Forgiveness

In the last blog we talked about the importance of relationships but in this blog I wanted to talk about one of the key parts of maintaining these relationships which is forgiveness. Now relationships with friends, family and partners will always hit high and low points but what gets us through the low points is forgiveness. The ability to get on with someone even after they have disappointed you or let you down can be quite difficult. It can be very easy to quickly get annoyed and frustrated but if you want your relationships with others to grow then forgiveness is something that you must learn about.

The first step of forgiveness is to lower your own ego. One of the main reasons we struggle to forgive other is because we hold such a high importance for ourselves and we forget to empathise with the other person. Simply just taking the time to understand why the other person has done something which might have upset you can make a huge difference in how you handle the situation.

There may be a time when no matter how hard you try; you can’t seem to understand why they have done what they’ve done. Then the best thing to do is respectfully explain how you feel and why you can’t empathise with them. Now at this point you have a choice. You can either decide to hold onto the fact that they hurt you or you can decide to let it go. Letting go isn’t easy but if you want to make peace with the situation and the other person it’s what you have to do.

“Holding onto anger is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die” – Budda

One thing I wanted to add is that you want to try your best to manage your expectations as this is often a big cause of frustration. If you genuinely have no expectations, you much less likely to be hurt by anything. Obviously, it isn’t always possible but it’s definitely something that can be worked towards and I personally have experienced a big difference in my happiness when I’ve taken this approach.

Making these decisions can be quite difficult especially if you don’t have enough confidence in yourself. Why not take a look our blog on self-love to make sure you that you’re doing what’s truly right for you and subscribe to our mailing list (it’s free!) to stay up to date with our latest blogs.