My only suggestion is that you don’t allow unforgiveness to take permanent residence. Sometimes people hold on to things for years and we wonder why people are sick and in the hospital. Unforgiveness is a breeding ground for stress, stress is unhealthy, being unhealthy leads to so many illness and diseases. We only have one life, why spend it on the negative when we can be living our best lives doing what we love to do. Release the person or people you are holding on to. Set them free. You will literally feel lighter because the heaviness of unforgiveness has left your being.
The moment I made the decision to forgive, I didn’t feel it right away. There was still some resentment and anger inside of me. The anger and resentment made me feel like I had the upper hand and the power over the situation. Not true. Not true at all. I didn’t have any power over him. He had power over me. I was allowing his actions and words to hold me prisoner to the hurt and pain I was experiencing. The urge to expose him was something I contemplated daily. I wanted to make him an example and to teach him a lesson he would never forget. ” You gon’ learn today!” Each day I had a talk with myself and tell myself that I had to let this go. But I couldn’t. The unforgiveness held me captive. If I let this go then he wins. I can’t let him win. I had to avenge myself if nothing else.
There was no other option. Let it go. Never go back. I can honestly say I have forgiven my ex and no longer harbor ill will or resentment towards him. The hurtful words that he spewed to me with no emotion and no remorse were tossed into the fire and decided that I would no longer allow those words to affect me or who I am. I love who I am and I am aware that I am not for everybody. I also understand that I won’t always be accepted for who I am and that’s ok. I don’t have any control over what people think or feel about me. I wish nothing but the best for him. Wishing him well sets me free and opens the door for inner peace. A weight has been lifted and I am happier. There is no magical wand that will remove unforgiveness. It is something that you have to work towards. It was months before I got to this moment. The key to forgiveness is understanding that we are all human and we don’t always do the right thing. I have also forgiven my colleagues. I do not go to their cubicles talking to them about their weekends but I can now be in the same room with them and not be controlled by the anger and resentment that once held me captive. I can have a civil WORK-RELATED conversation with them. I am not going to ask them how their day is going because I don’t care and don’t want to interact with their energy. However, I no longer hold on to what happened and I have officially let it go.
Forgiveness is for YOU.
Last week I saw a Facebook post from one of my FB friends regarding forgiveness. The post read “Start with an attitude of gratitude and you can freely forgive and love.” Her post struck me HARD! I was already feeling like it was time to let it go and forgive but I was determined to hold on to the hurt. The hurt was my “get out of jail free” card. It allowed me to absolve my wrong and point out his. This sparked a thought-provoking conversation between my FB friend and me. After talking to her about why it was hard for me to forgive, I made the point that the situations that were the cause of my unforgiveness were actually the same situations that caused me to grow. Her response was to my comment was “That is all the more reason to forgive.” Quiet as it was kept, I knew this. I told myself this a long time ago that the things I was going through was stretching and strengthening me for something greater so why I am mad? The people was unforgiving toward helped me become a better person. What they did made me stronger.
Learn the lesson. Pass the test.
Sometimes people come into our lives to teach us a lesson. It is imperative we learn that lesson and pass the test. Sometimes we have the same experiences over and over until we learn the lesson and pass the test. When I notice that I am having the same experiences over and over again, I know that there is a lesson to be learned and I need to pass the test.
When we forgive we open the door for God’s blessings. When we forgive the poison of unforgiveness no longer has rule over us. If there is someone in your life that you have not forgiven, forgive them NOW! Do not hold onto unforgiveness any longer. Why? It only hurts YOU! The other person is either unaware and if they are aware they probably have moved on with their lives and no longer care. They may be harboring unforgiveness towards you. That’s okay. You can’t change anyone or make them feel what you feel. All you can do is do your own work. Forgive. Let go. Move on. The rest will handle itself.
Here’s more on forgiveness here and here.
Until next time…
The Honest Aquarian 